gaming...i just can't get enough of it!

This class seemed to be a real big eye opener for me in regards to gaming in libraries. Our public library does not do games nights with the public, just with staff during after hours, so when I took another class and people were talking about gaming, I had no idea what they were talking about. We have board games and puzzles at our public library for children to do, and I thought that was the extent of what gaming was, boy was I wrong! Now it seems like I am continously finding articles on gaming in libraries and in schools. Recently I picked up the Scholastic Instructor magazine at our school and one of the articles was "Play to Learn." One public middle school, Quest to Learn, in New York City not only teaches kids how to play video games in class, but also how to design them. What a great experience! It seems anymore that we are expecting our children to sit in chairs for long hours to do math and reading, but we leave out the practical items that get them to think critically and put pieces together and to actually think. The article was very interesting in the fact that one professor of Arizona State University proclaimed that "colleges are still old-fashioned in the way they train new teachers, so many aren't entering the classroom ready to take up the remote controls." One principal even stated that "games aren't the cure-all, but they should be in a teacher's toolbox." The Quest to Learn school "uses games as a structure to look at how systems work-teaching subjects in new ways with new labels. Kids go to 'The Way Things Work' to take apart and put things together, learning science and math skills." And in "Sports for the Mind" students use "media arts, game design, and video storytelling." The cool part is that kids don't recieve traditonal grades, they move up in levels. I think this is a great tool to differientiate learning. Kids work at their own pace and can't move up unless they master the skill. Like the article said, gaming is "sort of like tricking them into learning." I'm not into putting kids in front of gaming system rather than having the teacher teach, but I think that if teachers are going to reach these kids and get them to learn, we are going to have to start changing our ways to do it. Teaching the way students learn, rather than just teaching the way we want to teach.

"Play to Learn." Instructor(2011): 64-66. Print.