User:Kelseynm/sandbox

= Video games in education =

Articles I would like to use(notes to self don't actually put this in the article)
1) Using video games to combine learning and assessment in mathematics education

2) Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues

3) Student attitudes to games-based skills development: Learning from video games in higher education

Introduction
This page includes some history of video games being used as an additional or alternative method to education. It also goes over whether or not it may be beneficial to use video games for educational purposes in the classroom and the limitations that teachers have to using video games in the classroom. This page additionally discusses how learning from video games outside the classroom is possible as well.

possible negative effects
One argument for possible negative effects explains how kids are already spending too much time with technology outside the classroom. It explains that over seven and a half hours a day are being used by children eight to eighteen on media outside of school. With the large amount of time technology is being used by children, this argument claims that the time spent on screens may be replacing critical face to face communication may be negatively affecting children's face to face communication skills. To find out if this was true or not an experiment was done where two groups were taken from the same school. One group had many different bonding activities without access to a screen throughout the course of five days. While the second group was allowed to use their screens how they normally do. To test their face to face communication skills both groups took pre and post tests for comparison. The results suggested that those who were went away for the five days did much better in reading facial emotion than the control group.

possible benefits(I'm just adding more onto this section)
One study took the game Semideus to see if it could help to improve performance on rational number tasks, the understanding of whole numbers and mathematical thinking in general. The study concluded if kids were introduced to games that have math well integrated into the gameplay then it kids then it will help them with their skills. the study recommended that the teacher be involved the game based learning to improve its effectiveness in the students learning.

According to journal article, simulation video games makes the player to learn to think critically while gaining knowledge of the environment. The player learns to solve problems through trial and error. Players are able to learn by doing. They learn by experiencing things first-hand and role-playing. These virtual environments enable better learning, collaboration, and enhanced practical reasoning skills.

According to an article on interactive video games in physical education, many of these types of games are not just animated exercise. Many have different assessments and scores based on performance of skills. Some have heart rate monitors and estimate caloric expenditure. Others are designed with enhancing motor abilities in mind. Abilities such as balance, hand-eye coordination, agility and core strength are a few of the motor skills enhanced. These engaging and interactive games have the ability to teach kids about the some physiological functions of the body. One example is that these games can help show kids how their heart reacts to different activities by using the heart rate monitor within the game.

learning from video games outside the classroom(I'm just adding more onto this section)
One study suggests that commercial video games can help players to improve in certain skills such as communication, resourcefulness, and adaptability. In this study undergraduate students were assigned at random to be in either an intervention or a control group. To measure adaptability, resourcefulness and communication, there were self-report instruments given to both groups.