Unbiased Survey Says Video Games Are Great For Learning
from the everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-from-galaga dept
While plenty of people like to focus on how they think video games can harm kids, we've posted several stories about how video games can be beneficial to children -- whether it's helping with ADD, making them better business thinkers or keeping them fit -- and now there's scientific proof, after more than half of teachers in the UK say they improve pupils' skills and knowledge. Wait a second -- instead of actually trying to determine if games are helpful to kids, they just ask teachers if they think they are? Since the results were so overwhelming, the next step of the project (which happens to be sponsored by Electronic Arts) is to develop school lesson plans based around three Electronic Arts games. Not that we're skeptical of this project or anything, given EA's role, but it sounds like they're trying to back it up with some pretty weak science. More research -- and better research -- into the positive effects of video games, rather than just their downsides, would be useful.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Throughout high school I babysat the kids next door where they constantly had math learning games - they were top in their class and only started because their human teacher was incompetent.
People place too much value on the benefits of looking at a person. The benefits of technology are generally scoffed at by Luddites much as, I'm sure, the telephone was decades ago when it "removed the human experience".
We're all still here. If you want social development, go talk to people. If you want skills or knowledge development, don't assume that a single human is by default superior to a piece of technology crafted by a team of experts.
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I personally was diagnosed with ADD as a child and had a hard time in the class room. I believe and my parents will agree, that spending time on the computer and having an actual interest and desire in what I was doing through video games and the Internet gave me the drive to want to communicate more effectively through the computer consequently enhancing my reading and writing skills it was a huge stepping stone in my education. At the same time to this day I completely depend on spell check lol.
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Unless they are idiots
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Re: Unless they are idiots
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To sum it all up, the internet, tv, etc are huge resources and we all have access to a great wealth of knowledge but none of it can replace face to face human interaction.
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Do you see my point?
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I personally was diagnosed with ADD as a child and had a hard time in the class room. I believe and my parents will agree, that spending time on the computer and having an actual interest and desire in what I was doing through video games and the Internet gave me the drive to want to communicate more effectively through the computer consequently enhancing my reading and writing skills it was a huge stepping stone in my education. At the same time to this day I completely depend on spell check lol.
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