First of all I am not a gamer, I am the kind of person that moves my whole body to left when trying to make a left turn in Mario Kart - not on the Wii. I am terrible at any shoot em up bang bang games, I forget what the controls are and then I panic, and then I die. I am terrible!
That being said, I cannot imagine how gaming can help almost every kind of learner but after getting into the "flow" of gaming I started to buy in. Yes, I got into the flow while gaming, meaning I lost track of two precious hours playing a shoot em up bang bang game on my phone. Ok, so it isn't exactly a shoot em up bang bang game it was Kingdom Rush. I build towers and try to kill the bad guys before they get through all while earning points to make my towers bigger and better.
First, lets talk about the flow. The flow was created by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, its meaning is basically when you are doing something very focused and you loose track of time because you are just there in the moment with whatever you are working on. My normal flow is when I am executing moves at work or when I am cleaning/organizing at home. I could clean out my closet every week if it didn't end up taking me 2-3 hours each time. I am busy and can't afford to waste time on the flow like that. This time I experienced the flow while I was playing the game, I started playing when I got home from work and didn't stop until after the news was over. While in the flow I was often caught yelling at my phone, encouraging my men to kill the bad guys, and doing math aloud to figure out how many towers I could purchase. You can imagine the look I got from my roommates. My boyfriend compared my reactions to how I act at a football game (I am the family yeller). Since I was so into the game I obviously couldn't take the time to think about how gaming would effect education as a teacher and as my future students.
So lastly, how does this influence my teaching? Well, one thing is for sure, this game teaches problem solving. This is one of the 21st century skills every child must learn. It also teaches control, control of your emotions, and your actions. If you are playing this game in a school setting, or just not by yourself, you have to be able to sensor the words coming out of your mouth. The problem solving comes from the very beginning of the quest, you have to decide where the best spot to put a tower and then what kind of tower you want. Once you decide where you have your towers you can call in the enemies, start getting kills, and build up your money to build more towers or create a safer tower. Part two of the problem solving...what tower do you give extra armor? What happens if you give the wrong tower extra armor? These are decisions that have to be made quickly and have immediate repercussions.
I think I will continue to play the game to figure out exactly what concepts and methods I would be able to use to make a difference in the classroom. As I said earlier I am not really into the gaming world, so to be able to use this to aide a lesson or help teach a concept I would really need to engulf myself totally.
