Gaming and I
My mind draws a blank when I try to connect the dots between my primary school experiences and gaming. I can clearly picture my elementary school’s computer lab, it’s brightly lit room with a wall of windows, and colourful iMac bubble desktop computers lined neatly in rows on tables. After that I draw a blank. I can’t remember what we did while we were there, if we played games or if we learned how to type. But the general feeling is positive; I know that I looked forward to those learning blocks every week.
Throughout Heidi James’ overview of Minecraft in the classroom and gamification as a whole, I couldn’t help but think of my parents. The fact that they allowed each of us to have a Gameboy Colour, but when my brother wanted an Xbox is was beyond question –unless of course he could pay for it himself. And so, my brother worked for months bagging groceries until he was able to purchase a white Xbox 360. The sentiment being that my parents didn’t want to provide a system that would negatively impact his school work, that could potentially ‘fry’ his brain. Gaming was framed as delinquent, and yet my parents recognized that its presence was inevitable. Once the device was in the house, my parents bought us (my siblings and I) a game that we could all play together: Rock Band. They used gaming as a way to bring us together and have us play at home in a shared space.
Minecraft
Minecraft is something I’ve never really given a second thought to, and as a result diving into it feels like a tall order. Not to mention that up until this guest lecture I had never known it to be a tool for education. Of course I was not unfamiliar with the connections between play and learning; gaming and education. Because the evidence is clear, gamification –game based learning and elements– in the classroom leads to:
- Incentivizing student ‘exploration’ of content by offering bonuses, ‘easter eggs’ or badges
- Using levels, checkpoints, and other methods of ‘progression’
- Creating competition
- Creating play
- Social
- Multimedia
- Problem solving
Minecraft and its ability to embody all the above and more, is rising in ranks on the educative circuit. As a pre-service teacher I’m intrigued by the highly flexible and beneficial applications of gamification. To play is to learn and to learn is to play. Gamification helps to add technology to the equation and we have no reason not to explore its possible integration into our own individual classrooms. I look forward to exploring and diving into the world of Minecraft.
Articles in support of Minecraft and Gamification:
