W1_ Reading

During this first week of reading, I found four articles that are relevant to my Action Research. The articles shed some light onto my topic, but I have not found an article that focuses on the same type of research, which leaves me in the dark as I prepare for the integration of games in the curriculum. Kurt Eisele- Dyrli, Gary Stager, Begona Gros wrote the articles I read, and Ben Williamson and the summaries of these articles are written below.

Eisele-Dyrli, K. (2010). Edugaming in new content area. District Administration, 46(8), 85. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Edugaming in New Content Area, written by Kurt Eisele-Dyrli, is a short article about four edugames that have been release to the education market. The four games are interesting because they are not the standard question and answer games that have been implemented in the past. These games put students in the middle of the action where they have to make choices and learn by making mistakes within the game. In SpongeLab Interactive, the students work in a lab where they have to find information and material to complete tasks. These types of games enable students to use the games to learn rather than just review material.

Stager, G. (2007, May). Edugaming--A bad idea for all ages. District Administration, p. 80. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Edugaming: A Bad Idea for All Ages, written by Gary Stager, is a short opinion about edugaming and its feasibility for education use. Stager makes some great points about how many education game developers do not understand education and educators do not understand gaming which is the reason he believes it is not a good idea. He focuses much of the article discrediting the effectiveness of math shoot’em up or writing bomb dropping games as ineffective because students expect more complex gaming experiences. He also notes that in order to create a game that fulfills the experiential need of the students one would have to spend millions of dollars in research and development. He notes that Halo 2 cost 40 million dollars to develop; an amount that he states schools/education would be unwilling to spend on something that is unproven.

Gros, B. (2007). Digital games in education: The design of games-based learning environments. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 40(1), 23-38. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Digital Games in Education, written by Begona Gros, discusses the pedagogical approach to using video games in the classroom. It was interesting to see how she broke down the different genres of video games, but I was a little disappointed in the lack of information related to scenarios in which games were used. She mentioned the use of Age of Empires II in the classroom, but did not give detailed information as to whether it was successful or not. This article is important to my Action Research because it is dealing with the types of games I am trying to integrate into the traditional learning environment. It is this type of article that offers insight into the realm of edugaming.

Williamson, B. (2007). Viewpoints: Teaching and learning with games?. Learning, Media, & Technology, 32(1), 99-105. doi:10.1080/17439880601141492.

The article, Teaching and Learning With Games, written by Ben Williamson, is an article that reviews several games and how they were used in a classroom environment. The article writes about Knights of Honor, The Sims 2, and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, which are God games…meaning the player is in control of all aspects of the game. After reading through the article, I was disappointed in the focus of the research. The focus was centered on the motivation of the student rather than the type of content being delivered by the game. My Action Research is dealing with the question of the integration of games into the curriculum that content relevant. Apparently, the research part of this is going to be a little more difficult that I first thought.