Game is the Key of Learning Game is the key of learning; with the help of this key, you can learn everything in artificial environment. Learning is one part of education, and if we use this key efficiently, we can teach whatever we want easily. Although the question is what the characteristics of good education game is, firstly I want to give characteristics of good game as we do at the beginning of the sced 487 lesson. According to me, main aim of the game make the people fun, but of course, it should carry a lot of goals on it. These goals for normal game can be to gain players strong communication skill, gain players move as whole or group and this provides players with idea that one person is for all of us, all of us is for one person,furthermore, gain conscious to respect the rules. Moreover, I am sure that these goals I mentioned are some of them, because they have a lot of effects such as happiness, seeing smiling face and smiling on humans in terms of psychological. While I mentioned about the games, I want to touch a bit kinds of games, for example, there are video type games, such as Sony play station. Many of us look this kind of games as very dangerous for Childs and teenagers, because in this point we think that if Childs play this kind of games, they may encounter any difficulty to make friends or this kind of games make the Childs unsocial. I am agreeing with them, if Childs plays too much on the computer, but as other kinds of games, these games are also beneficial to relax us. .In literature, there is a approach to the study of games (Sefton-Green 2003a)it concentrates on exploring how players learn to play games in informal settings and the nature of that kind of learning. The most fully developed study here is by James Gee (2003) who focuses on games playing as a form of situated learning. He emphasizes how the game-playing environment facilitates active critical learning with a play on and with identity. He explores notions of apprenticeship, practice and group membership and how the movement between and across semiotic domains supports a broad-based development of literacy. His study continually engages with the differences between game playing and schools as complementary (competitive?) sites of learning and he pays close attention to the situated, cultural nature of the learning experience. This is a rich and suggestive study. They see that games playing by young people show how game playing might function as a site for informal learning. It does not matter what kind of the game is. In all kinds of games, there are some beneficial points. In the light of this information and this literature, we should not take the effects of game lightly, the games are like rivers, they can easily give a direction to our children or to us both psychologically and educationally. As I said in the first sentence, game is the key of the learning and while we designed a game, we should care about what our objectives are and how we reach them. Moreover, if we designed a educational game, we should care also misconceptions and we should see the game as facilitating of understanding the subject or topic or concept. What is more, we should bring mistakes or lacks in the school or class or lesson into light and in terms of these criteria we should arrange the game. For example, in Turkey, education needs students’ access and engagement and so the game provide with principles of students’ access and engagement. As for coming to its characteristics of a good educational game, it should offer opportunity of good participation, and it should be dynamic, it should also offer personally meaningful engagement with structured discovery learning. Furthermore, if the game is self-initiated, self-sustaining and self-motivating, in this situation, the game will become more enjoyable for players and also the game should support dialogue and if it is possible the group or collaborative working should be provided. My requests may see not too much, but providing this wanting is very difficult and in one month this kind of game is not created, because of this, the game I selected to criticize is not so bad, before starting to criticize I want to emphasize that. The game belongs to the first presenters. The game tells the modules (islem ve moduler aritmatik ) sorry about I can not remember the name exactly. The game consists of 24 students and in terms of participation, it was very good. On the other hand, even though there were 24 students, the game was not dynamic and also the game is always managed by designers, so students were very passive, just they say miyav,moo and so on. As I said, the game always managed by designers and so students did not play freely and this also prevents the self initiated of the game. In the game, students did not discover anything about the subject, if this game are played before the subject is taught ,it does not work or if it is played after the subject is taught, it does not work again ,because in that game students do not know what they reach. Furthermore, there is no any support to initiate the dialogue, so in terms of communication, it is also so weak. As a result, according to me, this is not in a game category, maybe I can put it in an activity category due to my criteria. On the other hand, while we design a game, we should care the students grade levels, because as I saw in sced487 lessons, if games played in that lesson play one more time, what will be the reaction of us to the same game? Will we play with the same pleasure or not? Maybe it is not related with grade levels; maybe it depends on the objectives of the game. By the way, I am not specialist about this subject, but I am in favor of that one game should be played many times over and over… and a game should be as roasted sunflower seed (ay cekirdegi) is eaten, it never gives a person feeling get bored. As a result, I want to appreciate all my friends prepared and designed a game from here, it was very nice to see their creativities and I want to deliver my thanks especially to you my teacher, because you really open my horizon, you showed us different and more enjoyable way for teaching a subject with a game, when it is designed very well.
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