Just read two good articles on gaming and its effects on learning. Both articles (Prensky, 2003; Arnseth, 2006) suggested that teachers don’t have to be entertainers to gain students’ attention. Instead, they need to step-up their teaching strategies and make them more challenging, more multi-modal, and more diverse. Both articles also suggested that while students learn on a “deeper” level while gaming, they have not been able to transfer what they have learned to everyday practice!
It is within the last sentence that I find my concerns: Can kids take what they learn from gaming and apply it to their lives? Can digital gaming reach transformative learning? Can we teach students content that requires hands-on engagement (i.e. environmental sciences) and reaches their affective domain through digital games? What will the future classroom look like if digital gaming is part of the teaching strategy? This is the beginning of my quest. I hope to discover whether digital games on sustainability can help the elementary-age student transform his everyday practices. This is simple I know, but it’s a beginning.
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