When it comes to video games, one school has taken the motto "if you can't beat them, join them" to heart and allows kids who do well in school to play video games as a reward.
They decided that one way to motivate kids is to allow them to play video games and, indeed, if you want to see a motivated group of kids, watch them play a video game. so they decided to apply a little behaviorism and reward good kids with video games.
Check out this quick little posted titled School Offers Game Time as a Reward. I'd like to see the games more integrated into the curriculum as tools for learning rather than an extra (and the question, how intrinsically motivated are the kids if no games were involved).
But contrast the above with schools that ban games and things like iPods altogether as I wrote about in Hire that Kid!. The ideal situation is, of course, somewhere in the middle.
Thanks to Chris C. for sharing that link. Keep the links coming.
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2 comments:
As you say, it's better than banning video games all together or having teachers dismiss them as a waste of time or worse. But using them as a reward is a long way off from using them as a tool to engage students and foster deep learning. But you already know that, so I'm going to put this down as a step in the right direction.
True, it is a long way from using a video game for engaging students and exciting them about a subject area. In fact, I wonder what motivation would exist if the video games were taken away? But, as you indicated it is a start in the right direction. Slowly but surely, we'll get there.
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