Games and simulations in the classroom?

What do I think about games in education?

I have always looked at them as a way to brush up, improve upon and even learn new skills.  I have heard my own children talk about using Starfall when they were in the elementary school. They would come home and get on Starfall and play.   I myself purchased many Reader Rabbit games and other games from the learning company to help my kids learn at home.  Two of there favorites were the Putt Putt and Freddi the Fish series.  They would play these games for hours.  Both of these are adventure puzzle solving type games.  As they got older they wanted Sims and other games to play on the computer.  I was skeptical at first on what my child could learn from games like Sims.  Once I learned and actually saw the product I changed my attitude about them.   My children now play Sims, Minecraft, World of Tanks and DC Universe to name a few. People of all ages can learn from games.  Yes, there are mindless games out there where it is purely for enjoyment.  The key is to find a game that is fun and engaging while learning at the same time.  Often you are learning without even realizing it.  That is what is so appealing about games.

This week I played five different games or simulations.

1. Gravity & orbits on the website Phet interactive simulations.   
2. The Hunger Games Adventure on Facebook. 
3. The Hunger Games Skills 
4. Lemonade Stand on Cool Math Games
5. Electrocity 

My thoughts and on a few of these games.

The game Gravity & Orbits on the Phet interactive simulations website was a nice game. It is a free website.   It really would teach the students about Revolution and Rotation when talking about the sun, earth and the moon.  You can visually see the relationship between the three and how they move.  You also had the option of viewing in different ways.  Even being able to view a satellite orbiting the earth.  A student could choose to look at the gravity force, velocity, mass, and the path as choice to view in the model. This site is great for the visual learner.  I know that many of my students did not understand what revolution and rotation meant. I could use this web game to teach them.  Last year I took a pencil and a pen to represent the objects, so they could understand the concepts.  So this for me would be very effective website.  They had many other games that would work for my Earth Science class.  The site itself has Science and Math simulations to choose from.  I did notice that some of the other simulations were more difficult.  I would definitely pair up my students on these projects. For example the Radioactive Dating game they have on this site.   I would place a student who has trouble learning concepts with someone in the class who is more quick to pick up problem solving skills.  All of these games seemed to be fairly quick and could easily be incorporated into a lesson at the high school level. 

I found Electrocity to be a very educational game. The basics of this game is to build a city that is run by electricity that you build in 150 days.  At the same time you have to keep your city green friendly. For example if you build a power plant you may need to offset the disappointment of your citizens by building a national park.  You can chop down forest to bring in money. You can prospect the land and look for coal and gas which you can use or sell.  Keep an eye on the market and know when to buy and sell these natural resources.  The main goal is to have a very populated city with little environmental impact to the land.  There are some nice teacher resources that you can use.  They give you examples of ways to use the game in your class.  There are fact sheets about the natural resources that generate electricity.  As a teacher you can sign up and receive a code to give to your class and the kids do not have to sign up at all.  It is a free website.  What I did like was that at the end of your 150 days you were given a grade. 


Energy Management B-
Popularity A
Your environment A+
Overall Score 74/B

I did not do as well as I thought that I would.  I found myself trying again and again.  I believe that the students will do the same.  We always like to strive to do better when playing a game. I mean how can there be any learning going on?  Shhh...that's our secret.

I would love to use Electrocity in my classroom.  I am trying to think of where in the schedule that we could put this. There are times when we have make-up days and students who are all caught up could play this game.  I feel that this game is good for all types of learning styles.  It is a trial and error type game.  You get a new town layout each time you start.  You wouldn't ever get 2 students towns looking the same.  This game suits the needs of the visual and hands-on learners.  You can easily incorporate those who learn by auditory by grouping students together.  Once the game is saved, students can share a link with there parents email for them to view their finished city.  How fun would it be to get an email at work showing what your child just completed at school?  I can visually see parents and students talking about it over dinner.

Lastly I am going to talk a little bit about the Hunger Games. I know that some of the English teachers have used the Hunger Games series in class.  I first started out looking at the Facebook game.  It is very similar to all of the other simulation games on Facebook.  It sort of follows the plot of the book and go along doing all the different task.  Once completed you move on to the next chapter forever and ever it seems.  You do learn along the way as long as you are reading what is on the screen in front of you.  I know that many students would just click it away and move on.  One challenge maybe could be over come by having them answer some specific questions at different times during the play of the game.  Then I moved on to find another Hunger game to try on thehungergames.co.uk/ website.  I did like this one. You can choose from two different ways to play.  Both of them do not take long and would fit perfectly into the time schedule of middle school and high school that switch classes. 

The first game is called "The Tribute Trials".  In this game you are given a screen that scrolls left and right with pictures on it.  When you click on the picture it gives you a question and 4 choices to choose from.  Then it will tell you if you are intelligent, courage, charisma, instinct, strength, speed, to name a few.  You will answer 8 questions then you are given a percentage score of which you either win or lose.  

The second game is called "Trial by Fire". You need to read a short paragraph and chose how you would respond.  You must respond within 30 seconds or the game is over.  There is one path to survival and you have to be quick in this game!  I can not count how many times I have played this game and changed my path.  You will too! Give it a try.  

The Tribute Trials would be an obvious choice for all kinds of learners.  I found it nice to choose pictures that were appealing to me.  There is not a time limit to this one, just 8 questions.  The Trial by Fire would be more challenging for those students who have difficulty reading.  You could pair them up with someone, but the partner is going to have to read quickly.  So this game does have some set backs for different learners in the classroom.  This is not a game I would use in my Earth Science class.  I just wanted to learn more about the Hunger Games.  

I hope you have learned something from my blog today.  

Mrs_Scherry