When I was growing up, I was lucky to be able to get in front of a television, let alone a video game. I was not raised with television or games. Much like the statistics in the infographic below, the first computer game I can remember is the Oregon Trail in middle school. I am not sure whether I was on an Apple II, but I know it was an Apple. I thought it was the greatest game ever and I couldn't wait to get to play it again the following week. The buy in I felt for Oregon Trail, was the challenge. I wanted to win, to continue to proceed up the Trail and survive my decisions. Along the way I was learning about history, hardships, budgeting, choices, and consequences. For that one period a day, you had my full attention.
Students today are natural gamers. They are surrounded with every electronic device known to man. My 2 year old can open up Monkey Preschool Lunchbox and match shapes, numbers, and colors on our Mini, my five year old has taught himself how to mine and build in Minecraft and create music in garage band, and my 3 year old has figured out which of the apps will read her an interactive story. They are not afraid of it and I am no longer afraid of it because I have seen them learn from it. I worry about them starting school because our district does not have much technology and my children are going to be bored.
I am fortunate to teach in a lab. I am a high school English teacher, but everything we do is on computers. My students are learning computer literacy as well as English. My goal is to incorporate more Gaming into their English experience before the end of the year. All of my classes are excited about this journey and very willing to be my guinea pigs. Like the infographic below, I know I would have 100% engagement and I know they would be learning.
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