Sunday, February 8, 2009

Women+game=?/ Gaming Strategies in classrooms


I don't know much about games or gamers, but the little I do know is that the game industry is geared more towards men. Most of the games out there today are made to catch men's attention not women's. For an example, World of War craft, don't get me wrong there are females who love this game, but really think about it. Do you really think that this kind of game was made to attract women's attention? I don't think so! I believe that there are very few games out there for women because there is a lack of women in the industry. There are not very many women working in these industries, designing these games, they might do the graphic design but they're not actually making the games. Not only that, but I think that the industry don't go after the women because a lot aren't into gaming. Even though there are a number of women who game, it's always been known that men do most of the gaming and they are the ones that actually buys the games. Not to sound old school, but women are portray to be house wives who cooks and clean, playing a video game is out of the picture!


I can't say they I would like to see more women gaming because I myself is not into gaming what so ever so I could really care less. If people want more women in this industry, I say more power to them! What I do think is important is that if we want to incorporate gaming strategies in our field of education today than it would be nice to have women in the industry. Why? Because the students include both boys and girls. If the only people designing these games are men and they are only gearing towards males, then what does that do for the girls? If we are going to incorporate gaming strategies in classrooms, then it should include girls also. Which leads me to say that I think it's extremely important that we use gaming strategies in classroom. If kids learn best when it's about things they like or they way they learn best then I think that we should do it. It is so hard to get kids these days to get engaged in the stuff that are being taught in schools, I know because I was a student and still am. But what I did come to realize is that, if the subject is being taught in away that will get my attention, I'll pay attention even if I don't care for the subject!
Some people may argue that gaming strategies in a classroom will only cause a distraction, but there has been many research showing that there are benefits to using gaming in a classroom. For an example, there is a medical school professor that encourages his students to play a game call Monkey Ball. This game helps the student's eye-hand coronations, the study shows that the students who did play the game had a less chance of making a mistake during surgery. Because the game forces them to use their eye-hand coronation, they have a better eye-hand coronation during surgery compared to the students that didn't play the game.
Not only are medical schools using games, but even the people who swears to protect this country. Some soldiers are getting trained by a video game. These games put the soldiers in real life situations and they have to figure out what to do.
Here is a website to an article where a teacher used a game designed for a economical class. It's really interesting. http://www.ucea.edu/resources/pubs/infocus/200604coverstory.html
Maybe we can't literally use games in classrooms like this teacher did, but I think that if we can incorporate gaming strategies in our classrooms, students would be more engaged in what we have to teach them.

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