edu-tastic

After reading the article about digital game-based learning, I tried to remember when games in the classroom ever aided student learning. My elementary and middle schools didn’t have much access to computers, most of my educational game playing happened at home, with ridiculously slow games with math and robots. It’s also a tricky task trying to give every student equal access to the computer game. I remember this game about a kid lost in a museum that was installed on the two computers in our fourth grade classroom. If you did well in class or on assignments, you got a fifteen minute coupon at the computer during recess or lunch. Our teacher didn’t take into account that the game took ten minutes to load and that we were greedy little ten-year-olds who would do anything to get another computer fix. This was a good motivation strategy; behavior and performance on assignments improved, but to such a degree that there were two-week waiting lists to use the computer. Our teacher tried to put us in groups, but that ended quickly with a mouse-throwing incident. That was the last day the game was on the computer. But now, with increased access to technology and multiple computers in every classroom, it would be beneficial to include educational games in instruction and review, as long as you have a fair use policy implemented.

The first website that came up when I searched for educational online games was FunBrain. It’s a very misleading name. The games are good for the classroom setting because they’re just straightforward math and language arts drills with some dinky clip-art thrown in, but they’re not that exciting for kids. The only games with animation, of course, are the arcade games.

FunSchool had a good selection of educational games, as well as some bonus arcade games and printable worksheets teachers could use in the classroom. The games are divided into math, social studies, and language arts; each of the categories contains several activity centers about a certain topic, like dinosaurs or pirates; in each of these centers, there are bonus games (Pirate Puke, anyone?) as well as quizzes.

PBS Kids would also be a good website to have bookmarked on classroom computers. There are games that tie into shows that younger students will have already seen, as well as stories and videos. This site would be great because teachers know all of the content is appropriate and it addresses all subject areas.

This one I just included for nostalgia, BrainQuest, which I would spend hours playing. It didn’t seem so nerdy and sad back then, but I didn’t know their reassuring slogan: “It’s OK to Be Smart!” You can smell the vengeance. They should have  added, “Got that, Bobby McKelty from third grade?!”

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