By Wajih Asghar
Video games cover different aspects on one’s learning and thinking ability. However, games donot directly unveil their procedures which help us learn, most of the time while we play video games we are actually learning or training a certain part of our brain unconsciously, whether its logic and reasoning or retaining memory. Games have this amazing ability to mask their learning potential with interesting and engaging activities. These activities would depend on the game; if it is a puzzle game then you would obviously be working out your memory, other games like action and adventure help with our reflexes and ability to recall stuff that we learned earlier in the game.
Apart from all this, it would be interesting to note here that most kids learn English mostly through video games. In fact, many programs have been started to help out the disabled children learn through English and results have shown that they pick up English and puzzle solving quicker than when they would while sitting in class.
Though we might have gotten scolded a lot by our parents for playing non-stop it is now clear that video games help us more and have shown the potential for having a place in education in the near future.
The most powerful aspect of games that help us learn is that games our based on vision. We humans rely heavily on our visual senses which consume over half of our brains resources and are able to recall things (which we have seen) quickly as compared when we use our other senses to learn.
Lastly, games help us with some highly unthought-of aspects such as patience and discipline. Take an example, if you’re stuck on a game level that is continuously beating you and you can’t get past it you have to be patient, if you’re not you’re still going to lose, so regardless of how you react to it, you are still going to be taught to be patient by video games and be disciplined by them. If you are patient enough, you might even develop a sense of optimism.
So games not only help us in learning they also help to make slight adjustments to our behaviors.
Think, Analyze & Share 
Here i agree that some video games do help you learn a lot of things .Like in the article by Anne Derryberry “Serious games:online games for learning” they categorize the games into various categories like online games , casual games, serious games, advergames. In my view these games provide with
• Sense of decision making
• Direction
• Strategies
• Critical thinking
• Finding alternatives
• Observation
• Consistency
• Multitasking
• Somewhat spoken learning skills
• How to solve various problems
In my experience such positive games do help in learning as i recall my father making us play various games with puzzles and fractions , synonyms antonyms which was fun yet challenging.
But there also games like GTA 😛 ( San Andreas especially because GTA 1 wasn’t that violent , and yes i have played that first gta game) which really brings out the violence in you and the cursing and the swearing.
But i have played many strategical games which really had some critical thinking in it (No candy crush doesn’t count here ! ) . So like it depends on the kind of games you are playing .
It is no myth now that they induce learning because to prove this true immense practical examples are available.
Really enjoyed reading the insightful post. Never have I thought of learning patience through games!
To cope up with the ever-changing World, professionals must opt for dynamic tools and methods – teachers must do so in education too. If playing games can teach and be a source of joy simultaneously, i don’t think that a better constructive combo can exist.
Learning through games can also maintain the much needed attention of pupils and keep them focused to the content they are learning [without even knowing how much they are learning!] Hence, this is a great strategy and i aspire to use it in my class someday insha’Allah 🙂
It is sad to see that we are not bothered to think with reference to our context. Learning through gaming, excellent way to teach but would that really work for a third-world country like ours? I am not at all discouraging this form of technology but we, the educationists, have to observe our culture and then focus on implementing. The above post with all due respect refers to developed countries which have everything and can experiment with their kids.
The outcomes of this strategy can improve students’ minds and their behaviors but would it help them to pass their board exams? Just for the sake of grooming students as a human being , can teachers/educationists play with their future? NO! not yet and not in Pakistan.
I think… these games are ought to be used just to stir the process of learning instead of making students pass the board examination.
Well yes, our educational system is quite ‘marks oriented’ system. Your marks are considered more important than the actual learning. But, without exaggeration, this is the sole purpose of teachers (educationists), to work on such effective new techniques that should be incorporated in our Pakistani educational context in order to make learning actually meaningful.
Ok look, I’ll give you an example, Sir Adil’s in particular. I’m not sure if you know this or not(you probably do) but the way sir teaches us in class, his methods if applied 10-15 years ago would’ve outraged the education community because people back then taught via popular educative methods of that time. Now, when new methods replaced old ones it was a new era in education and the same case is repeating itself now, only now, the new method involves technology.
As far as being ‘Ready’ is concerned, well I wasn’t taught how to operate a console and hold and use a controller, those things come when you actually do them. I know that you think we aren’t ready but the being ready part is more related towards a financial issue rather than an issue of being mentally ready.
Games could enhance our mental abilities, children can learn many things by playing games, but in these days the kinds of games which are available in market, are they suitable for our cultural context? many researches revealed that most of the games have negative effects on our minds. so we should aware of this fact before using games as the source of education.