Everyone can agree that games are a whole lot of fun; even if you yourself are not fond of playing games, you can certainly recognize the appeal it has on a large percentage of the population, particularly if we consider younger people. Even if we look at only electronic games, and forgetting all the fun that can be had playing Monopoly, for instance, the number of enthusiasts is still staggering. According to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), 54% (click for full report) of the population in Canada considers themselves "gamers" -- this is a huge number of people, and it does not consider some people who may be fond of games but play them only casually. |

For me, playing games has always been a lot of fun. Since I was younger, they were my favourite past-time. I loved board games as well as videogames! I remember the first videogame my father purchased -- it was an Intellivision, which had the best games ever. I loved it! I was always excited about playing and beating my own records. Although fun, the games mostly had no hidden agenda, and at most, taught us to think quickly and build dexterity on our fingers.
Now, fast-forward a few years, and we are faced with a revolution when it comes to using video games to enhance the learning process. Educators realized that they could use everything that is best about gaming to encourage children to learn. By shifting and adapting only a few things, we can turn the motivation and energy that kept me going when I was a child towards helping children develop a series of skills, including critical thinking. These deep learning experiences are only enhances when the environment provided by the game is immersive and open-ended.
Now, fast-forward a few years, and we are faced with a revolution when it comes to using video games to enhance the learning process. Educators realized that they could use everything that is best about gaming to encourage children to learn. By shifting and adapting only a few things, we can turn the motivation and energy that kept me going when I was a child towards helping children develop a series of skills, including critical thinking. These deep learning experiences are only enhances when the environment provided by the game is immersive and open-ended.
Of course, using games to enhance learning don't require any actual technology; educators have been using games for decades to bring an element of fun into their classroom. I have successfully used the board game Evo, for instance, to teach grade 6 students about evolution and natural selection, as well as the board game Dixit to enhance language art skills. But adding technology to the mix makes it even more relatable to the new generation... and few games offer the flexibility and creative openness as Minecraft.
Minecraft is certainly a phenomenon, and kids simply love the game’s ability to build their world and try out different things in their environment. It didn’t take long until teachers started using it, too, and there is no limit to the number of ideas you can find nowadays involving Minecraft. Dan Bloom, a science teacher, was able to work together with a game developer to create a realistic model of an animal cell, for instance, by using Minecraft's educator tools. This provided an experience to the students which could not be replicated using a traditional lesson plan. According to Dan, student engagement was at an "all-time high" and even students who didn't feel connected to science became interested in the material, as it offered them a platform they could connect with.
However, the experience could be made even more powerful if we looked at the students as content creators instead of simply content users; what if we had them develop their own cells instead of navigating models created by us? Thinking of the students as creators of their own learning is less work for teachers, and provides more learning opportunities for the students. We could even go a step further and ask students to create modified models of the cell; maybe one cell needs much more energy, such as a neuron, or a cell produces much more excretion matter. How could they modify this model in order to fulfill the cell’s needs?
Andrew Miller, a teacher at Shanghai American School, wrote a blog post that discusses ideas for using Minecraft that are a little more student-centered. He suggests students creating, for instance, challenges for each other, which could be useful in learning some mathematical skills. My favourite suggestion from the blog was to use Minecraft to recreate a scene of a story, or even a play, to recount events that happened. This would be good for literary arts as well as history. I read a while back (and don't remember where) about this teacher who used Minecraft in survival mode to teach students how difficult it was to arrive at a new land and have to battle the elements and build a place that would survive the nightly attack of the creepers. This put his students right in the middle of colonizers arriving at a new land; what a wonderful way to connect students with the material, and create those connections and deeper thinking that enrich their experience at school.
Using games to enhance learning is a legitimate and caring way to involve the students in a level that they are comfortable with, and excited to try. However, it is important to always consider if your efforts and your ideas are really a game-changer (no pun intended). Is the inclusion of the game element going to increase understanding, or provide something that a regular lesson would not provide? If so, then using a game is the best choice; however, as everything in education, moderation is crucial to keep students motivated and to provide a cohesive education experience. A string of games that take twice as long to cover a topic is not ideal; but one or two rich experiences using games can help your students learn the material in a more meaningful way.

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