Digital Games in Learning

Digital Games in Learning

The modern world is tremendously developing in the field of technology, as compared with the previous times. Technology has brought the creation of a whole new lifestyle in society with different features. Digital games are one of the most popular ways of expressing one’s character; this is because the virtual world stimulates a person into self-development. Over the years, people have debated whether digital games are bad or suitable for learning. While most people claim that digital games are bad for behavior development, there is also considerable proof that digital games improve player’s sense of self-worth, social abilities and even helps in critical thinking, thus essential in learning.

Any activity with the known capability of improving intelligence or knowledge constitutes a learning activity. For example, we have mentioned that digital games can help in advancing human intelligence; thus, this is a learning activity. The big question is, how does this happen. According to a reputable source known as science daily, most video games are physiological and have had a positive change in the human brain structure. Video games help the player is thinking of multiple strategies to use to beat the opponent; this helps in improving the players’ attention and visual-spatial skills. The reason why video game is top-rated in learning is that they enhance users’ intrinsic motivation and engagement by offering interactivity capacities through a virtual environment (Yuan and Hu 3)

Video gaming has revolutionized the moral of their subjects; they have become excellent moral educators. Even though there has been an increased concern on the harmful effect of video gaming like addiction, we cannot fail to point out that they have significantly demonstrated prosocial impact. There has been a rapid development of games with plotlines that involve a moral choice. For an example of a game that helps in making the right moral choice is the “Fallout 3” wherein this game, a player gets a reward after saving a town and preserving innocent lives. In the real world, most of the time, we are faced with situations that require us to make a decision, right or wrong. With prior experience with such a game, they can be of great help in making a life choice (Shaffer)

Lastly, the other gaming paradigm to mention is on programming and coding skills. Recently, there has been a great urge, especially on youths that want to master coding and programming skills. Learning programming skills in a specific language from a book can be a difficult task at times. Through digital gaming, these skills develop more straightforwardly and entertainingly. Nowadays, there are a variety of digital games aimed at not only providing entertainment to the subject but also they have an educational purpose in computer programming. One example of this kind of play is the CSS Diner, it is a fun way to learn CSS, and it is organized in 32 levels, each teaching the basics on how CSS selectors work. Each level of this game progresses with complexity, thus building on what you have learned in the previous lessons. According to game programming patterns, this kind of play helps the programmers’ performance and speed, and performance is all about assumptions. Thus optimization is achieved through minimal limitations (Nystrom 13)