“Insert generic comment here”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EsgLq0Kzxu4
Electronic Arts and the University of Alcalá on Tuesday presented the report “Video games and social networks in the school,” developed by a team of psychologists and psychologists affiliated with the University of Alcalá and the UNED as part of the new research project “Video Games the classroom, education in a global society “, University of Alcalá and Electronic Arts, in its Corporate Social Responsibility program.
Electronic Arts and the University of Alcalá on Tuesday presented the report “Video games and social networks in the school,” developed by a team of psychologists and psychologists affiliated with the University of Alcalá and the UNED as part of the new research project “Video Games the classroom, education in a global society “, University of Alcalá and Electronic Arts, in its Corporate Social Responsibility program.Source: Rincón del Simmer
I love it 🙂 (please EA, dowing this in the netherlands)
As an avid player and education Master’s student, one of the aspects that impresses me most about TS3 is the creativity of young players. I also like that teens are spending a great deal of time perfecting stories and movies for the sims. I could see uses for this game in either english (creative writing, representations and models) or art. I think if used correctly, sandbox games with high degrees of customizability work well in education. One downfall with games, however is that the learning curve to the game may take time away from using it for educational purposes. Also, whether this game has educational merit depends very much on how it is used. It could also be a time waster if an activity is not carefully planned.
I use Sims for school projects occasionally. I’ve gotten A’s on all of them too.
No offense, but what can the sims teach you school-worthy-wise? Does it teach you English? Not really. Math? No way. Biology? Uh-uh. Science? Not unless you consider virtual magic science. Seems like a waste of schooltime to me.
The game doesn’t actually teach anything specific. However it is very open ended and has high customizability. The biggest educational value I see in the sims is young people spending hours to create scenes and then writing detailed stories on the sims 3 website and their own blogs. It is very hard to get preteens and teens to read nowadays, much less write their own material. I also see people tackling complex life and social issues through sims stories and videos and engaging in discussion about them with other youth. I also see the modding and architecural features of the program as having some artistic value. They would work well as one of many lessons in a course that focused on digital art. It’s not so much the game in itself that is educational, it is what the players make of it. I believe in creating educational oppertunities out of things that are of interest to children and teens. For instance, computers themselves in the classroom can be a waste of time or an asset depending on how they are used.
Again, no offense, but I don’t think that’s something schooltime should be wasted on. Those ‘educational values’ are arguable at best:
1. Few actually bother writing about their sim gaming and even less spend time to turn it into a genuine story. Are there quite a few sim blogs out there? Absolutely! Is there any reason to assume these people wouldn’t have been writing if it hadn’t been for the sims? Not really. All it does is give them a subject to write about and allow them to make nice photos to go with it. Their creativity was already there right from the start. Is there any reason to assume people who don’t like reading suddenly increase the amount they read because of those blogs (or anything else sim-related)? No. If anything, the amount they read can only decrease, because any hour game is not an hour reading.
2. The sims gaming is far too simplified to accurately tackle complex life and social issues. And while I can’t claim nobody starts to discuss these social issues after playing them out in the sims, it’s also highly projective to claim youths do start discussing these issues BECAUSE of their simming experience. Isn’t it far more likely to be a parallel occurence rather than serial?
3. You do have a point on artistic value. For example, I can imagine an assigment where students have to design a house, complete down to the furniture. How much would it cost in real life? Why did they design it the way they did? What do they have to keep in mind when building a home, etc etc etc. That would definitely have educational value. But during schooltime? I predict lots of enjoyment, laughter, naughtiness, and chaos when you chuck a class behind the sims, rather than actual learning.
Add the rather high costs of buying that many sims copies and the fact that academics have already been diluted horribly, I can’t conclude anthing other than the whole idea being silly.
Sorry for the double post, but after submitting I realized I should add a note: I’m talking about highschool and lower.
It makes perfect sense to include the Sims (and many other games) in some studies in university to assist in teaching how to make games, design models, make models, etc…
And if a high school offers additional afterschool courses and wants to use the sims as a creativity platform, double cheers! As long as high school graduates don’t see their academic difficulties increase when they enter university, I’m not complaining. But that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?