ecreative

In her post Maree is responding to a post on Douchy’s Weblog which discusses a book by Michael McQueen called The ‘New’ Rules of Engagement. This book highlights the characteristics of ‘Generation Y’ and the challenges for educators in dealing with them. Today’s children think differently and we need to change our pedagogy to accomodate this.

According to Prensky (2001), our children’s brains are physically different due to the different types of stimulation they have experienced. By playing computer and video games, they have developed brains which can cope with the fast pace and interactivity of this environment. They think differently, with cognitive processes which are less sequential and logical. They are digital bricoleurs ( See blogs by Matthew Kearney and Belinda Ferguson), who are accustomed to an immediate response to their actions and they have difficulty focusing when this is not forthcoming.

For these reasons well-designed games are extremely effective learning tools.  Today’s children are at home in a gaming environment and they are comfortable with the immediate feedback and the interactivity that games provide. Learning is easier because they aren’t having to force their brains to concentrate in an environment with which they are not familiar.

As a prospective teacher, I don’t want to miss out on the potential that games provide to enrich children’s learning. (See my blog Simulation Games are Educational). I want to be able to reach my ‘Digital Native’ (Prensky, 2001) students and bring the learning into their digital world.

An extensive list of free web-based educational games is available on a blog titled ‘Free Technology for Teachers’.

Image available here under creative commons attribution 2.5 license.

Reference: Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part II: Do they really think differently? On the horizon, 9(6), 1-9