Video Games and Education

Can a video game become an educational tool? Video games for the most part, have been perceived as a form of entertainment that have no educational value. Educators have viewed them as a waste of time and a deterrent from students getting their schoolwork done. But what if a video game was produced that not only provided students with tons of relevant historical information, but was also extremely engaging and fun for students to play?

Video Games Are Taking Over Pop Culture

Video games have become what the "hula hoop" was in the 1950's. The greatest toy in the world. Around the world, children of all ages and even adults play video games for millions and millions of hours a year! How can we as educators compete with video games? We can start by realizing that this "toy" is in fact something much more. It has the potential to be the future of education! The amount of engagement that video games create is something teachers have been looking for ever since the dawn of education. To be able to get 100% of a students attention seems impossible, especially with all the technological distractions children face today. However I believe we can harness this technology and use it to everyone's advantage. Video game technology has finally reached the point where it is nearly impossible to decipher real live action with animated characters. With this technology, designers can recreate people, places, and things that we previously could only imagine. As a social studies teacher, video games could be used to recreate history and tell the story that our textbooks have been trying to tell us for hundreds of years. This premise is not far off in the future. In fact, with the release of Assassin's Creed 3, Ubisoft has created a video game that allows students to relive the American Revolution. Student engagement and educational value all rolled into one!

Real Life Historical Figures

Real-life people and historical events get roped into the “Assassin’s Creed” story line. Players meet Benjamin Franklin and are asked to hunt down the misplaced pages of his almanac, and revolutionary events such as the Boston Tea Party figure into the game. It’s most fun to play “Assassin’s Creed 3” with a laptop or tablet nearby in order to easily research the backgrounds of figures such as Sir William Johnson when they make a cameo.

“Assassins Creed 3” (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) is an action-adventure at its most expertly researched, and it is the all-too-rare title to prominently explore Native American culture. Colonial cities such as Boston are constructed via 18^th century maps, and Ubisoft hired a Mohawk community consultant for language accuracy. It’s perhaps the only game released in 2012 that could be more fun to experience as a historical fact-checker than a player.

Assassin's Creed 3: Reliving History

Assassin's Creed 3 allows students to relive histoical moments in U.S history as well as explore the landscape, cities, and personalities that made up the era. This is something that a textbook could never do.

The Ultimate Form of Engagement

Videogames have become a cinematic experience unlike anything we have ever seen before. The usage of videogames in education is limitless. Videogame companies can now recreate people, places, and things from the past and bring them to life! Tie together The American Revolution and Native Americans into a video game and you have an education tool that is infinitly better in almost everyway from our standard textbook. Students will actually want to watch, listen, read, engage, discuss, and play!

Video Games and Education

Can a video game become an educational tool?