The design of games under pedagogical conditions

 

Time management

Teachers sometimes don’t know how to make games, don’t have enough time to prepare everything. 

Digital games can develop cognitive, special and motor skills and can enhance ICT skills. All these skills are very important for sdudents. I do not enough knowledge to use a lot of digital games in the classroom. Mostly, then, I ask for help from colleaques. I hope this will change in the future.

Finally, maintenance and upgrade of all the equipment should be done by a technician on a regular basis and not by teachers themselves.

If we are talking about games in general then time (for preparation and implementation) as well as a less strict curriculum are essentials 

PS. is contradictory to discuss about games, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking etc when the most important exams for the students who want to continue their studies in tertiary education based on learning material by heart -at least as it happens in my country.

In my case, the biggest problem is slow connection on internet, we don't have enough computers (we still dream about tablets) and a better financial support is needed.

The most difficult thing to overcome is the lack of permanent access to a digital infrastructure. He have a ICT room for the students from the age of 3 till 13 years and in the schedule we only get a hour per week in the tech lab. 

My other difficulty is the lack of time to prepare games for the themes I need to teach. I´m a primary teacher and I do lots of games with my students, but most of them are the traditional ones, games like stop ( with word categories), several drama games, Lego, fraction pizzas, brainbox cards, mental calculus cards, multiplications cards and memory games with flags of different cards. In maths the class also does various games in a site called Hypatiamat that enables them to have more confidence in acquiring math skills. I feel i´m not able to gamify so many themes.

   ) and we even have the "Essential Learning" but we keep the curriculum and the exams and tests remain the same. How can we try to be more creative (it takes time and practice) and prepare them to exams focused on memorization? 

So at the beginning of the year it will be better to pass a short survey to test the level of once  students about games , their knowledge , their desires , addicted or not , and ways to choose their games … meanwhile a fundamental question has to be asked is the hobbies and what they prefer to do in case there is no game.

After analyzing this survey , the teacher will at least get an idea on how to adapt the game in his/her classroom , what kind of games to use , how to make the right choice and use of the game how to adapt these  games with their hobbies .

So by mixing games and hobbies, we can at least save our students from addiction and oriented them to the right use of games and especially educational games. 

The only one artifact that the ICT rooms are not always available, so not all classes can get the chance to learn via games.

 

 

In this sense, my school cluster is closely following the BYOD - Bring Your Own Device phenomenon, which gives students and teachers the opportunity to use their own devices (laptops, tablets and smatphones) in the school context; this new context implies a change of attitude to which many teachers have not yet become accustomed or have not realized their importance and necessity; classroom technologies are important because they are part of the life of these new generations both inside and outside the classroom and, therefore, their use in teaching-learning is considered an important way to increase the dynamism of classes (classes with (traditional and technological) and a mix of formal and informal education, more attractive and innovative classes, more motivated learners, "classroom" out of the school environment).

So, where did we go wrong and how can we fix it?

THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHILDHOOD 

Nature designed children and adolescents to spend most of their time playing. Vital for for healthy psychological development free play, as described by Gray, is “play which is freely chosen and directed by the participants and undertaken for its own sake, not consciously pursued to achieve ends that are distinct from the activity itself.”