When tasked with investigating the use of video games for educational purposes, I decided to revisit an old favorite of mine, Dr. Mario. I may be dating myself here, but my family loved this game when it first came out on the original Nintendo back in 1990. My older brother and I would play against each other as long as our parents would let us, and I swear they would send us to bed early just so they could have a turn. It was addictive. Since I no longer have the original Nintendo, I had to download Dr. Mario for the Wii, which was conveniently quite cheap. My boyfriend and I started playing against each other, and the soundtrack was all too familiar. We were able to find a groove pretty quickly! After playing for an hour or so, I started to reflect on what my future math students could potentially get out of it. I landed on three main things: quick thinking, spatial awareness, and strategic planning.
Quick Thinking: Dr. Mario demands that you make very quick decisions about where to direct each pill that gets tossed into your prescription bottle. Depending on what speed you're playing at, the amount of time you have until the pill reaches the bottom of the bottle on its own can be very limited. This requires you to stay sharp, pay close attention, and think on your feet.
Spatial Awareness: Each pill has two ends, which can be two different colors or the same color, and viruses of the various colors are spread throughout the bottle. You have to be able to tell where the viruses are in relation to the pill once it's thrown into your bottle. If you misread where a virus is and slam your pill down one spot to the left or right of where you meant to, you have to make up for that setback. You also have to figure out how you want your pill oriented (up, down, left, or right).
Strategic Planning: There are a few types of strategies that you can use in Dr. Mario, two of which I'll discuss here. The first one is planning ahead. Whenever a pill is tossed into your bottle, you can see the next couple of pills that are coming. If you're going to fully take advantage of this, you should make decisions on where to place the current pill given what's coming up. This can help you be more efficient and get the most out of every pill. The second strategy is to kill multiple viruses at once for more points and more punishment on your opponent. You can set up your bottle so that, with one additional pill, you can kill two, three, or four viruses. This sends broken pill pieces to your opponent that they have no control over. Both of these strategies require a lot of continuous thought and planning.
Overall, I wouldn't use Dr. Mario directly with my students, but I think the skills it helps develop can be valuable in math and other areas. As long as they don't spend too much time staring at the computer or television screen, kids can get a lot of valuable skills out of playing computer and video games. I guess it's up to parents to monitor their kids' playing time and decide how much is too much.
"As long as they don't spend too much time staring at the computer or television screen..."
ReplyDeleteHow do we know how much is too much? Do we believe that there is a limit to these sort of activities because there is a limit to the learning that can occur? Or is it a generalized "get outside and do something" sense that despite the benefits of a computer game, it is still in a distinct sense NOT REAL?
I have been direct and unconditional in my refusal to let a video game console into our house thus far; however, I have to admit that while watching two students from Scarlett collaborate to solve physics puzzles in the video game library at UM, I was moved to reconsider for nearly ten seconds. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned, despite the seeming isolation and unreality of the gaming environment.
And yet... are there lessons that are best learned in a computer game? Are there lessons that can only be learned in a computer game?
Also, how about a nice game of chess?
I don't think there is a simple answer to the "how much is too much" question when it comes to video and computer games. I think there are a lot of variables to consider, and two very important variables are the content of the game and the potential benefits of playing it. The latter, however, is fairly subjective. Regardless of how many educational benefits a game can provide, I tend to lean toward the "everything in moderation" guideline. In order to be well-rounded individuals, kids need to spend their time engaging in a variety of activities, only one of which should be gaming.
DeleteI loved Dr. Mario!!! So much better than its cousin, Tetris. Man, now I wish I had a Wii so I could get this and waste the rest of my evening playing...
ReplyDeleteI like how you broke it down into three skills the kids can learn. I think it sounds like something that could help kids think mathematically if they play it outside of class, but not so much in the classroom. (I feel the same way about the game I chose.) How might you get kids to play it, then, if they're not doing it in school? Maybe you could have it set up to play some times during lunch? That way there also isn't the risk that they spend too long on it, and if you have a system that the same kids can't play it more than once a week, you're not cutting too much into their running around time.
ReplyDeleteI really like your ideas about having games available during lunch and using a system that limits playing to once a week for each student. As another idea, games could be made available at before/after school programs.
DeleteI think it's really great how now we have more of an awareness about the educational value of things we once considered to simply be a leisure activity. I never would have thought to think about how I was really learning skills like quick thinking and strategic planning when I was playing video games (not that it happened often, video games are not my forte). I also agree that I don't see the direct relevance of most video games in my classroom but I wonder about the value of discussing with students the skills they might be learning from the video games that they play on their own time.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post. I never really played video games as a kid but I can definitely see the value that they have, especially for the skills you described in your post. I'm wondering, how exactly would you be able to incorporate them into your classroom? Would it be an in-class activity or like homework? How would you teach or compensate the basic motor skills needed for video games (I don't have the fastest reaction time when it comes to video games and am never quite sure which button does what.) Is there any way you could find a different method to practice and learn the skills that you described in a way other than video games? Just some questions to think about. I love that you got back into playing Dr. Mario recently, sounds like fun!
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