Gaming

For me personally, I loved having the option of playing educational games during school.  Looking back it was a good way for the teacher to reinforce concepts that we were going over, but it also taught general concepts such as problem solving.  But the genius of the whole thing was that I was not aware that those were the teacher's motivations.  For me it was something fun to do after I completed my work.  Of course I new they were educational, but it wasn't something I felt the teacher was making me do.  I really wanted to play the games and my only concern was getting as far along as I could in the time that I had.  So even though my motivations were not to continue to learn concepts or to help my problem solving skills, I was still getting that.  Plus, it was good motivation for me to stay on task so I could get my work done and be able to play.

Even though kids are more technologically advanced these days, I still think there is some value to having educational games in the classroom.  The challenge might be to find games that interest them or that are up to their gaming standards.  I don't know it Oregon Trail will hold their interest or not like it did mine, but something of the equivalent would be good to use with them.

I think having students make their own mini games would a great review tool.  It helps the students who makes the games, because the are reviewing all the material as they put it into the games.  Then it would also benefit the other students when they play to the game to review the material.  Having the students make their own games would be great for the class because it would not be some generic game, but it would be specific to the lesson or unit the class was talking about.