Osterweil says, video games have the potential to help students understand and interact with complex computational systems, such as the human body, that are traditionally taught piecemeal. When paired with other hands-on activities and instruction, Mr. As early as the 1980s, developers saw the potential of computers as tools for exploratory and experiential learning – though the idea picked up steam just in the last decade, as academia began to view video games as viable educational tools, says Scot Osterweil, educational game designer and creative director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Education Arcade. Russia says it’s fighting Nazis in Ukraine. “The teachers working with those students have been quite impressed by the way students work with the game, as well,” Dezuanni said. They found that the game helped the students analyze math problems, collaborate on projects, and engage in rich social interaction as they discussed their individual processes and results. Professor Dezuanni and his team observed and interviewed 8- and 9-year-old students in Brisbane who regularly played Minecraft at home and at school.

“We've seen some real success with engagement, problem solving… with design and their creative work,” Michael Dezuanni, assistant professor at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology and the study’s co-author, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Their findings add to a growing body of research supporting not only the use of video games in classroom learning, but also the idea that learning is less an exercise in one-time memorization than an exciting, continuous experience. Math, geography, art, design – these are just some of the things that children can learn from the popular video game Minecraft, a new study shows.Įssentially a kind of digital Lego through which users can create their own building-block worlds, the game has the potential to engage students in problem-solving, research, creative thinking, and even social interaction, say the Australia-based researchers.

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