ODTÜ BÖTE' nin verdiği en faydalı derslerden bir tanesi olan "Design, Development & Evaluation of Educational Software" dersinin ilk ödevi üç tane eğitim içerikli oyun hakkındaydı. Bizden bu oyunları inceleyerek oyunlar ve öğrenme arasındaki ilişki üzerine kendi görüşlerimizi belirten bir yazı yazmamız istendi. Derste kopya çekmemizi engellemek amacıyla turnitin isimli bir sisteye ödevlerimizi yüklememiz istendi. Söylenene göre bu site kopyala-yapıştır yaptığınız zaman ya da direk olarak alıntı yapıtğınız zaman yakalıyormuş. Kendi ödevimi sizlerle paylaştığımda bakalım beni yakalayacak mı :) Kendi sitenden kopya çektin diye kimse beni suçlayamaz diye düşünerek ödevimi sizlerle paylaşmak istiyorum. Yazım ingilizce olduğundan Türkçe versiyonunu google translator kullanarak okuyabilirsiniz.İşte ödevim:

Games for Learning

Among those games which are given for this assignment “Tomb Rider Game” is the most educational one since all missions and parts of missions are related with learning something. For instance, photosynthesis includes water and sun light for the tree in the game. Purpose is to make tree photosynthesis. In other games learning is used as a tool not a purpose. For example, purpose is to find important points with help of coordinate axes not learning to use coordinate axes in Dimenxian. Maybe this way is the best for game-learning relationship but my personal idea is that learning should be a purpose in the game not a tool since students should be aware what they are doing and why they are doing.

Those games can be even should be used in learning process. These kind of activities save learning from to be monotonous. Moreover, games can be used as a reward in learning process. Students love playing games. According to my experience in METU Collage, students try to finish their assignment as fast as possible to play game after the assignment. If those games are educational, teacher saves one activity’s efficiency for the other. It is clear that instructional games are beneficial for learning and they accelerate the learning. Of course students try to learn some other things instead of their play time but instruction time is not the purpose for a teacher, the main purpose is learning. Therefore, teachers consider not spending time for the instruction, they should consider to the learning since education is not what is taught, education is what is learned!

If I were a teacher of course I want to use games for the instruction. As I mentioned above I have seen that games are the best reward for the students from pre-school to high school even university. Students are crazy to play game in instruction time and they can do given every assignment for it. Not all students love playing game in instruction time but games are needed for misbehavior students. Hardworking students are already doing their assignment. Main purpose should be gaining those misbehavior students. Of course diligent students should not be ignored. Teacher should give them opportunity to improve themselves rather than rest of the class. With this way all type of students are in a harmony when games are used in instruction.

When we are talking about games we know that single player and multiplayer games serve different purposes. I observed children who are playing single player games in METU Collage and my assumptions I mentioned above for the single player games. What is the main difference between single and multiplayer games? Student tries to achieve game missions as a person in single player games. However, students should act as a team in multiplayer games. Only one’s mistake can make team the loser. For this reason, multiplayer games include more variables for learning and so multiplayer games are complex and hard to manage for the learning. Main aspect of multiplayer games is that student learns to act as a team. Other aspects are nearly the same with single player games. Therefore, it is hard to control students when they are playing multiplayer games since teacher dealing with at least two students simultaneously. It explains why METU Collage doesn’t prefer multiplayer games according to my assumptions.