In Chatham math lessons they have added the Nintendo DS into the classroom. (2/2/07) was when the article ran in the daily record. They used the DS for its righting and sending option (you can communicate by either using the letters like a keyboard or actually using your own handwriting. They used this as a sort of flash card; I thought this was quite interesting. The teacher wanted to connect with the students lives, and give them skills that they would use outside of the classroom. The students also play a game called Brain Age. It tests the player’s mathematic skills and the age of the player’s brain. What do you all think of this?
posted by Theresa Milano @ 7:31 AM
4 Comments:
I think its a great idea as long as the students stay focused on what they are supposed to be doing. Letting the students interactively participate in math/logic games? The second a Nintendo DS comes out in a classroom, you know you are going to have the students' attention. I see no harm in this type of engagement in the classroom. It seems to me that this teacher understands that students don't necessarily just want to sit in class and look at the chalkboard all day. By allowing the students to be involved in math class by using a video game system, the teacher is absolutely honoring what it is many of these students may be interested in in their every day lives. I know that there are parents that use Dance, Dance Revolution as a way to get their children to excercise (possibly without the children actually thinking that they are excercising), I think that this form of engagement in math class is just as useful and beneficial to the students. That will always be something that they remember doing.
I think that the idea has good intentions but this millennial age of children are just getting lazier and lazier. I do not think there is a reason for the teacher to honor ones world buy giving in to the laziness. DDR I think is a great thing! It is just modernizing a dance exercise video from the 80s. But when you substitute communication to your professor in a classroom electronically (I think) can lead to problems. I feel like I do not have enough information on this transformation but if I understand it correctly, I think it may be something taken too far.
In response to the last comment, I completely understand the concern of creating an only eletronic connection to the teacher. But I think the obvious way to remedy this concern would be to use the game system in addition to the previous teaching means in the classroom. Making sure the teacher integrates the new methods with the old ones to provide new experiences as well as continuing to revisit the old.
I think this is pretty synonymous with using computers in a classroom... I think it is a nice way to incorporate technology in the classrooms in general. However, I would agree that maybe we are beginning to lean towards the lazy side. I think this would be beneficial in connecting to the students worlds... letting them play "educational" games and such. But, like anything, I fear that this has a very fragile threshold between useful, and overused. When something that generally would be interesting to students comes along, we tend to forget about the kinds who would not benefit from such learning. Like anything else, moderation is the key.
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