Digital Blurring

Sploder game

As a parent of 3 boys ranging from 3 to 17, it is hard to escape this online gaming world and to be brutally honest I hate it. Yes hate! Look, unless it is for educational purposes I really don’t see the benefit of being starring at a screen for hours on end… In my experience online gaming is addictive and mind numbing and I struggle to see what skills are learnt from online gaming and how these transfer to real life situations. Lets face it, how many of us end up in high speed chases or military missions or even fighting a sci-fi being! Admittedly my exposure to online gaming is limited and really how many “educational” games is a teen going to play!

So trying to look at it positively, what skills do we gain from online gaming? Cognitive skills such as spatial navigation, reasoning, memory and perception are strengthened by some online games. Just as problem solving skills can be developed. Engaging children in a learning environment can be at times quite difficult so in that sense I support online games provided they are appropriate for the students and the subject and that they are supervised. It’s more the online games played out of school by predominately teens that cause concern particularly especially when they are incredibly violent. These games can be detrimental to their mental health, which can consequently lead to devastating effects.

Digital Fluency

Digital fluency is basically defined as being able to use technology confidently. We talk about being fluent in the classroom in terms of being able to read, write and communicate verbally. With technology fluency a student demonstrates that they are able to manipulate, transform and move information across a variety of media and platforms.

We look at games such as Scratch, for example. Scratch is a program that can help students think creatively and create interactive games, stories and animation. It can be used across a wide variety of subjects such as math, science and arts. Scratch is a great tool for engaging students and can be taught at many levels from kindergarten where you can create a simple dressing up program to high school students who will have an understanding of how to design, write and debug programs, and use logical reasoning to explain how some algorithms work or don’t work.

If we look towards the future, digital fluency transcends devices, apps and programs. Students are quickly learning to accurately and deliberately communicate, collaborate and create across platforms. Teachers need to support and help develop these attributes so students are digitally fluent.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/22440255/