One thing’s sure … Children’s Computer Games are anything but child’s play.
Recent studies show that young people’s attraction to what appears to be hectic cyber fun can be harnessed to motivate learning in a way traditional and formal education cannot.
Psychologists say Children’s Computer Games appeal to an unconscious desire to learn. And Increasing numbers of teachers suggest that Children’s Computer Games develop thinking in a vital way.
Many new books argue that children’s minds are now being ‘reprogrammed’ through Children’s Computer Games to better equip them for the ultra-high-tech century that lies open to them. Tapscott’s Net Generation in particular, and intensive research in educational psychology like Patricia Marks Greenfield’s reveal that Children’s Computer Games develop cognitive abilities unknown to mankind’s earlier generations.
New terms have entered the vocabulary of psychologists and educationalists as a result of Children’s Computer Games: Twitch-speed (vs conventional speed), parallel processing (vs linear processing), Graphics (vs text), random access (vs step-by-step), active (vs passive), payoff (vs patience).
It is now understood by experts that Children’s Computer Games are producing a generation with the ability to process information faster than ever before, with youngsters determining what is and is not of relevance to them with instant rewards for achievement through ‘winning’ in a world where fantasy is seen as a valid area of experience.
And, as any web surfer knows, there are literally hundreds of thousand of Children’s Computer Games out there; some free, others costing a few dollars – Amazon and Ebay are only two of a whole raft of sites offering what now appears to be a 21st Century fun-packed educational revolution.
The computer is to the developing generation as much part of the furniture as television was to the last. It is friend … not foe because of Children’s Computer Games.