Bavelier's Ted Talks: An Analysis

important than the content within the pipe” (Siemens) basically saying that in an environment like today’s schooling where we have to learn new material fast, we need to start changing how we deliver the information to the students in a way that can be quicker than a lecture but still offer retention. This is where and why video games become important. As we saw in Bavelier’s Ted Talks video, video games can promote improvements in the mind when played in reasonable time frames on a regular schedule. As we saw in her experiments with the people who participated, the improvements they made were “still there five months after having done the training” (Bavelier) showing video games can offer extensive retention of the information they provide. …show more content…
Christopher Paul (a college professor) has been doing just that by using the game World of Warcraft in his class in the snippet article “VIDEO GAMES ARE HARD” where he uses the game as a learning experiment more than as the game itself. Having the whole class play immediately dissolved the barrier between smartest student and least smart student especially if neither played the game. This project was to instead of teaching a certain topic, promote group work and connections between students and teacher. “When students have to play games as homework, they often find connections with people they may not ordinarily work with in a traditional classroom”, (Paul) Paul shows here that Since WoW needs group interactivity for some tasks, sometimes during a homework dungeon mission you might need to ask a classmate for help. The game makes it easy by instead of having to email the classmate now you can just instant message them in the game adding into this is the bondage created from the cooperation needed to complete tasks such as dungeons where someone’s the healer and the damage dealing people have to keep communications with them when they need healing. Although the project is not educational in content, it is very rich in the cognitive functions you need to use to complete it. Overall though the use of WoW promoted communication between classmates whereas in some college classes today students barely even say hi to each other. It also influenced cognitive thinking to complete and while it was made for entertainment it can be an alternative source teachers can manipulate to be an affective exercise in class even if just as brief intro-to-class activity just to promote communications between students. Going off of these two examples of a practical use of games in the classroom some may wonder how can using video games give students an advantage