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Look, Ma! No Wires!

When most people think of video games, they tend to think of action-packed, gun-shooting, mindless entertainment that seems to take hours of our day away in a flash. These days, advancements in modern technology have allowed players to experience video games in ways never thought possible. As we acknowledge the foundational influence of what came before, let’s understand just how far the video game industry has come!

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In the late 1980s, video games were primarily seen as two-dimensional side-scrolling pixels on our family CRT TVs which later turned into textured polygons that almost looked like humans but gave us a three-dimensional experience that was groundbreaking for the time of its release in the late 1990s. Today, video games have reached graphical capabilities that could rival what we see in real life! With technology allowing developers to maximize their creativity, we can now witness interactive storytelling with captivating digital landscapes and effects that seem too real to deem possible. Do take the time to search titles such as Forza Horizon V, Final Fantasy XVI, and Uncharted IV if you’re curious to see just how far video games have come visually. Following this would be the progression of internet connectivity and how it has allowed gamers to interact with each other from all parts of the world. If we look back four decades ago, players would only be able to play with up to two players and had to be in the same room and share the same screen in order to play any form of multiplayer; In the early days of the internet, players would’ve had to wait for quite some time to use it – let alone connect to it. 

The mobile devices we take hold of today have allowed us to have everything we want and need all in one compact package. Today, mobile gaming has transcended its niche community by reaching the ranks of competitive gaming and e-sports with titles such as Call of Duty Mobile and Mobile Legends. And with the technology that’s within our mobile phones being able to launch and maintain demanding games, virtual and augmented reality developers have since used the processing power and brought it to the world of design such as architecture and fashion design.

As video games continue to evolve with every generation, it may be long before we see their technologies reach their peak. The idea of bringing new and different experiences all in the palm of our hands and in the view of our living rooms is something worth acknowledging. Though it may still fall under entertainment, the video game industry has created a community of innovators who bring these experiences to those who can’t.

References: 

The European Business Review, How has technology changed the gaming industry?, <https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/how-has-technology-changed-the-gaming-industry/>

Learning May Not Be So Boring After All!

As most of us are well aware, video games are predominantly considered one of the most significant sources of entertainment today. Although most people see it as all fun and games, it serves more purposes than you think! Nowadays, video games can be used in military training, smartphones that track their fitness progress, and, of course, in classrooms that are being used as teaching tools for their students.

We all know that most students’ attention span is quite shorter now than how it was back in the day. Somehow, they tend to veer away from lectures that are too serious and stagnant with little to no engagement or any interactions between the teachers and their students. Don’t fret! Though students may love to learn from new things that their instructors are teaching, they for sure would find more interest in interactive teaching materials or programs planned. With video games as a teaching tool, they can have the endless opportunity of experiencing the evolution of building, surviving, outbreaks, role-playing games, and strategic groundwork through games like Minecraft, Math Blaster, Zombie Apocalypse, Poptropica, and many more! Even interactive gaming tools for teaching purposes such as Kahoot are already widely used in different parts of the world! And one thing is for sure, students love getting challenged through harmless educational competitions using these interactive gaming tools. 

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Video Games are a powerful tool to make effective improvements in human skills, these virtual worlds that people can experience and hone their skills to achieve the game’s goal will exercise their mind path on how to get there, thus improving cognitive and strategic skills. They can be a great avenue to use in the right way to have the potential to inspire new learning for the generation. In an educational sense, studies have shown that children who play various games could advance their skills and learn differently, which may help them in class even faster and wiser. 

Lastly, students can remix their ideas of games through experience and create their own interactive play reach. Wherein the idea is to understand a specific game thoroughly and dive deeper to modify the essence of the game or even find concepts that can enhance the purpose of the game for a new complexity. We can always use video games as a gaming teaching tool to amplify human and cognitive skills, where they can also connect themselves with others to explore different social and communal situations. 

References: 

Penn Today, Gaming as a teaching tool, <https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/gaming-teaching-tool>

A Whole New World

As we slowly transition to a more online-based environment in our daily practices, online learning continues to face its own challenges with regard to engagement through hands-on learning. It is true that most people have a higher tendency of acquiring and retaining certain knowledge and skill on a certain concept by applying it to real-world scenarios. In light of this, video games and their continuous innovations in virtual and augmented reality are now allowing online learning to be an experience that not only fascinates but also educates.

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Now, game-based learning is not strictly limited to VR or AR-centric games. With video games such as Minecraft: Education Edition, developers allow students to explore a world that is built specifically to educate students about conventional topics such as civil rights movements and Nobel Peace Prize laureates for them to then take that knowledge and explore their own understandings through the “sandbox” mode that Minecraft is inherently known for. Apart from this, students don’t have to go through these digital environments alone as the game encourages collaboration and systematic thinking in order to let the students discover the answers through their own means together! Apart from this, it would be implied that entering a new environment would entail certain challenges in adjusting the way players would interact and communicate with each other. Of course, the way the work of the digital landscape doesn’t necessarily have to align with real-world laws and regulations, but it should not disregard the concept of common decency and respect, which is something that game-based learning prioritizes. 

This may just be one of the many examples of how video games are transcending the entertainment sphere that it has so masterfully grown into, yet there is so much for both developers and players alike to take from studios such as Microsoft when it comes to creating environments that change the identity of video games and turning it into something beneficial for the next generation. Game-based learning as we know has been around for quite some time now, but now more than ever, it may very well be the future of learning as we know it.

References: 

– Rebecca Torchia, Game-Based Learning Prepares K-12 Students for a Digital Future, <https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2022/05/game-based-learning-prepares-k-12-students-digital-future>

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