Today’s video games don’t just entertain. Some such as Age of Empires, Caesar and even Sim City have become effective information and training instruments, as confirmed by researchers from the University of Huelva (UHU) in an article published in the journal Computers & Education.
According to the UHU experts, video games have a more than proven utility for teaching Social Sciences. His research project, directed by José María Cuenca López and Miriam Martín Cáceres, had as its fundamental axis the analysis of 35 programs with different themes (Politics, Geography and History …) among more than 400 Primary and Secondary schoolchildren from educational centers. Huelva.
Experts consider that new technologies have led to the emergence of dynamic games with different levels of interaction, in which vast amounts of data, information, procedures and values are closely linked. “We have been able to appreciate not only an improvement in the teaching process, but also a better predisposition of the student to access this information”, underlines José María Cuenca. Cuenca López and Martín Cáceres divided the essay into several disciplines. To analyze theHistory, they used video gamesAge of Empiresand theEmpire Earth. In order toUrbanism and Territory, they did the same withCaesar YSim City. And the teachings related toDemocracy and Citizen Participation, Economy and business, YEnvironmentwere resolved withSim City, Wall Street TraderYThe Settlers, respectively.
Those who hadgreater acceptance were those with historical content– “due to the spectacular nature of the images and the dynamism of the game’s development” – and those related to the territory. However, he points out, “it would be interesting to narrow the content filters to offer greater rigor on what is published.”
“Videogames have become laboratories for social experiments, above all because they reproduce scenarios, conditions and situations that affect a certain human phenomenon,” he says. In this way, the researcher intends to break a spear in favor of the “good use” of this technology, both in classrooms and at home. “It requires, on the other hand, efforts from teachers; it is a complementary technique,” he clarifies.
