Computer games become training and learning instruments

Computer games today are much more than entertainment and fun. According to the recent research computer games are crucial in the 21st-century learning environment. Today a lot of U.S. corporations and military utilize computer games as training instruments.

David Williamson Shaffer, education science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of "How Computer Games Help Children Learn," thinks America's public school system still targets students of the 19th-century industrial era rather than the 21st-century students in the cyberspace era.

Singapore and Britain are supporting the use of computer games to assist instructors within their school systems, and U.S. corporations and military utilize computer games as training instruments.

According to research by Bego Gros of the University of Barcelona, computer games are crucial in the 21st-century learning environment by assisting in the following areas:

• Personal and social development
• Language and literacy
• Mathematical development
• Creative development
• Knowledge of understanding of the world
• Physical development

The use of epistemic games allows students to take on professional roles, such as that of a lawyer or an engineer, and participate in decisions and activities directly related to the profession, AHN says.

Shaffer will introduce video instruction games to public schools in March of 2007, the first being in Madison, Wisconsin.