A question:
Hello. I am very interested in games in education and would love to get
involved in this as a career move. Please contact me.
An answer:
First of all, thank you for asking. It’s actually a great question.
Become a teacher or school librarian
Almost every state offers a friendly certification process. Usually you need to take 3 or 4 standardized tests. These consist of basic math and writing, human development and learning, subject matter, and pedagogy (every state is different, but that’s the basic gist).
Once you are a teacher (English, science, history, math, etc...) start using games to teach! As long as you have high standards for your students, you will be fine.
Being a teacher is great work. Very difficult, and very rewarding.
You could start an after-school club, or do something at your local library, but the real potential of games in the classroom is content-specialists using them to teach. This is an article I wrote about how to use games in your classroom once you are a teacher. Lot’s of stuff to think about before you throw the kids in front of Sim City, or the Sims.
School librarians are often at the center of technology in a school, so it is a logical place to advocate and encourage the use of games (and other technology) in a building.
I suppose you could enter academia, and study the use of games in education (we could always use more research to help inform our thinking about games in the classroom) but I believe it is actual practitioners who can really show this stuff working.
On 08 November 2006, Michael V. Weaver inscribed the following thoughts about this post:
If someone REALLY wants to get involved, start asking the major manufacturers to create games for education. Or better yet, start placing more educational material in existing games.
I have been interested in this for a while, but until the focus is more on education rather than entertainment, most school districts are not going to buy in to this. Districts tend to take the Richard Clark stance that media does not affect learning and it is the method of teaching we should be concerned with.
Podcast feed
