Video game center expected to enhance learning
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 02/12/2009
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A center with a catalogue of video games will soon be brought to campus in an attempt to enhance learning.
The Purdue Center for Serious Games and Learning in Virtual Environments will have its grand opening from 3 to 5 p.m. today in Beering 3292. Serious games are those that use interaction, frequent feedback and personalized difficulties to enhance learning, according to Bill Watson, director of the center.
“The main focus is that learning should be engaging; however, our current standardized methods of treating all students as if they are the same, forcing them to learn the same content in the same fashion in the same amount of time, often results in the students primarily learning to be passive and frustrated,” Watson said. “Today’s learners instead need a learning environment that is tailored to how they best learn. (This) requires them to be active, solving relevant and realistic problems, and allows them to learn at a pace appropriate to them as an individual.”
In order to enhance learning the center will use PC games and game consoles from the current generation including Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Commercial games, those that any gamer may play, will be used as well as custom games.
“Nintendo seems to have the most educational games with Brain Age and Wii Fit,” said Jonathan Benson, freshman in the department of visual and performing arts. “As far as stretching your mind, many games are puzzle-oriented: ‘The Legend of Zelda,’ ‘Metroid Prime,’ ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ and ‘Tomb Raider.’”
The center has available for its use several video game engines and tool kits. These will be used to create “mods,” which are either new levels in an existing game or an entire game made using another’s engine, such as “Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines” using the same engine as “Half-Life 2.”
“Video games have been used for educational purposes for decades,” Watson said. “However, there remains much to discover about how to best design, develop and implement them.”