Reflection of Heidi James Lecture

This week our EDCI 336 class had Heidi James as a guest lecturer. She spoke to us about how educational methods are taking on new forms as technology advances, in particular how gaming has become more and more used in classrooms. Of course, there are many pros and cons to using educational gaming in a classroom (see the blog post “EdTech Inquiry: Gaming in Education” for more on this), but Heidi explained how one game, Minecraft, can be used as a teaching aid in many different subject areas. Minecraft could be used to help students learn math (geometry, area, perimeter), art (mosaics, pixel art), and social studies (ancient civilizations and architecture), as a few examples. Using a gaming platform such as this can help students learn curricular content, but can also help them learn the curricular competencies (such as communication, collaboration, and critical/creative thinking). One more thing Heidi said which I thought was very interesting was that when you game with your students, the relationship can change, as the teacher often becomes the student, and the students can be the teachers. In this context, the students get to be the experts in the situation. I hope one day I can use gaming as a part of my teaching practice.