Game+Play+and+Assessment

This week as I read and watched videos, I was again and again drawn to think about assessment and how I view it in the classroom. I was originally drawn to the whole idea of assessing with games because of the writing of Mark Prensky. He writes about how students learn video games and continue to play them until they succeed. They get the information they need just in time and continue to read to find out what they need to know to make themselves successful. This week I watched a video with Paul Gee on gaming as assessment. [] He spoke of how students learn as they play and how they get ongoing feedback. If you fail the game tells you and you begin again until you get it right. This way of thinking about teaching and education in general is a big change from what we now know. We have got to get away from Test-Prep in order to really prepare our students for the global economy.

Pitler writes in his book, __Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works__ that reinforcement and feedback is important. He stressed the importance of effort and how it can be tracked. I think we need to begin to think outside the box of traditional education. We need to use games as a method of teaching not as some fun way just to practice a skill. I was watching my students play //Super Mario Bros// at a technology party. They were using some great understanding of science and physics to get through the game. If we could tap into the things they already know just from playing a game we would be much farther along in teaching them the curriculum.