Video games are useful
Source: Agencies |
May 29, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
YOU'RE at the front lines shooting Nazis before they shoot you. Or you're a futuristic gladiator in a death match with robots.
Either way, you're playing a video game -- and you may be improving your vision and other brain functions, according to research presented on Thursday at a United States university conference on games as a learning tool.
"People who play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition," said Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester.
Bavelier was a presenter at Games for Learning, a daylong symposium on the educational uses of video games and computer games.
The event, the first of its kind, was an indication that electronic games are gaining legitimacy in the classroom.
President Barack Obama recently identified the creation of good educational software as one of the "grand challenges for American innovation," and the federal Department of Education's assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement, Jim Shelton, attended Thursday's conference.
Panelists discussed how people learn and how games can be engineered to be even more educational. "People do learn from games," said J. Dexter Fletcher of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Bavelier said playing the kill-or-be-killed games can improve peripheral vision and the ability to see objects at dusk. They can be used to treat amblyopia, or lazy eye, a disorder characterized by indistinct vision in one eye.
She believes the games can improve math performance and other brain tasks.
Either way, you're playing a video game -- and you may be improving your vision and other brain functions, according to research presented on Thursday at a United States university conference on games as a learning tool.
"People who play these fast-paced games have better vision, better attention and better cognition," said Daphne Bavelier, an assistant professor in the department of brain and cognitive science at the University of Rochester.
Bavelier was a presenter at Games for Learning, a daylong symposium on the educational uses of video games and computer games.
The event, the first of its kind, was an indication that electronic games are gaining legitimacy in the classroom.
President Barack Obama recently identified the creation of good educational software as one of the "grand challenges for American innovation," and the federal Department of Education's assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement, Jim Shelton, attended Thursday's conference.
Panelists discussed how people learn and how games can be engineered to be even more educational. "People do learn from games," said J. Dexter Fletcher of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Bavelier said playing the kill-or-be-killed games can improve peripheral vision and the ability to see objects at dusk. They can be used to treat amblyopia, or lazy eye, a disorder characterized by indistinct vision in one eye.
She believes the games can improve math performance and other brain tasks.
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