Videogames Rated for Children

In the spring of 2020 our class Ed271 technology application for Educators we were tasked with creating a rubric for an children's educational game of our choice. The game we had chosen was World Bingo on ABCya.com. The game focused on many different countries of the world, such as their capital, landmarks, etc. in the format of a bingo game. It was well-known site for providing appropriate educational games and also had in-game reports and feedback for the children to see their results. In my honest opinion it was not my first choice for an educational game but it was satisfactory. I think what made it difficult to create a rubric for an educational game is what would we asses. What was the main role of our rubric about. Are we to assess the educational value and potential the game had on kids or was it to evaluate just how easy it was or what imagery it used? In truth a bit of both the former and latter. According to an online journal, "The Role of Rubrics in Advancing and assessing Student Learning", that rubrics are multipurpose and not only assist in evaluating a students performance, self-assessment and feedback but improve teaching by providing accurate and fair feedback so that future lessons can be adjusted for their students (Wolf and Stevens). The journal also makes a good point of stating that rubrics do take time to develop. Creating a rubric without careful consideration for performance and assessment can even diminish the learning process. The journal really does summarize the experience of creating a rubric, though the process can improve with help from other colleagues. This is good news to all us, aspiring teachers, to know that many experienced teachers have knowledge with such things in regards to accurate assessment and how to go about with the results of the rubric. As a future educator in Elementary education I want my students to enjoy the learning process because quite honestly it does not get as fun when progressing through the next grade levels. Elementary education is a the starting line and I want to introduce many fun methods of teaching for them. Educational games both online and in-class are just one of the methods that can be utilize to help my students learn. I think there has been a negative stigma towards games especially violent games, but that cannot be said for all of them. In a study, it mentions that there are games that help children develop personal problem-solving methods, critical thinking and social team building skills. That children exposed to educational games did score higher in tests ( Luis C. Almeida, 2012). Of course in how I would apply it to my class I would utilize it as homework and in-class evaluation for both individual and group activities. Overall the experience is very much needed in order to get in the mindset of being a teacher. That it involves careful and strategic planning and application to get the most out of the lesson and promote healthy mental growth. Referring back to our assignment for our class we made use the application whatsapp and google excel to communicate with each other and work together on a single shared rubric. Technology has come a long way in which students, such as ourselves, can work on a group assignment from home and at the same time. This provided us with more times in which we could meet and discuss. Google Excel made working on a document more easier to manage among other group mates and that would go see in real-time changes made to the rubric. I can definitely see how technology can help teacher not only create effective rubrics for the students but how teachers can help one-another in promoting education in all forms both physical and virtual classrooms.

Reference

Stevens, Ellen and Wolf, Kenneth. "The Role of Rubrics in Advancing and Assessing Student Learning". The Journal of Effective Teaching, Volume 7, No.1, 2007. pp 3-14.
Almeida, Luis C. "The Effect of an Educational Computer Game for the Achievement of Factual and Simple Conceptual Knowledge Acquisition" Ed. Hui-Chun Chu. Hindawi.com Published Nov. 7, 2012.