Week+5+Reflection

__**Week 5 Reflection**__

Week 5 continues its focus on using technology to improve education and assessment. This week discusses the concept of game-based learning. This is a concept that I am very familiar with and I attended a conference on the future of gaming in schools in Austin last year. James Paul Gee said something about gaming and assessment that really stuck with me, he said that gaming allows for continuous assessment of learning. When you ar eplaying a game you don't learn something, then there is a test, you are tested as you go along in the game. I teach video game design to students and I think it is an excellent way to teach critical thinking skills. DO get students to throw assumptions out of the window and move step by step through solving a problem, taking nothing for granted. For some students this was difficult but all students, including students who did not consider themselves "gamers", enjoyed the process.

Game based learning can be a wonderful tool to enhance the learning process, but as I have said before, traditional learning skill has an important place in the learning process. Books, reading and writing are skills that are necessary for the future and there are times when you will have to solve a problem using nothing but those tools and students will still have to be able to be successful.