Teaching Information and Communication Technology With Digital Games

It has been argued that digital games serve in the areas of cognitive, emotional and social development of children in similar ways as their traditional counterparts while they motivate pupils by engaging them in the learning process through activities related to their interests. We propose a teaching approach for familiarizing pupils with the technical and morphological features as well as the cognitive and emotional impact of digital games, by using the games themselves as the main teaching objective, thus obtaining a familiar and enjoyable environment for pupils. Another dimension of the teaching objective vector refers to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and media literacy skills. What's more, students learn to express logical thoughts based on gathering and processing information procedures that resemble to scientific methods of reasoning, as well as engaging them in self evaluation and reflection activities. In specific, there are tasks for developing cognitive, emotional and social aspects of pupils personality. What's more, we propose a set of tasks for allowing students to evaluate and refine their conclusions through reflecting on the path they followed as well as the emotions that affected them. Based on the ground of social constructivism, our approach encourages pupils to participate in guided collaborative groups where they explore the world of gaming, supported by ICT tools that are provided and mastered when needed. The same tools are used as means of assisting pupils in constructing answers to their research questions, as well as in realising their creative ideas. Teacher acts mostly as assistant and motivator. The proposed activity is organised in flexible tasks designed for groups of pupils and defined clearly by the teacher. Each task is modified by the teacher to match the pace and the capabilities of each separate team. Evaluation is performed by the team members, the classroom and the teacher in various phases of the activity and refers to cognitive goals and collaboration skills.