Dr Angeline Khoo is my prof! She teaches me Educational Psychology at NIE. And she's a WOW gamer too.
WOW terms—instances, mobs, bosses, guilds, quests—roll off Khoo's tongue just as easily as pedagogical terms. We even got to follow Prof Khoo into WOW and talk to her guild about thanksgiving. Heh. World of Warcraft and thanksgiving? Talk about disconnect. We even interviewed her former guild leader in character. The virtual world seems like a place where age, race, class don't matter. Her guild leader is only 21 years old but Prof Khoo salutes him. She says: "He asks me to jump into the fire, I jump!"
I think it is common to think of gaming, especially immersive role-play types, as a problem rather than an aide to education. We hear about "addicted" students who spend too much time playing games and never do any homework. But if we can take away our prejudices and look at gaming objectively, we realise that gaming does teach many real-life skills—problem-solving, decision-making, collaborating, etc.
2 comments:
I was WOWed by what was shown. I have never played any games of that sort and it was a good exposure to it. I belong to a different gen. but I can see how it can be used for leadership training as well. The "Leader" whatever is his name gives commands and instructions - will others follow? Would like to see more!
I agree. I was surprised by the amount of collaboration and leadership required for a raid. It is actually no longer just a person interacting with a virtual game (say, Pacman or Super Mario), but persons interacting with other persons through a virtual medium.
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