Chapter 7: Problem Solving and Inquiry Learning with Software and Web Tools

Focus Question: How can teachers evaluate the different types of educational software available today?

To be a good game it must consist of rules, goals and objectives, outcomes and feedback, conflict/ competition/ challenge/ opposition, interaction, and representation or story.

To be a good game for a classroom one might ask: Does it have teacher support resources?  Is the content current, thorough, and age-appropriate?  Does assessment include pretest, posttest, recordkeeping by students and groups?  Does the program promote creativity, higher order thinking, collaboration, problem solving, discovery, or memorization?

Going to sites like the educationalsoftware preview guide lists a searchable directory of more than 1,000 software titles for use in prek-12 classrooms.

Tech Tool 7.2 A Math Learning Game—Zoombinis Logical Journey

I loved this game as a little kid.  I am now sitting here wishing that my parents had not thrown away all my games from when I was a kid because I “grew up,” and windows 98 is now “obsolete.”  This game was awesome at creating patterns and using higher order thinking.  It took a lot of trial and error to figure out what the pattern should be.  This game would be great for k-5^th graders because it comes in different difficulty levels.  I would use this game as a “fun-Friday” educational game because it would take at least 30-60 minutes for the kids to get past a couple levels.  As you can see in this YouTube video below 3 adults/ teenagers had to really think to get past a few level in 30 minutes.

Even though this tech tool is talking about Zoombinis, which is awesome, it links to the learning company, which is a site that contains much more.  It continues with game like The Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego.  All of these are fun and thought provoking games.  I would not use any of these games as a core in the classroom however; it would strictly be an additive because it does take up so much time.

Chapter Summary & Connection

Adding games, video games, interactive games, and manipulative tools is very important to kids and should be important to teachers too.  I think one major thing that teachers are going to have to battle with is the time that some of these games consume versus the lack in quality of some of the shorter games may be.  I remember going to reading labs when I was in elementary school, and I am certain that the use has grown much more in the past 15 years.  When I go and visit the local library, even they have reading games on the computers for the kids.  There is obviously a connection between these games and children learning…  I believe you learn best when you are having fun.