Video games are educational

Hi everyone, I hope everyone is having a good day or depending on what time it is.  I just wanted to make a shout out to my Aunt Katie because she recently broke her leg and in hope that she will share this with Charlotte & Harley my cousins.  So I have recently done a essay contest and I have entered in to it and while I am waiting for the results I thought I would share my essay (and it is a persuasive essay).  So I hope you like it and I will post the results when I get them and also please your feedback on what you thought if my essay for future references.  Thanks, and here is my essay:

Video Games are

Educational

    Did you know that video games aren’t just for fun?  They’re educational too.  If you’ve ever played a video game just for fun you may not have realized that you are learning too.  Just because something is fun does not mean that it doesn’t have educational value as well.

    It’s always good to have fun when learning.  Even studies show that kids learn better when they have less work and more fun time (Freeman).  There is strategy involved in most  video games.  You even need strategy in pacman which is one of the first video games ever made.  You could possibly even learn some math along the way.  For example:  say you’re playing Mario Kart and you get 15  points for first place  and you get 1st this race.  Now second gets 12 points and on the second race you get 2nd, but the person who got 2nd the last race gets 1st this race.  Now the question is are you still in first or not, the answer to the question is no, you are tied.  There is so much you can learn and discover.

    You don’t always realize that you’re learning, especially when you are having fun.  Of course sometimes it happens that you never find out that you are learning anything until you use that skill.  I am not saying to skip school and play Super Mario Bros (Trust me don’t do it you always get caught).  Some games involve so much thinking people get frustrated.  It could be good to do trial and error and trial and error falls into the category of problem solving and determination.  For example: in Super Mario Bros. you only get a certain amount of lives before you restart.  So you need to get past a bad guy and so you try one strategy and it doesn’t work and then you try another way but it doesn’t work and the process continues until you succeed, that’s trial and error.  You have to keep going until you get past it and then you can move on but if you just like go for it that will not work as well as you may think.

    There have been studies on this topic before (Gibson) but the results confirm that the position that I have taken: video games provide educational benefits.  All video games do have something educational in them infact there games that are entirely based around kids learning things.  Why do you think that there are websites like “cool math-games.com” and “moby max.com” and there are many more that I would not be able to list them all.   A lot of games are based for fun but there are not just two types of games.  There are multiple types such as: Role play games that involve you playing your part in the game to either save the world or you might be trying to destroy it. Sandbox games are where you’re free to roam around and build and destroy whatever you want.  Finally structured games are where you have a certain goal and you must get to that goal and do it to win the game.  Each of these games has educational value in them some the same way and others different.  The role play games have the strategic way of doing things because the player has to think how to reach the goal they have been given while staying in character also they might need to think about whether or not to fight or to go around the fight. These skills require good Judgement skills so you can see if you need to fight or not.   Sandbox games are a little bit harder to see how they have educational value but there are some ways such as what people build in the game because in games like “Minecraft.net” there is a kind of wiring system that can make big contraptions and you can learn how wires and doors work and everything like that.  Now finally structured  games like “Super Mario Bros” have a certain purpose and that purpose may include finding the shortcuts and more strategic ways such as how do I get past this enemy/bad guy or how would I get around this gap or something similar to that.

    All games have something that has to do with educational value.  I know a lot of people don’t believe it but it is true.  Sometimes games might not have even been meant to have educational value.  You can learn so much from video games like:  strategy, math, trial and error, problem solving, and determination.  You can even socialize a little bit on servers and stuff but you have to not give people your contact. You can chat them but don’t give out phone numbers or where you live.  

   

Work Cited

Freeman, Suzanne. "Ready, Set, PLAY!" Ready, Set, PLAY! | Scholastic.com. Scholastic, 10 Oct. 2006. Web. 29 Mar. 2017.

Gibson, Jayel. "Are Video Games Educational?" Education.com. Education.com, 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed and don’t forget to give me your feedback thanks and bye.