When I first started my internship at 7 Generation Games, I had very little knowledge of the gamification of education. Thanks to the help of AnnMaria and Maria, the founders of our great start-up, I was able to learn more about making math and Native American history fun for the students who play our games.
For example, in our game Fish Lake, the user is tasked with canoeing to a location in order to gather wild rice. Although I consider myself an avid video gamer, it is quite difficult to avoid the rocks and obstacles the first few times your play the game. As soon as the player completes the challenge of canoeing down the river they are asked to answer a question about how many fish in the river that are over one foot long and to enter the answer in fraction from. As seen below in a screenshot from the game, the game occupies the user and ensures that the learning aspect is both fun and engaging.
As technology is advancing in the classroom, educational video games are becoming more popular as students are becoming more accustomed to gamification in nontraditional areas. From rewarding students for brushing their teeth to performing exercise, the there is some sense of “leveling up” in our lives. Our peers and mentors encourage us to continue progressing through life, gaining accomplishments and accolades along the way.
During my K-12 experience, a variety of my teachers used educational games as a tool to help us learn. These games allowed for me to explore my strengths (math) and encouraged me to focus on my weaknesses (reading comprehension) in a way that was much more exciting, and I feel as though I benefited greatly from having that experience.
Now that I have the opportunity to provide input on creating educational games for students, I am able to contribute my ideas to help create a great games that will help the next generation of students. Especially since the computers we use today are extremely advanced in comparison to the computers of my childhood, I’m excited to see what we can create.