reflect on what you learned from the activities

This week my grp played Trauma Center on Wii and (attempted) some flash games in station 3.

Trauma Center was fun, but wish we mastered it earlier so we can move on! anyway, I belatedly realized (after observing another grp) that we could have collaborated further by getting all 4 members involved! But i suppose we were 'by the book' and followed instructions (i.e. one on right hand, the other left). Or we are just not creative enough ;)
The next station was a little frustrating because the games we picked either had to be downloaded, came with a worksheet (!!), or didn't make much sense to us. After the initial tries, we opened a few games in separate tabs, and ended up with a Forensics game, and one about Conquests. We ended up not achieving much since we could not figure out how to advance for the second game (we only got to far as sending our army to invade another country, but couldn't figure out if we won or lost!, and didn't download the accompanying worksheet for the first.

I think game-based learning can be beneficial provided students can see the link between the games and their curriculum content. Will definitely have to scout around for games relevant for History (fellow HY teachers, we can look forward to one which will be released in a year's time!) if I were to incorporate games in my lessons. But for now, I will probably leave it to teach values to students. Highlight how losing should motivate them to try harder instead of giving up, etc.

The report regarding the use of games in learning is an interesting read reinforced what we learnt in class. It looks at incorporating computer and video games more commonly associated for entertainment and recreation (as opposed to games created for learning in lessons as highlighted in the article highlighted by Dr. Tan).
As Dr. Tan mentioned during the debrief, the report highlights the pertinent need to highlight the link(s) between the games, lessons learnt, and its application to the students' daily lives. One way to do this would be to get students to share their experiences after playing the games, and pick out learning points which are applicable to the real-world.
As we all know, there are always two sides to a coin. While I found the idea that games affect students' thinking most compelling in advocating for the use of games in classrooms, I realize that the subtle messages that students get from games (and generally the media) may be negative ones. Hence it becomes imperative to teach them to be critical thinkers and one way to do this would be to get them to articulate what they see/notice in the games, and question how are those issues/portrayals applicable to the world around them.