Video games stimulate learning and creativity

During the evolution of the human being, the learning methods that he has been using, as well as the tools he uses to carry out this purpose.

These methodologies and tools have evolved at the same rate as humans have., going from having very archaic and questionable characteristics to being involved in technology and modernism, with its consequent complexity.

Learning and its evolution with the emergence of new technologies

We could say that until relatively recently, the only teaching method for infants and toddlers older age groups was the directive methodology taught in conventional schools that the entire world knows. In parallel, for several years, a much less directive and freer type of education based on the needs and preferences of each child is beginning to be normalized and established, in which experience prevails.

This type of education has both defenders and detractors. The latter allege that this type of education is neither serious nor productive since it is not given so much importance to purely academic and book learning, despite all the scientific research that supports this new methodology.

The fact that humanity has always feared the new is no mystery. This phenomenon of aversion to the new or resistance to change, in this case to learning with new technologies, produces strong debates for a long time until the new paradigm ends up being accepted, leaving behind a trail of polarized research and a feeling of obviousness in the face of the new paradigm. It is simply a cultural change that, sooner or later, will occur.

New tools for teaching and learning: video games

Currently, a strong debate is being generated in relation to a new paradigm that is being created and established little by little: the normalization of the use of new technologies from very early ages. This paradigm encompasses the entire phenomenon that is occurring in relation to the high "technologization" that society is experiencing in the most developed countries.

As in the case that we have previously commented on the new learning methodologies at school ages, now we are giving a similar situation but this time, in relation to the tools that are used to carry out the teaching or the learning. In this case we are talking about the use of video games as tools to carry out learning or to enhance it and that at present, is undergoing an increasingly wide debate within the discipline of psychology.

Technologies that have come to stay

Before making any act of judgment against the use of video games as a tool through which to learn, one should have seriously consider the context in which we find ourselves in the most developed countries and analyze the evolutionary process that humanity has followed, since electronic devices (like analogs did in their day) are part of the daily life of the new generations nicknamed "natives digital ".

These same generations grow up from almost the first moment surrounded by smartphones, tablets, consoles and a myriad of electronic devices that lay the foundations of its growth in the information age. So that, it could be almost absurd to try to look the other way and deny a natural evolutionary process, discrediting forms and ways of learning that can be much closer to young people in today's society and defending other methodologies and tools that they did their job well for years, but over the years they may be becoming obsolete as the subjects to whom they go do not feel identified with them. dedicated.

Video games are excellent creativity enhancers

For us, as a company specialized in the psychological analysis of video games and their therapeutic and educational use, one of the areas of learning that we give the most value to is that of creativity, since it is an area that allows to develop and promote autonomous learning.

Video games like the famous Minecraft become powerful tools to promote creativity since allow the player to enter a world where they can create highly complex architectural works At the same time they experience an adventure in which they have to survive from hordes of enemies and gather food.

The fact of combining construction with adventure becomes a way, for the player, to learn basic construction rules and architecture, in addition to allowing you to unleash all your creativity, which will enhance and polish as you spend more hours playing videogame. We could even say that Minecraft is a 3D creation tool under a gamified approach and dedicated to people without programming knowledge or 3D modeling; so it is an interesting and useful way to bring these possibilities closer to the youngest and learn by knowing and experimenting in a more playful way.

"Serious Games": video games made to teach

Other examples of videogames with great educational power are "Serious Games", which are explicitly developed to provide an educational experience in which to learn all kinds of things depending on their subject and that they become tools created with the clear intention of promoting autonomous learning in a playful way and adapted to the youth of the current era.

These and many more are some of the video games that are currently used in some classes around the world to teach academic content and also motivate the student to learn it in an innovative and fun. Society advances and with it technology, and change, inevitable, forces adaptation and brings with it new forms of learning, among many other things.