How video games can level up the way

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How video games can level up the way
you learn 
https://t.me/resource_0
 
Ted Audio Collective I'm Elise Hugh, you're listening to Ted 
Talks daily. You probably know how hard it is to rest a young 
person away from their screens in order to focus on school. But 
video game expert Chris Alexander says, why not both? Why 
couldn't the augmented reality and virtual worlds we 
experience in most innovative video games be embedded in 
our education? It is 2023 talk from Ted at Destination Canada.
He shows us the possibility for learning that's already available 
if schools engage with it after a short break. A lot of the time 
the things that video games do are actually things we would 
love for education to do. When education does those things, 
we applaud it and we're so happy about it. But when video 
games do those things, we say, oh, that's all they want to do.
What a waste of time. But psychologically what's happening is 
the same. Find and follow rethinking without him cram 
wherever you're listening. When I was in senior year 
university, this was around 2004. I was in one of those classes 
where the teacher would read the slides word for word as part
of a three hour lecture. Oh, oh, y'all know what I'm talking 
about? Okay, cool. I ended up doing all right in the class by 
catering to my own learning style. After a little bit of 
experimentation, I found that playing a video game during this
lecture, a game like Tetris or in this particular case, Zelda the 
Minish Cap, helped me pay attention because the primary way 
I engage with information is by listening. This meant that the 
teacher's voice with matching text were a distraction for me.
Anyway, I was at the back listening and participating mind you.
But one day this teacher decided to call me out. He stopped the 
class and said, excuse me. Are you playing video games in my 
class? And then I said, I am, sir, but this is the way that I learn.

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And then he said, there's no way that you're learning anything.
And then I said, sir, I'm not interrupting. I am learning and I'm 
even participating. And then he said, no, I don't want you 
playing video games in my class. And then I said, sir, and then 
I said, sir, I'm going to place this game with events on the table.
Repeat your last two sentences word for word. And then I'm 
going to pick up this game with events and keep playing. And 
then he said, I don't think you can do that. And then the class 
went, ooh. Are you can picture that? All right. So I placed my 
game boy events on the table. I looked him right in his eye, 
repeated his last two sentences word for word. And then I 
picked up my game boy events and kept playing. And then he 
said, all right, carry on. So since that day, I've become a 
professor myself, a video game design. And I'm convinced that 
there's absolutely something that video games can teach the 
world of academia, like how they can cater to human learning, 
how they can enhance online instruction, and how they can 
provide clear objectives. Let me explain. Humans can take an 
information in three core ways, audio, text, and video. Now, as 
I demonstrated earlier, I'm an oral learner, which means I 
prefer to take an information via sound. And some studies 
show that when two or more of these channels are used, 
learning games are higher. But there's a catch. Now I was 
struggling to pay attention in this class because of something 
called cognitive overload, which can happen when audio, text, 
and video aren't different enough when you use together. So 
when the audio of my teacher matched the excessive text on his 
slides, my brain was overloaded. Teachers who use technology 
in the classroom need to ensure that each channel is 
complimentary. Otherwise, students are going to have 
difficulty transferring information from working memory to 
long-term memory. Now, I fixed the problem for myself by 
essentially using the teacher's voice as the soundtrack for the 
game I was playing. And this brings me to my first point, video 
games by design, a complex blend of audio, text, video, and 

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interactivity that can intensify a focus. That was a point on my 
PhD. And because of their enjoyment factor, these components 
of video games can help with something our students 
desperately need in the classroom, motivation. Now at their 
best, video games can immerse us, focus our attention, and 
provide clear objectives with demonstrated output. You know 
how well you're doing every step of the way. And video games 
can teach multiple things simultaneously. Like there's this 
class I teach. Video games design. Where I like to use a video 
game called Virginia. Now, in Virginia, you play as Anne 
Tarver, a newly hired FBI agent who is tasked with internally
investigating someone who just happens to be the only other 
female agent in the precinct and this game is based on a true 
story. Now on the surface, I'm using Virginia to teach game 
design. But I'm also using the mechanics of video games to 
trick students into exploring complex concepts like history, 
sexism, racism, corporate culture, and tokenism while we play 
this game together. To me, effective instruction merges theory 
and practice. Each week in this class, I like to pick a unique 
video game that matches the game theory and sprinkles in a 
couple of life takeaways. We play the game together and talk 
about it. And then the students have to go and make video 
games themselves. And this all happens. Wait for it. Online.
Guess what? COVID forced everyone to join me teaching 
online and most schools struggled. But there are many 
examples of effective online instruction in unlikely places like 
YouTube streams, Netflix programming, and, believe it or not, 
Amazon's Twitch. Now, as you probably know, Twitch is an 
online streaming platform where people can watch other 
people play video games. But it can also be used to learn how 
to paint with Ergo Josh. Learn how to play piano with Juan 
Orpiano. Learn how to code with Rosio Tomé and even how to 
cook meals with Yarrumi-chan. Uh-huh. Yeah, real. And 
Twitch had an average of 2.78 million concurrent viewers in 
2021. Now, that's a lot of motivated learners if you actually 

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think about it. One of my favorite classes to teach online is a 
class called eSports Broadcasting, where I'm essentially just 
using video games to teach students how to professionally 
present themselves online using a free piece of software called 
Open Broadcaster Software or OBS. Here I teach them how to 
connect any available camera to the software. Add white 
balance and color correction to help that image pop use on-
screen text to complement the video and compress any 
available microphone to make it sound and look exactly like 
what they're accustomed to consuming online. And the same 
processes that hook viewers on Twitch are the same processes 
school should use to learn how to engage students online and 
globally. That should be one of their objectives, shouldn't it?
Hold on. What are the objectives of a post-secondary education 
anyway? And what could education overall learn from video 
games, which clearly say, start here, do these things, and then 
obtain these things? Now, if the goal of a post-secondary 
education includes students getting a job in the same thing 
they went to school for, guess what? Schools are failing. More 
than half of graduates do not get jobs in their field of study.
That would be like enrolling in shift training and then 
graduating to start a job in data analytics. Why not just 
enrolling data analytics? You could. Grow with Google has an 
online program promising you a job in data analytics starting 
at $74,000 a year and that program is free to start. Epic Games 
offers a pathway to become a developer with its Unreal Engine 
for interactive 3D development, a field that they say has gone 
up, 601% and is paying people 57% more than the average
salary. For clarity, their Unreal Engine is the same tool used to 
build Fortnite and the same tool used to build some of the 
backgrounds behind the Mandalorian at no cost to use. Are you 
all hearing all these near free, no fee examples I'm giving you?
University in particular is mad expensive. The cost of 
university has gone up. 1200% since 1980. To me, there's not 
a single job trade or discipline that doesn't in some way connect 

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to the video games industry. There are dentists like Dr. 
Auguste Olevera who are using augmented reality to see the
roots of your teeth while working on your teeth. Psychologists 
are using virtual reality to help you overcome a fear of spiders 
and broadcast technicians responsible for filming a dragon 
flying over a live stadium full of people as part of a League of 
Legends eSports broadcast. Video game technologies are 
embedded in all of these and that must mean that the video
games industry is not just made of players, but made of you.
Now, I'm not suggesting that video games replace classroom 
instruction, settle down internet. I'm advocating for the 
components of video games, especially the engaging ones, to be
ported into classroom instruction because the audience, the 
students, clearly understand the media. There are roughly 3 
billion video game players worldwide. Video games contain the 
blueprint for engaging education because of the way they cater 
to human learning. A complex story, interwoven with learning 
content, and a bit of artificial intelligence for difficulty and 
balance. Online instruction can be enhanced if schools turn to 
top streaming platforms and streamers to learn how to 
effectively engage students online. And the objectives for 
education overall need to be as specific as a video game so that
those who are enrolled have a clear line of sight to where they're 
headed. If we can start showing students how their passion for 
playing connects to their futures, we will have done our jobs.
And next generation of teachers are those who can connect the 
path of study to profession via passion. Oh, and one last thing 
about the playing of video games. There's a 2022 study 
suggesting that the playing of video games is associated with 
heightened cognition, faster reaction times, improved working 
memory, and modifying the cortical networks associated with 
the process of playing. And that is what I should have sent to 
that teacher.