Puzzle Pirates: A Resource for the Classroom?

      For this assignment, my boyfriend and I ended up playing puzzle pirates. This is a computer game where you join a group of pirates. You then go around and solve puzzles in order to earn money to purchase items in the game. I chose this game because it was my boyfriend's first multiplayer game that he played as a child.  This game was a lot of fun, and even as an adult I enjoyed playing it. I could see elements of this game being helpful in the classroom. For instance, when playing the game you want to solve all of the puzzles so that you can earn the cash to buy things in the game. I could see this being useful because you could replace the puzzles with questions about the information you wanted the students to learn. You could also possibly replace the puzzles with different puzzles that would help the students learn mathematics.

     Gaming is effective in the classroom because it helps students learn not only the information they want to learn. It also helps them learn important life skills.  During game play, children learn the skill of cooperation. During video games you have a heightened sense of accomplishment.  You are asked to problem solve and work together. If you do this successfully, it leaves you feeling good. This can effect my future learning environment, because by playing these types of games in my classroom, my students could learn the importance of working together. This cooperative gaming could lead to them being better cooperative learners.  Once they successfully learn to work together in games they can learn how to work together in classrooms as well.
    I think gaming can be beneficial to learning environments. It teaches students life skills that they can use in their everyday life. It also can be altered to have actual in game learning abilities. I think cooperative games could add a fun learning resource in the classroom.