Games Consoles

For a number of years I was not a fan of games consoles as being a casual gamer, I preferred the combatability of a PC and the graphics. I still prefer PC games over console games as they offer a variety of methods of entry. Games consoles require a controller where as a PC can use lots of methods of input. This could be the Kinect sensor or a joystick.

Games consoles do offer a variety of games for multiplayer or singleplayer and although they are convinient and quick to use, they are often unreliable. The majority of educational games are featured on a PC. The games can vary from basic click and look games to in more detail, physics games.

Educational games tend to be more on the basic side simply due to the fact they don't have the funding as mainstream game companies such as Bioware which is making millions on it's titles.

Debate

Today we debated whether video games in education should be used. All in all the team debating against video games won. We had a variety of points, such as games ebing violent, aggression, expensive and no creative development.

We discussed that technology today wasn't good enough to support the precise movements needed to develop fine motor skills in children in order to support the development of these skills in games.
Technology in each classroom would also be far too expensive for each school to have. It advances so quickly by the time something was bought, a new version would be released.

The debate went well, both teams made counter-arguments and made valid points. Cheeky research took place when Becta was mentioned. It turns out Becta was abolished in 2010 after the new government took office.

Games online

The Curfew -

I played The Curfew in our lecture today, a mystery game where by you have to discover peoples personalities and mini-puzzles.
The game was slow to start but eventually became more interesting.
It was a click and search type of game, which can be interesting but it doesn't really engage enough.

20th Jan

Last week our lecture for IT was cancelled, as there was a trip to BETT in London which was about technology in education. I didn't go as the initial price seemed to be too steep for a trip to London. I would have gone with friends seperate to the uni but noone wanted to come.

new year

Since september I haven't really had new technology, apart from getting kinect. the technology behind it is amazing, it picks up all your movements without any form of controller in your hand.