Using Games to Drive Engagement in the Classroom Serious games, gamification, and simulations BY JAMEY MCINTOSH can create learning opportunities and be used for job-specific training Iremember hearing years ago that the 21st century would bring flying cars, robots, and virtual reality of the Star Wars world. At the time, it seemed like the 21st century was far away. Now, we are more than a decade into it and technology has indeed advanced. We are challenged with how to use it to create engagement in education and provide today’s students with high-quality, job-specific training. Technology has many names and faces in education, but one way that it has risen to become a star is through games. Games often get a bad rap in education. They can be seen as a distraction or rudimentary. However, a new level of gaming exists that has shown great promise in education — “serious games” and “gamification.” These ideas offer new ways to use technology, engage the interest of the students — the gaming generation — and create new ways of teaching Career and Technical Education (CTE). CTE is the leading area of education that can support specific training for in-demand jobs and help create college- and career-ready students. Serious games are defined as those designed for a purpose other than pure entertainment. Used by industries like military, health care, emergency management, and engineering, serious games go hand in hand with another type of gaming focus: gamifi- 48 WELDING JOURNAL / APRIL 2015 Gamification can help learners grasp concepts more easily. Let’s Be Serious about Games
Welding Journal | April 2015
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