14 DAY TRIAL // If moving to Dundee, Scotland, was not on your priority list, things could change starting now. If you are a gamer, that is. And still in school. Because a really interesting project started by Learning and Teaching Scotland took place for 10 weeks and proved that video games are far from being a mindless waste of time.
One lucky class from St Columba's primary school spent the first 20 minutes of their school day playing "brain training" games on Nintendo DS consoles. The reason was simple: LTS wanted to see if these games really do what they promises and they were quite surprised. The performance of the class, compared with another which was taught normally, was way better, with teachers reporting better math scores, improved behavior and cooperation from the pupils and a greater focus on the work.
Quoted by BBC, Derek Robertson, the man behind the Dundee pilot said: "We need to look at the educational experience of learners who are coming from a digital age, who have a cultural value of technology, of games. It's important that school reflects this as well and that teachers can use this innovatively and effectively to engage those who may be disaffected."
However, the results of this project was, of course, met with a lot of skepticism from different teachers. They believe that it's not the brain training game that influences the pupils' performance, but the "practice effect" - they got better just because they repeated the same tasks regularly.
Still, Her Majesty's Inspectors of Education wants further tests to be made, so a project including 16 primary schools in Scotland is on the way and if results similar to the ones recorded from St Columba will be scientifically proved... we might see game-playing classes in schools, in the future. We will keep you updated on the matter.