Video games produce mixed report card for students’ classroom skills

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — He’s only 9, so Michael Kelly’s analysis of what video games are doing to kids’ schooling is more instinct than all the new academic talk out there.

“Picture that I’m Mario,” he begins.

After some hand-on-chin pondering, the third-grader is shaping an idea how all those hours he spends leaping walls, escaping lava and rescuing princesses as Super Mario just might be making him a better student.

“And picture that paper over there as the bad guy.” He nods at an assignment on his desk at the Derrick Thomas Academy charter school in Kansas City.

“I do the work,” he says. “I jump on that paper — and jump on it and jump on it.”

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but a growing sentiment among many educators and psychologists suggests that all the shooting, blasting and racing may be spawning more adventurous, risk-taking thinkers.

That is, if we don’t get carried away. Even those researchers friendly to video games warn: Too much is still too much.

The beauty of video gaming is that children understand that “failure is a normal part of the learning process,” said Dan Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?”

“Learning is the product of work, trial and persistence,” he said.

Children who otherwise wouldn’t be caught speaking a wrong answer in class willingly die a dozen times in the game world — in front of friends — in pursuit of the next level.

Michael’s teacher, Cassie Krause, knows by their lunchroom talk which of her students play video games, and many of them are her most outgoing in class.

“They’ll answer a question,” she said, “and if it’s wrong, their hand is back up, trying to figure out the answer.”

It’s doubtful that American children are playing video games to build classroom courage, but whatever their motivation, they are playing more.

Among children 8 to 18 who play video games, the average playing time is two hours a day, according to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation survey of about 2,000 households. That’s up from one hour 34 minutes in 2004, and one hour five minutes in 1999.

The percentage of children playing also has risen — now at 60 percent, up from 38 percent in 1999. And many play seven days a week.

The time spent at video gaming, while possibly building some long-term strengths, will still probably rob from homework, reading and healthy outdoor play in the short term.

A study published in 2010 in Psychological Science, a journal for the Association for Psychological Science, arrived at some predictable, discouraging conclusions.

Researchers recruited families that were considering buying video game systems. They gave some of the families a game system immediately, then promised to give game systems to the other families after the four-month study.

After the four months, the boys in families that immediately received a game system on average scored significantly lower on reading and writing tests than the boys who had to wait. Teachers reported more concerns about class work with the boys who had gotten games.

And so the dance goes on as educators struggle to make allies of video games, said Marie Alcock, president of Learning Systems Associates, a consulting firm in Lincoln Park, N.J., that works with schools.

One approach is to look for benefits in some of the popular games as they are, she said.

The other challenge absorbing noble-minded game makers for years is to develop engaging games of academic content to compete with “Grand Theft Auto” — a quest that has mostly failed so far.

With care, though, parents and students can put many popular games to good use, Alcock said. Many games do include intense reading material that children will be highly motivated to read. Role-playing games can put teens to work creating teams or planning and building cities.

Even first-person shooter games, when they involve coordinated missions with others, especially online, can replicate team-building exercises.

“You’re not just melting the brain the way my parents described it to me,” Alcock said. “You can find games that are going to absolutely help in school.”

As children become teenagers, the pros and cons of video gaming multiply.

Holli Goodrich likes some of the attitudes she believes games have instilled in her ninth-graders at Hickman Mills Junior High School in Kansas City.

But it’s also harder to keep many of them on their tasks.

Her eyes surveyed the room on a recent school day, watching her students’ computer screens in her Project Lead the Way engineering design class. She had algebra worksheets standing by for any student who didn’t heed warnings to stay off game sites.

“Somebody’s probably texting,” she said, only half-joking.

They’ve grown up with cell phones and games in their pockets.

“They have so many distractions,” Goodrich said. “It’s a constant battle.”

Most of them, though, say they are finding a workable balance between media and all the things they are supposed to be doing, and Goodrich agrees.

“Good students are still going to be good students,” she said.

Devin Tiebout, 15, is maintaining his honor-student grades.

Brett Briscoe, 15, keeps up with his sports and school.

And Le’Nesha Stallings, 16, insists homework comes first.

You can’t expect them not to play, Devin said.

“Mass media is hot,” he said.

Devin was 8 when a cousin introduced him to “Pokemon.” He drew his handheld player from his pocket and pulled out the game chip to show he’s still captivated.

“It got me into ‘Pokemon’ seriously,” he said.

His latest craze is the “MySims” franchise of games. He sometimes spends hours at a time building cities.

His dad, Eugene Tiebout, said he’ll sometimes shut the games down, but he’s also impressed by what he sees.

“He’s talking about taxes, zoning and permitting — he knows more about how cities work than most people working for the city,” Tiebout said. “He just works at it until he gets it.”

The students in Goodrich’s class know it can go too far.

Jackie Lowery, 14, has felt the consequences of his Xbox 360 gaming console, he said.

He bought it last year with money he earned shoveling snow. It was his. He believed he deserved to play whenever he wanted, however much he wanted.

His grades have fallen, he said, and he’s working to get things back in balance.

“That ‘Grand Theft Auto’ was too attractive,” he said. “I played hours and hours.”

Goodrich knows her students seem to have shorter attention spans than those she taught a generation ago. They’re often more impatient.

But she also knows this: Give them a new computer program to learn, and they dive in, exploring on their own. “Some of them will be three steps ahead of me,” she said.

Not so for most teachers. When she does some computer training with staff, “they will wait for me to do it, screen by screen.”

For these students, she said, “that fear over how to figure something out? It’s gone.”

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(c) 2011, The Kansas City Star.

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3D: A Cinematic Revolution

For years 3D cinema has amazed audiences, and this excitement is stronger than ever with the recent release of the Academy Award-winning movie “Avatar,” directed by James Cameron. 3D is now sweeping the theater more than ever because of the hype of “Avatar,” and more movies are scheduled to come out in hopes of achieving the film’s acclaim. 3D is going to remain in the movie theater, for the time being, but soon, 3D will move into the family living room.

Recently, television production companies have invested a massive amount of money in the creation of full high definition 3D. The juggernaut of the 3D TVs seems to be Panasonic’s line of HD 3D televisions. After winning CNET’s (Computer Network) “Best of CES,” (the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow) “Best in Show,” and “Best Television” at CES 2010, Panasonic seems to be at the cutting edge of the 3D technology, and Panasonic released the line of 3D televisions March 10 at local Best Buys for the sum of $2,000. This price may be exorbitant, but it includes the necessary Blu-Ray player, 3D glasses, and the 50-inch TV.

We see 3D when images from the left eye and the right eye are fused into one; to create the 3D effect in High Definition, the TV needs to be refreshed 120 times a second. The majority of TVs are able to refresh at this rate, but they would require a converter chip to differentiate between images intended for left and right eye. However, the television is not the only part of the combination doing the dirty work. The 3D glasses block one eye at a time so the eye sees the frame meant for it. The glasses are LCD which will darken or lighten when the television tells them.

At the moment several television stations have announced plans to release 3D channels, including ESPN and The Discovery Channel. ESPN will be releasing its 3D channel in June showing the World Cup soccer match in full 3D.

3D is not limited only to television programs and movies. Soon, 3D is features will be added to several gaming systems. Microsoft and Sony have both announced that their consoles will be 3D capable, so one can plan on playing “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3″ in 3D.

Despite the great technological boundaries broken by 3D television sets, many people are still reluctant to change to 3D, and some worry about health issues related to 3D.

Marc Pesce, who developed virtual reality 3D games for Sega in the 90′s, spoke about the problems of 3D TVs.

“When the movie’s over, and you take your glasses off, your brain is still ignoring all those depth perception cues,” said Pesce. “It’ll come back to normal, eventually. Some people will snap right back, and in others, it might take a few hours. This doesn’t matter too much if you’re going to see a movie in the theater, though it could lead to a few accidents in the parking lot afterward, but it does matter hugely if it’s something you’ll be exposed to for hours a day, every day, via your television set.”

Analysts claim that 3D televisions will not become mainstream for another ten years, due to both the price and health concerns. Panasonic is hoping to have more than one million 3D capable television sets sold, but people still look at the price tag and wonder if it is worth pulling the credit card out of the wallet.

Television manufactures will still have to work on the safety issues on 3D. For the time being, 3D will be an expensive luxury that not many can afford or would be pressed enough to buy. Manufactures will hopefully be able to fix current health hazards, and in the near future, manufactures may be able to be rid of the 3D glasses. The 3D technology looks promising and may be in the majority of American homes in the next ten years.