However, schools can ill afford technotainment activities during a time of tough new standards and tests. We might define technotainment as technology activities heavily laced with entertainment but essentially lacking in rigor or value. Technotainment often stresses technology for technology’s sake without enhancing student reading, writing and reasoning skills.

Educational games are not that rear to people. When you were first learning to use the keyboard to type, you must have played with the games like “hitting the bricks”. You have to press certain key to hit the brick with letter on it. I do have great confidence in the development of educational games. They have so many benefits: learners can greatly engage in it for long hours without feeling bored or tired, they can develop their critical thinking while solving problems in the games, learners can also practice what they learned in an more interesting way. And currently there are so many colleges and educators are developing and researching on this subject. When I was searching for IT programs in different universities, I found that there are so many teachers with this subject as an emphasis. So edutainment and educational games will be developing and advancing in a good way.

But I have one tiny concern. I played games a lot and did not have that much self control as a small kid. Sometimes the game is so interesting I can not get out of it and play it all day and night until my parents pulled me out of that. So if the educational game was developed so interesting, how can teachers be sure that students are not addictive to it and have time to do some other assignments?

I believe a major drawback to having too much “game time” in the classroom is that the student’s reading and writing skills will suffer. Research states that people have a tendency to read less if they must read from computer screens and not books. Too much reading from a screen has a tendency to tire one’s eyes and cause restlessness. Aside from these drawbacks, I think it would still be a great idea to incorporate some gaming in the educational setting and that there would be a large market for these types of software once educational administrators catch on.

In the classroom it can be a fantastic way to engage students, and it’s definitely more exciting than the normal lecture. While we won’t see educational games of high quality on the Xbox 360 any time soon, the PC in the classroom combined with an interactive white board can do the job if the teacher is creative and confident. Confidence is the biggest factor, teachers need to be trained and have the skills to work with the technology in their classroom. Children will be bored quickly waiting on the teacher to troubleshoot a problem, or call the helpdesk to get it fixed.

The problem now is getting the teacher to buy into the process. I think the best way this could possibly be done is for professional development for teachers to include gaming. It could be a simple Jeopardy game to quiz them on Depth of Knowledge, but we should be teaching them using the same tools that they will be using in the classroom so that they can see how it can improve learning, and so that they can become more comfortable with it.

I actually did a test on whether technology does improve learning, and I can say it does. I gave my students a test and reviewed them the traditional way (study guide); my class average on that test was 75%. On the second test review I incorporated Jeopardy into my lesson using the smart board, and my class average on that test was 82%. Games increase learning regardless of whether or not they are used with an electronic device. I turned my dry erase board into a game board for my students. I believe games increase learning tremendously. When my students don’t understand something, the first thing they say is, “Let’s play Jeopardy!” When I create my Jeopardy game, I try to cover all levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, which can be very difficult at times, but it is worth the challenge. Learning takes place with video games; I encourage schools to embrace video games. I teach typing and as reinforcement I let the students play this typing game called Micro type Pro which helps students build speed and accuracy. After students completed keyboarding, I noticed in my other classes students will ask to get on Micro type Pro. This software still has the attention of my students after they have completed the class; this is just another example how technology helps the learner.