Games Can Make the World Better

 http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
    
        After watching the TED Talk with Jane McGonigal, I am truly in awe about the suggestions she made in regard to gaming. McGonigal suggested that games can be used to solve real world problems. I believe she is correct. People spend hours upon hours immersed in online gaming worlds. The gaming worlds are popular because of how they make gamers feel. They feel needed because they are trusted with an important task, they are collaborating with others in a social network, and they are a part of an inspiring story. The self-gratification from a video game, is not always as easy in real life. The gamers are completing hard and meaningful work and that serves as part of their motivation to win the game. Most gamers strive to succeed at the EPIC WIN, which they may not always experience in real life.
        I believe the concept of gaming and how it affects a person can be related to education and learning. If as educators, we make learning into a game, our students can experience these "gaming concepts" as they engage in meaningful learning experiences. Integrating gaming into the learning environment, can change how students view their capabilities. It will make learning new skills more interesting, and therefore students will take responsibility for their own achievements.
        McGonigal discussed that people will spend roughly 10,000 hours playing video games by the time they are 21 years old. She also stated that students spend roughly 10,080 hours at school between 5th and 12th grade. Malcolm Gladwell suggests that if you spend 10,000 hours working at something, you will become as high of an achiever as the best people in the world. I think there is a direct parallel between this statement for both gaming and education. We already know that gaming is self-satisfying and we know why, maybe we should dig deeper in the education system and see what we can do to make education just as self-satisfying, so that our students can not only be good gamers, but be good problem solvers in real-life too!