“GRAPHIC ADVENTURES: LEARNING CAN BE FUN” For the teachers’ learning magazine
When debating about education, it’s often claimed that ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) should be used to make lessons more attractive and, therefore, raise students’ motivation. However, when, as a teacher, I tried to put this into practice I found two different kinds of programs: the ones that are too based on academic aspects and forget the playful elements (which lead to students’ lack of interest) and the ones that don’t seem educational at all.
Luckily I discovered “graphic adventures”. They may be defined as computer games in which students control a character who has to accomplish a mission by talking to people, collecting objects and solving puzzles or, in this case, maths and Spanish tasks.
The first and most obvious advantage of graphic adventures is that children are consolidating what they have previously learnt in an enjoyable and unconscious way, since they have to answer the exercises correctly in order to advance through the different game levels.
A further advantage is that pupils get used to predicting what is going to happen in the different game situations, especially when talking to the different characters. Although it may seem trivial, this feature can make the difference when dealing with students with Asperger syndrome or a similar disorder.
As a conclusion, I strongly recommend the use of graphic adventures for educational purposes as well as encourage the different publishers to continue developing this kind of programs. (D.T)
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