The Oregon Trail

THE OREGON TRAIL

The Oregon Trail and I have a long story. Since I was in elementary school we played The Oregon Trail and we learned about American History, new vocabulary, and how people used to live on those days.

By playing this game, we learned about decision making, although at that age I did not acknowledge it. I just played for fun, and to win. We made it a competitive environment and we learned from our mistakes. 

In addition since, my school is Colegio Americano, we learned about the American Culture, and the history was involved in it.

Of course, nowadays after playing it, I find the graphics really old fashioned, but the sentiment I have towards it, is linked to the memories of my childhood, hence I still like it!!

Playing Zork

Playing Zork

I started playing Zork, and I felt frustrated. I did not know what to do, how to play it or which commands to use. The instructions were not that clear, and since the commands saved in the game were not that broad, it made it difficult to write the proper commands.

I tried to advance as much as I could but my lack of patience made me drop the game. The teacher made me realize people in the past played like this, and they had to communicate to learn how to  play the game.

Juegos de simulaciòn 1

Juegos de simulaciòn 1

I just finished playing with Sim CIty Flash. I really liked it a lot. It was awesome to créate and build my own city.I felt like the president or mayor of the city. I needed to know what were my people`s needs and give them to them.

However, the instructions were not that clear for me, I had to play around to understand the game, even after Reading the instructions twice.

I am going to advice the business teachers to use this game for their class.

Juegos de Acciòn

Juegos de Acción

As I played both of them, I could spot several differences such as in graphics, scenarios, music and aim.

Playing through the computer, was difficult, I am not used to it anymore. My time reaction was extremely poor, and I failed severa times. I am used now in using a console and playing with remote controls.

Even though Glaga is the old game, it was really difficult for me because the spaceships attacked me in a high speed way haha

GAMELAB

MY REFLECTION ON PAUL ANDERSON`S TED TALK ON VIDEO GAMES

Nowadays is really hard to include games in the classroom. I am an IB teacher for Literature and Theory of Knowledge, and we have a huge syllabus to cover in two years, and it seems impossible to include games in the classroom. I am not saying they are bad, I actually love and enjoy playing games, but with books, and making students read a book it seems a difficult task to accomplish through games.
I do believe the grade is of uttmost importance to the kids and parents nowadays, and since the educational system requires a grade, that is an issue that is not going to change. The educational systems are doomed to fail since everything revolves around a simple grade. This can be a harmful issue for students`self esteem. We need to ,of course,include gaming in the clases, but some other policies need to change like including  an specific criteria on games, to motivate students and kids to use and play them.
 Everybody enjoys games, even us, who are currently going through our masters degree. We need to maje changes in some policies like giving less teaching hours to the teachers, so we can have more time to plan and créate games. The same goes to the criterion, we now have a grade for individul and group works, homework and quizzes, but what about a gaming criteria??

Just a thought...

la comprensiòn de juegos

Understanding Games

1. The rules should be clear for all players. Instructions should be clear and explain the aim of the game.  
2.   Interactivity, a gamer       
3. Uncertainty of who is going to win, to build up expectation.
4. simulation of real life event `ping pong
5.  More relalistic images create   bigger excitement to the gamer.
6. Rules and representations are related
7. Principle of variation used to simulate sport games.

 

Reflexiòn de Gráficos de películas y videojuegos

I watched the video and it made me reminisce about the good old times in gaming. Since I studied in Colegio Americano, the American Culture was involved in all the subjects, and that included the Computer class. In my case, this class was my favorite, since I love computers and gaming.

Some of the videos I recognize were: Streetfighter, Mario Kart, Pong, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Pacman, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, and New Mario Bros. Since early childhood in our Computer classes, whenever we finished early we had time to play this games. Of course, I have seen how video games have develop through the years. Starting with the games played in computers, which were made of black and white graphics, going to our first console which was the Atari, Me and my brothers played the space games and loved how we could get to fight and explode asteroids. Right now I am still playing with mt husband and 7 year old son Mario Bros.

If I had to choose my favorites I would still choose Mario Bros. I have played it since I was 10. I love all the characters and the story and the fight against Koopa. Whenever I pass to a next level I felt I had accomplish something in my life. Although I hae never finish the game and that is my frustration. Right now I have "motivated" my son into liking Marios Bros, and he is now my partner in crime, We are currently going through the last level, level 8, it has been an odissey, but it will be awesome to achieve this with my son.