Week Eight: Activity One

The majority of young people who live in the Appalachian region mainly use digital technologies outside of school for gaming, social media, and sharing. Young people collaborate outside the walls of education and learn through games, friends, and social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These findings lead to implications that students like to collaborate with one another. They seek socialization, which is why it is important to incorporate group work into the school. Also, school needs technology that encourages and motivates students to learn. For example, my brother just started playing Civilizaiton and I'm amazed at the vocabulary and historical concepts that you learn from the game. Students learn about history as well as how countries grow and develop. It's intoxicating. I watched my brother continue to build his armies as his major activity in the game. This protected his city from invaders and allowed him to develop other aspects of his kingdom, such as technology or science. It's games like these that will help students learn without information being shoved into their brains. My brother hated school and dropped out of college after one semester; however, he loves video games and stays up until the wee hours of the morning playing games like Civilization. It is dumbfounding that he wouldn't learn history in school, but he'll play games for hours. Education has to change. It has to fit students' interests or else they won't be motivated or engaged to learn about the topics in school. Relevance is key to student education.