Week 7: Motivation

The articles this week were interesting for several reasons.  The first article, written clear back in 1981 is quite dated, but I was amazed at how people were already talking about how games can affect learning.  When I realized the author was talking about games such as "bricks", "pong", and "space invaders" I laughed out loud.  Games have come so far since then but I'm not sure the educational component has gone anywhere.  We now have games where the players can just about live their entire life in a virtual world (Second Life for example), working, going to parties, meeting people, and many other things.  There are games now that are so photo-realistic that you have to put them up to a real video to compare them (NBA Basketball). 

Learning really hasn't changed in my eyes.  Motivation has always been crucial from my point of view.  I had several college professors that spent a lot of time discussing intrinsic motivation and how to encourage it with students.   Ever since then, I have always tried to be aware of how the lesson is or isn't personally motivating for the students.  I think instructor have a responsiblity to help students me driven to learn and advance.