Information and communication technologies: an examination of pedagogical practices in the context of video game learning

Substantial investment has been made by the institution of education in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the belief that skills in ICT are critical tools for the work force of the future. Video games are an important part of this new field and yet they seem overlooked by current pedagogy in the classroom. In order to build a case for inclusion of video games in achieving core curriculum outcomes in the classroom, current traditional pedagogical practices of teachers are compared in the classroom and the computer lab. This is done to find out why video games are not used more often to achieve outcomes by teachers. The data in this qualitative case study consisted of interviews, a focus group discussion, and field observations made by myself. All discussions were transcribed and a thematic analysis was utilized to find common understandings from the transcripts. Final conclusions from the data analysis point to the reasons why video games are not used by the teachers in everyday classes. One major point was that teachers were trained in a rote learning environment which dictates they control all learning in the classroom. During the study when the teachers used the video game platform their pedagogy did not change to adapt to the different learning environment presented by having the video game in control of the lesson. This point and others revealed in the study show how teacher pedagogy must be flexible enough to adapt to new learning formats and more importantly the teachers must be conscious of their pedagogical practices to allow them to change from the conduit of knowledge to one of a facilitator.