Interactive+Games

=﻿Interactive Games  = ==Children learn by being actively involved, and games are a perfect way to engage elementary students in educational tasks. Not only do games require active participation, but they also focus attention on the academic skills being taught and offer such rewards as advancing in new levels, earning points, or other teacher-designated rewards. It may appear that using games in the classroom is simply a way to let kids play instead of attending to important academic tasks, but children learn more when they find the task enjoyable (Richford Par 1). ==  An interactive game is a game in which kids are interacting with something, whether it be a computer or other students in the classroom.
 * What is an interactive game? **

What are the benefits of interactive games for the students?
The use of games for children are a great way to improve a great number of mental and physical skills, and often bring with them a lot of significant benefits. Games have a far greater educational influence than most people are aware of.


 * **Sensory Perception-** Games have a great impact on sensory perception at a number of different levels. A person's senses are stimulated so the person can recognize and respond to all the things going on around them. With practice, the clumsy awkward body becomes agile and expert; a child who tumbles down today won't tumble down next week.


 * **Social Development-** Games also create a great deal of social development. Many kids, because of problems at home, shyness or physical disibilitys find it hard to react with others. Many developmental studies show that children that are normally withdrawn for whatever reasons, have shown a lot of improvement in their ability to cooperate with playmates, and have even increased their popularity among their playmates because of skills brought about by playing games.


 * **Self Control-** Games teach children to follow certain limits and levels of self-control. A child who has to take his turn will think more carefully about his turn. A game that requires taking turns is a great way to focus attention, since a player constantly has to readjust plans based on others' actions.

(Coats Par 1-5)
 * **Social Skills-** As children grow older, their play becomes more complicated, and requires increasingly more social skills. Games for children should have very few restrictions; but as players grow older, the games have more rules and regulations appear. These require even greater self-control. Rules like waiting one's turn, and not starting over the line in race until the signal is given require a lot of mental and physical control.
 * **Moral Reasoning-** When engaged in a game, the child has to learn that even in the emotional excitement of an intense game or close race, he or she has to observe rules and regulations; to choose between fair or unfair, and to act on those choices appropriately.

Benefits for the teachers
Every teacher teaches interactively in some way or another. If you are a teacher and you ask questions in class, assign and check homework, or hold class or group discussions, then you already teach interactively. Basically then, interactive teaching is just giving students something to do, getting back what they have done, and then assimilating it yourself, so that you can decide what would be best to do next. Without interacting with the students (in the simplest case by asking questions), a teacher has no way to know if his/her efforts to explain the topic were successful (Abrahamson Par 1,3). The main beneft for the teacher of interactive teaching is to make sure that the students are on the same page as you are, allowing you to decide if you need to go over the subject again or keep on the pace your on.

Interactive games that are available

 * ** ﻿Inside the Classroom **

The best interactive tool that is used in a classroom is the smartboard. The smartboard was invented in 1991 and was the first interactive whiteboard to provide touch control of computer applications and annotation over standard Microsoft Windows applications.

Below is a movie of a smartboard lesson used in a kindergarten setting.media type="youtube" key="88y9qCWo7wE" height="390" width="640"

Not only do kids learn from interactive games in the classroom but they also learn from playing interactive games at home. Below is a list of the top 20 interactive games for kids of all age.  (Buckleitner)
 * ** Outside the Classroom **
 * 1) Nintendo Wii
 * 2) Nintendo DS
 * 3) Tag Reading System
 * 4) EyeClops BioniCam
 * 5) Crammer
 * 6) Stylin' Studio
 * 7) Giggles: Google Funtime for Baby-Nursery Rhymes
 * 8) Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue and Great Dinosaur Rescue
 * 9) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">My Noggin
 * 10) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Club Penguin
 * 11) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Animal Crossing: City Folk
 * 12) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">LEGO Batman: The Video Game
 * 13) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
 * 14) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Order Up!
 * 15) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Backyard Sports Baseball
 * 16) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Hasbro Family Game Night
 * 17) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Pirates of the Caribbean Online
 * 18) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Spore
 * 19) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Ultimate Band, Wii Music and Rock Band 2
 * 20) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Starwars: The Force Unleashed

Below are a few links that will help you if you're ever trying to plan an interactive lesson
Smartboard Lessons [|Outdoor Lesson Plans]

Feedback: I appreciated the hyperlinks to lesson plans highlighting interavtice games.