Assignment # 5

EXERCISE

Microsoft believes that video games can make science and mathematics attractive to middle school students, and yesterday it took a step toward developing the games that could make it happen. Chief research and strategy office Craig Mundie announced yesterday a $ 1.5 million grant from Microsoft to the games for learning institute, a figure that New York University and seven partner schools plan to match. The money will be used for research to investigate which elements of the video-game experience are grabbing and addictive in an effort to develop educational games that could copy those techniques. Ken Perlin is a professor of computer science at NYU and director of the NYU Media Research Laboratory. He and other NYU researchers hope to create game technologies that could be used to enhance science and math education at the middle school level, the time that many students lose interest in those subjects.

Jan Plass, an associate professor of educational communication and technology at NYU and one of the team members researching the subject, told PM that the question of whether games can help kids learn has been settled-they can. But he said no one has done rigorous studies to find out which aspects of gaming will work for learning. “whatever can make an environment engaging is what we want”, he said, but it will take a lot of research to find out how much of that engagement comes from visuals, challenges, or those great little hints games give that are “ just enough to get you curious.” Plass mentioned the immersion of games like World of Warcraft as an example of a game where players have to learn a lot about their environment in a very short time in order to succeed. But he also looks at relatively simpler games like Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS wherein the villagers ask the protagonist to solve puzzles. “I’m not a puzzle guy, but I played that to the end”, he said. Even first person shooters like Halo, Plass said, force players to solve puzzles and meet challenges, which could be cornerstones of an educational game. But, he said “we probably won’t implement that dying part” for students who get something wrong.

• Fill in the chart with 5 derived Word from the text.

• Place the following noun groups in the corresponding column and translate them.
  

1) Middle school students.

Estudiantes de la escuela media.

2) An associate professor of educational communication and technology.

Un profesor asociado a la comunicación y tecnología educacional.

3) Rigorous studies.

Estudiantes rigurosos.

4) An example of a game where players have o learn a lot.

Un ejemplo de un juego donde los jugadores aprenden mucho.

5) Cornerstones of an educational game.

La esquina educacional del juego.

• Describe the 7 underlined verb in terms of form and function.

• What is the text about?

El texto trata de que Microsoft cree que los video juego pueden hacer las ciencias y matemáticas mas interesantes para los estudiantes de escuela media y para comprobar esto están aportando una cantidad de dinero para realizar investigaciones que confirmen lo que creen. Para ello cuentan con una serie de profesionales que se basaran en ciertos argumentos para su investigación.