Using Computer Games In Learning

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Introduction

Children and game are always together. Educational games "are games designed with specific curriculum objectives in mind" (Royle, 2008)often games that have been used in education have been developed to support the practice of factual information. Educational game might be the most suitable game for the primary school children which bring knowledge to the children. Computer-based education games are the combination of education, entertainment and imitate the real-life environment.

Games and roleplaying were used in teaching and learning before computers were introduced to schools, so the shift to be now looking at the possible use of computer games is not such a great leap. Using play and games to learn, an established and common method, combined with new technologies can hopefully bring enhancements and more realism to game-based learning (Richard Walls, 2012).

Learning mathematics using technology will benefit the students and instructors tremendously. Students will be able to understand the topics easily and have the stand-by tutor available as long as they can use the computer (Chatterjee, 2008).

Games are used in the Numeracy Development Project (NDP), a teacher professional development program in mathematics. Teachers and parents agree that games help improve children’s knowledge. Students also find learning through playing games fun. However, many teachers are doubtful of how students learn mathematics through playing maths games and they want to be specific with the learning outcomes that could be obtained from games.

Shadow play characters one of traditional Malay theater arts such as wayang kulit Kelantan or puppet Kelantan in Malaysia remains one form of entertainment. Unfortunately, the shadow play puppet has lost it touch and has slowly begun to fade among society especially among children and teenagers in Malaysia. This study focused on using shadow play or Wayang Kulit Kelantan, one of four main forms of Wayang Kulit in Malaysia. Wayang Kulit Kelantan was known and enjoyed by Malays who lived in rural areas (Matusky, 1997). This study will use Shadow play (Wayang Kulit Kelantan) characters in Maths games as objects where the children when play these games they can get Knowledge about these traditional characters and keep this traditional characters in their minds.

Problem statement

Mathematics anxiety as an academic disease whose virus has not yet been diagnosed for an effective treatment in the class, though the symptoms of this anxiety are always expressed on the faces of the learners in Mathematics classes. This disease (otherwise known as pathological fear), is communicable as it is usually distributed to sciences that are Mathematics related (Yahya & Fasasi, 2012).

This probably explains why students are afraid to study science subjects in primary schools. When a student is afraid of Mathematics, he will do everything humanly possible to avoid it. Where he must learn the subject, he does so with lack of interest, which usually worsens his performance (Stephen, 2007).

In Malaysia same problem suffer students of primary school, so that this issue will effect on their understanding in math subject. According to the Official Portal of Malaysian Ministry of Education, there is no games on maths subject in education-primary school (level 1) standard 1,2 and 3. Primary School Standard Curriculum (KSSR) aims to develop students' understanding of the concept of numbers and basic computing skills (Malaysia, 2011) (Jasni, Zulikha, & Amran, 2012).

This claim is supported by (Zaini & Ahmad, 2010) study on students’ motivation towards learning mathematics. This study illustrated that, using the current L&T approaches, students score on motivation was low. One of the methods that can be solve this problem is use some game characters that make the children enjoy and fun with learning math subject, in Malaysia we can use Shadow play characters in maths games as objects.

In many traditional societies in Asia, storytelling shows have been used to promote reflection. These shows, including Wayang Kulit (a traditional form of Malaysian theater), are slowly disappearing because of a lack of interest from the younger generation. Here the researchers discuss their efforts to preserve Wayang Kulit with digital multimedia technologies (Sundaram, 2011).

Research Objectives

The main objective of the study is to develop mathematic game software (application) using shadow play characters. The three sub-objectives will be support the main objective are:

 

1)      To design the game software (application) for mathematic learning

2)      To develop the game software (application) prototype

3)      To access the prototype

Significance of the study

This study aims to imrove children skills level 1 in educational mathematics subject in Malaysia, throw including computer games in maths subject. As well as, the children how play this games will be know the tradition Shadow play characters (Wayang Kulit) and keep it in their minds.

Literature Review

Using Computer Games in Learning

The use of computer games in education is increasing, although it would appear that this is not occurring at a comparable rate to the increase of computer gaming in general. There are examples of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games being used in education, although Kirriemuir and McFarlane (2004) claimed that this remained rare and was hindered by a number of issues that complicated their integration with the curriculum including the difficulty of identifying which games would be appropriate for particular sections of a curriculum, challenges in persuading stakeholders to the benefits of computer games, lack of time for teachers to familiarise themselves with games as well as parts of the games which are irrelevant to the curriculum and not be an effective use of lesson time.

Using Maths computer games in educational learning

Computer technology plays an important role in our lives. It is an essential tool to encourage students to learn. This is one of the techniques or teaching methods to improve the people in a learning process (Yusup, 2002). In educational settings, technology can be used in an elementary or secondary school, public or private universities and also as a tool for students to study at home (William, 2002). Primary School Standard Curriculum (KSSR) aims to develop students' understanding of the concept of numbers and basic computing skills (Malaysia, 2011).

Using shadow play characters (Wayang Kulit) in Computer Games

In Malaysia, many attempts to capture and reproduced the visual styles and the performance of WK in digital form into the categories of animations and films, artworks, applications, and comics of which most gained critical acclamations, but there is very limited resources to produce those kind of publications widely.

In 2008, the first WK Kelantan animation entitled "Jala Emas Jala Perak" was produced by Art Media Production in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. However it only captured the narration recorded from Tok Dalang (ToD) Saupi and the story which was originated from Ramayana epic in WK Kelantan (Kia & Chan, 2009).

Methodology

Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study focused on using the game application to learn mathematic subject for primary school students level 1 in Malaysia. Also this study uses shadow play characters (Wayang Kulit) as objects in the games, as well as the study chose addition and substruction as a mathematic operations.