A lot of students would probably agree with me when I say that games are fun, right? But are games okay to play during school? Some teachers will assign students to get on the provided computers to play a game for that subject, and some teachers don’t monitor their students well enough and they are able to play games when they are bored or don’t want to do their current or missing work for that class.

 I think it is perfectly okay for teachers to have their students play a game on the internet for that subject, as long is that is all that it is. If a teacher is allowing their students to play games that have nothing to do with that subject, that is not okay. I actually agree with teachers assigning their students to play games during their class because I feel that it helps students learn what they need to learn and they are able to do it by having fun, sometimes not even realizing that they are learning. I also think that it is good for students to have the ability to play educational games in class because it will help with their hand-eye coordination. For example, in Biology 1 we do interactive lab games on the computer to help us understand what we are doing in that class. Interactive games being used at WHS include: scientific method games, population growth games for science, kahoot, survival games, and grammar games for english. There are games all over the internet that would be helpful to our school that we don’t use. On the website sheppardsoftware.com, there are tons of games that students could play. They are organized in categories and they range from pre school games to high school games.

  In a survey published on debate.org called “Should kids play video games in school?”  it shows that 89 percent of people voted yes to education games while 11 percent said there shouldn’t be video games being played in schools. The people that said yes had a reason of “Children can actually learn a lot from video games, ROBLOX being one where they can learn coding, scripting, and game designing. In ROBLOX you can also learn perimeter, geometry, shapes, about the stock market, and more, while also having fun while doing it.” The people who voted no claimed “Social media and video games are already diluting the intelligence of students outside of school, adding it to school life would be a disaster. Students would come to school everyday, just waiting for the time in which they can play video games, wishing the time would go faster, ignoring their lessons and just staring at the clock. Then, when playtime is over, all the kids will get grumpy because they wanted more time to play. They won’t listen in lessons. They will go home and play more computer games, or go on social networking sites. Then, the next day, the process will start again, and education will just go down the drain.”

  But do games actually take away from learning or does it add to it?

  “I feel that it helps the students who need hands-on or visual aids to help them learn and understand stuff,” said junior Mackenzie Bauer.

  “I feel like games help students learn because it’s a different way they are learning rather than just being taught with computer assignments or with pencil and paper. Educational games are just another way of learning and making it fun,” said sophomore Sydney Jones.

 Overall, I think that it shouldn’t be required for teachers to provide games in their lesson plans for the days, but I do think it should be an option, and if it goes with the lesson and the subject, there is nothing wrong with it. If the games are just being used to waste time and to get students out of the teachers way, though, I think that’s wrong, and that games should only be used for educational purposes.