A
Games in class
Playing computer games is getting serious. Washington teacher Tammie Schrader is so enthusiastic about computer games in education that she thinks they can be used to teach programming skills which will help students in college- starting in middle school.
Canadian teacher Justin Holladay wrote a few simple games to help his students practise math skills, and when they caught on, he started his own company to create more of them.
And the University of Washington’s Zoran Popovic got more than 4,000 Washington students to master their lessons this spring by playing a computer game for just a few hours.
The growing availability(可获得性) of inexpensive tablet computers and a new generation of young teachers who grew up playing on computers have spurred (激发)interest in games for serious purpose.
“Six or seven years ago, selling games to schools was forbidden,” said David Martz of Muzzy Software, a Boston, US Company that produces games for publishers such as McGraw-Hill. Now he said schools are interested in the promise of games-perhaps because gaming is so much more popular.
Software and education companies have tried for many years to combine youngsters’ passion for computer games with educational progress, without much success.
Popovic thinks the first efforts to combine games with education fell flat because they were created by commercial companies. These companies were more interested in selling products than seeing students master a skill.
Teachers say there are some pretty good games in the marketplace now.
Holladay, the math teacher from Alberta, Canada, began moving paper-based math games to the iPad, building games that allowed students to compete with each other and giving them instant feedback(反馈) on their progress.
The games reinforced (强化) the lessons he was teaching, and his students had fun playing, he said. “They were a lot more engaged(参与)”.
21. What factors have helped promote computer games in schools according to the article?
a. The affordability of tablet computers.
b. The preferences of young teachers
c. The advertisements of commercial companies
d. Parents’ support
e. Better games being produced
A. a, c, d B. a, b, e C. b, c, d D. b. d. e
22. What is Holladay’s attitude to the idea of using computer games in class?
A. It is not as helpful as people thought.
B. He allows students to learn in a fun way.
C. It reduces the interaction between teachers and students.
D. It sounds good but is inconvenient to get feedback from students.
23. What does “fell flat” in Paragraph7 mean?
A. Ended up in failure. B. Lost plenty of money.
C. Was a huge success. D. Gained wide popularity.
