Teachers and Virtual Teaching

The virtual world has turned into virtual reality. Virtual learning is the new normal of education now. Are you ready, folks!

"All games are educational." (Will Wright)

School is boring now. School is now far behind the times. The teachers are also unpleasant, not adaptive, and not friendly. The "dry" lesson is not challenging. The method of teaching is also not unusual: lectures, lectures, and lectures again, not interactive, and not fun. Students would rather play video games than study their subjects. Video games are more fun.

Those utterances mentioned above have become a phenomenon that is currently engulfing many schools in big cities in the world, including Indonesia.

 Yes, playing video games has taken over the most significant attention of the students in the class. And they were captivated by it.

Warning! It is an important note for all educators to immediately evaluate their methods, techniques, approaches, and learning media in the classroom.

In short, there must be a transformation of how and what they teach in the classroom. At the same time, this is also critical for schools that might still consider "traditional classrooms" to be always relevant to use amid exponential developments that are incredibly powerful in changing every individual, including affective, cognitive, and motoric changes in the learning process.

Frankly speaking, the majority of educators in Indonesia still think contradictory toward the phenomenon of "video games taking over learning in the classroom." There seemed uneagerness to leave their comfort zones, merely upholding the principles of learning and teaching of the old-fashion school as passed down from their previous educators.

But, let's wake up and be aware of the issues, teachers! That is the fact that surfaced. Teachers must change and be willing to adapt to the patterns and learning trends of these millennial students. No longer able to fight the wave of globalization and digitalization of learning (e-learning). Fight means "rolled up" and "swept away."

Educators must know, understand, and be able to use information technology. They also must be willing to learn about this technology from anyone, including from their students. Having knowledge about video games and be able to teach with them can be one of the solutions to overcome student boredom. Teachers should learn to make interactive and related video games to their learning.

It is because students today are generally far more knowledgeable in information technology than their teachers. Therefore, there is no harm in learning from students, provided there must be mutual respect. Also, isn't learning a lifelong process and from anyone?

Besides, of course, not only educators must change. Schools must also change their orientation towards the learning needs of these digital students. Schools ---- sooner or later --- must change the infrastructure of each school. Schools must adopt the desires of students as "customers" if they do not want to be considered "boring" and abandoned. Games / digital-based learning or classes are not impossible to implement in the current digital native's era.

More Alluring

It is undeniable that 21st-century students enjoy video games more than subjects taught in class as they are more alluring. When there is an opportunity, they often "steal" time to play games. When they have "free hours," they would automatically prefer playing games contained in computers, smartphones, and various electronic equipment (gadgets) they have rather than repeating lessons, for example.

These symptoms are apparent and difficult to argue. If educators want to be open and aware of these signs, surely they will reflect on themselves and find out what causes them. But unfortunately, instead of pondering, they often blame students by labeling them as lazy people, spender, demotivated person, uncritical person, and various stereotypes negativity.

In my opinion, this view is not appropriate and tends to scapegoat students and video games alone. It is crucial to know that the students now live in the era of digitalization. They live in a world of technology. They are connoisseurs as well as active users of the technology itself.

The logic is simple. Let's look at it from the perspective of the students. "If I have sophisticated gadgets that make my life comfortable and helpful everywhere, why don't I use them at school?"

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As a consequence, in all lines of their lives, the role of technology cannot be simply ignored. Their real dream was when and how to make their learning at school enjoyable and fun, just like playing video games. It is what missed from the attention of educators.

In his book Digital Game-Based Learning, Prensky (2001) mentioned a dozen exciting features of gameplay, namely (1) game is a form of fun that gives us pleasure and pleasure, (2) game is a form of play that provides us with comfort intense and passionate, (3) games have rules that give us structure, (4) games have goals that motivate us, (5) games are interactive that cause us to do, (6) games have results and feedback that provides us with lessons, (7) games can be applied that gives us flow, (8) games have win situations that provide us with self-satisfaction, (9) games contain conflict/competition/challenges/opposition that gives us adrenaline, (10) games have problem-solving that triggers our creativity, (11) games have interactions that give us social groups, and (12) games have representations and stories that give us emotions.

The things mentioned above are the reason why students are now happier and smitten with video games. It is wrong to assume that video games have no motivation, reasonable structure, and purposes. Video games offer creativity and curiosity, problem-solving, and education. Is it not the opposite happening in our world of learning today?

The stakeholders of the education must be able to seize these opportunities and challenges as a way out of the knowledge that is bound and burdensome for the success of enjoyable learning.

I believe it's the right time to implement what Prensky said in his book, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. As one of the speakers in an international education webinar, I propose the application of video games and many other learning platforms to use, such as Google Classroom, Zoom meeting, Google meet, Hang Out, Moodle, etc.

For this reason, becoming a teacher of digital learning is a necessity that is difficult to avoid. There is no other way except to adapt to the progress of science and technology itself for the success of a better and quality Indonesian education.

The Indonesian version is also available here. More news about teaching here.