With the intention of demonstrating the educational potential that video games and the Internet have in the education of the 21st century, two Gamers adolescents, “Knowdi” (14 years) and the “Mr. Ardilla” (15 years), Cumeco students, have recreated the Pacific War in Minecraft. This project develops technological, research with the Internet research and team organization, linking subjects such as the history of war; the animals and plants of Antofagasta and Calama; Mythology; Naval construction; the geography of the coast and the Atacama desert; the mathematics applied to measurement and scales; Architecture at the time of war.
Better than reading a book or seeing a documentary
For Adrián Guevara Roca (aka “Knowdi”) and Santiago Zapata Álvarez (the “Mr. Squirilla”) was revealing, exciting and significant recreating the Pacific War in Minecraft. In the words of “Knowdi” “When building block by block the Pacific War you realize how big and complex the war was, and incidentally, because you are recreating the story as you learn it.” For the “Mr. Squirrel” this process “was much better than reading a book or seeing a documentary: we were reliving war.”
Immersive learning with the Internet
The “Mr. Ardilla”, reflected that “when making this map you understand that the leaves that printed in your school book about the war are few, in the face of the enormous information available on the Internet. In Cumco we learned that the Internet is like immersing yourself in the sea of knowledge: the deeper you immerse yourself, the more things you learn. You only need to ask good questions.”
Meanwhile, “any questions we had with the Internet, for example: for example: we find the original plans of the war ships to build them in Minecraft. Also, with Googlemap War, what they think of Bolivia, in Peru and Chile.
It’s time to update schools
“Today’s students are probably the most sophisticated generation that has ever existed. Knowdi and Mr. Ardilla are demonstrating that they are able to understand the world from the colossal cloud of data that surrounds them. When using the Internet they learn for themselves skills and knowledge, which allow them to develop academic projects, and solve problems between students,” said Jonathan Roca Figueroa, director of Cumeco.
The educational models inherited from the industrial revolution are insufficient for a knowledge -based society, since the same environment has changed and much. “For example, the educational model of learning based on projects debuted in 1997, but today the schools are still structured in compartmentalized subjects. Think of the computers that were popularized in 1980, but the notebooks and pencils still prevail in schools. On the Internet that was globalized in 1990, but the heavy books continue to fill the backpacks and knowledge of the students in the class Director of Cumeco, to expose that video games, Internet and technologies should not be absent in the education of the 21st century students.
