Video Games and Infographics in Education

In a world where technology has been the brute force paving the way for new ideas, inventions, and allowing more world connection, we still do most of our educational learning via books. People spend hours online, watching television, or playing video games. What if these hours spent throughout the day actually taught these people valuable information? What if the education process included not just technology, but video games as a primary source to teach students information in a more lax format where students actually want to learn? Would this be beneficial? Would it come with any side effects? The infographic, “How Video Games Are Changing Education,” discusses these exact questions and provides us with some interesting results. The central argument of this infographic is that video games develop educational skills and should be implemented into the current educational curriculum.

Backed up with many statistics, this infographic provides information about how video games have improved memory skills, peripheral vision, pro-social interaction, hand-eye coordination, and can even help with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Using a colorful graph, the infographic is able to list numerous games and the areas that they improve a student’s education. A lot of information has been provided and little is lacking from the opposite end of the argument given in this infographic. Questions are brought up about the lack of social skills being developed if video games are implemented and also the will to win could potentially be greater than the want to obtain knowledge.

While the infographic does provide lots of useful information, it is misleading. The video games that it provides as part of its argument are not the most popular video games out there. Most of the video games talked about were solely designed as logic games or games that explicitly promote their educational value. When quickly skimming, you may assume that this infographic is providing the argument that all video games are educational. So, when reading this you have to keep in mind that the games being argued for are games designed to be educational. They aren’t arguing for playing first-person shooter games that are most popular today. According to ScienceDaily’s, Educational Video Games can Boost Motivation to Learn, video games can be a productive educational tool because they motivate kids to be in a mindset that is more “conductive to learning rather than worrying about how smart they look;” however, this article clearly states that the motivational boost comes from educational games, not just any video game.

So, now knowing that this infographic is gearing its information towards educationally minded video games, is it’s information coming from trustworthy sources that are providing correct information? At the end of the infographic we see references to multiple websites including huffingtonpost.com, innovateonline.info, and gamepolitics.com. There are no links to the exact place where we can find the statistics gathered for this graphic. The websites they provide are trustworthy websites, but many of them are on the side of pro-video game education. The organization that put the infographic together is onlinecolleges.net. This company is dedicated to providing information about colleges. They should not have a particular bias based on their company, but the sources they used lean toward wanting video games to be incorporated. It would have been better if they got information from both sides and sources.

Aesthetically, this infographic looked the most straight forward and easy to understand compared to the other infographics given. The graphic starts with a straightforward header of what is being talked about and then follows with easy-to-follow pictures with small points to be made. Following this the graphic brings in more information about the video games that provide certain skills and follow this with a lot more text statistics. This pyramid affect helps a person slowly seep into the information rather than trying to understand the whole argument at once. It was really clear what was being argued and what points they were making for their argument.

Overall, I think this infographic was a good way to convey the information of an argument. It was relatively simple to understand the argument and get all the information in a unique way. Overall, I’m not sure I like infographics. I think the photos mixed with the text sometimes causes a bit of confusion and sometimes they are hard to follow. When looking at an entire infographic, it can sometimes look overwhelming and you don’t know where to start. Since this particular infographic had a pyramid-like style and started with a little information and slowly built its argument, it was very simple to follow. To make an infographic work, it needs to be simple and only include the most important points in a very strategic format that is easy to follow. Then, an infographic has a great value.