A friendly hello everyone! If you now believe that this small article is about open worlds in video games, I can only say: You are at least partially right. But why do open worlds still have something magical for us? Many players spend hours exploring and exploring the unknown. They discover new mechanics, new interaction options and much more. I would like to try a small school comparison today.
Many people who have studied teaching have probably already known long ago that there is NOT THE teaching method for everything. I think this becomes more than clear in studying. There are entire seminars that deal with the pros and cons of various methods, present research results on new methods and simply convey: "There are many methods. Choosing the right one for your class is one of the tasks of the teacher."
In one of these seminars I got to know a very exciting method: the concept of open teaching. This is primarily about teaching the basic needs of a young person (this approach is mainly used in primary schools) after trying it out, exploring it and doing it appropriately. The teacher takes on a completely different role than in typical frontal teaching. He is much more a moderator, a source of inspiration.
The students should be able to decide more or less what they want to learn, when and how. This should then be done at your own pace and at your own level. If you want to read more: The University of Cologne has written a pretty good summary in its Methodenpool-Bereich about what this concept is about.
I think that you can already see the relationship to video games here. People are usually curious, and exploring unknowns is one of them. Video games with open game worlds offer exactly that in many ways. They invite you to explore and let off steam. I still remember how I was hyped when Guild Wars 2 was announced with its big world.
Then it happened again when the Heart of Thorns expansion was announced. I imagined this huge jungle with its highs and lows. Exploring the temples and places and just dropping myself off the tallest tree with my paraglider. Good. In the end, I was not so enthusiastic about the implementation, but exploring games and exploring the game mechanics in itself can be very motivating, right?
Sometimes I think that there are many things that education can draw from games and there is a lot of potential, especially with computer games. What about you? Are you friends of open world games? What do you find particularly fascinating? Do you think that you can still discover enough even with smaller, limited game worlds? What are you most interested in discovering in games? Write it down in a nice comment! Your
GameMaking-sailing-to-the-Sea Dizzy