Using video games in teaching

I am not sure whether the video games are good educational tools or not, may be because I have never seen a good educational video game yet, except a few ones I saw on edutopia videos. I agree that traditional schools and traditional ways of teaching should be abandoned, but having innovative schools does not mean teaching by video games. This could be by having experienced and creative teachers who love teaching and it can also be by having well equipped schools that help teachers use their creativity to help students become producers and explorers and not just consumers. For example, having science labs at schools help students experience what in the science book and I think it is more helpful than the video games. I remember myself when I was a junior high school student, every time I was looking forward for the lab classes where we used to dissect animals, go to the yard of the school to plant seeds and see different kinds of trees with their different stems and leaves, go to the rivers and forests to see their habitats. I think all this help students more and they enjoy their time while learning I do not like the idea of having students sit by a computer and play games for long hours. Some scientific topics might be taught by video games but not all, especially the ones that we can take students to the nature or real life settings where they can discover the world by themselves. I am one of the teachers who experienced the bad attitude of many young students at schools who were watching and playing this “pokemon” games. Students on recess were imitating the pokemon characters hitting each other kicking and fighting violently. I assure you that those students who were not playing video games but were reading books and playing sports were healthier and they had more balanced characters than those who were playing video games for hours. Those even did not know how to share classroom objects, they were not good in group works and pair works. I don’t agree that video games are the only tools that teach students problem solving skills. Puzzles, interactive games, playing in the sand in one corner of the school, taking students to field trips, having different jobs room where students can play with the objects of those jobs and being a shop keeper or a doctor help students more than playing a video game where there is no interaction with a being of his age. Many computer games took so many morals from our children and as educators we should be careful in choosing the proper video games where there is no racism or wars.