Gaming+in+dance+education

Gaming in Dance Education

There are many hardware and software applications available to work within the stream of Arts Education in particular with Dance. More of these are becoming known to us on a regular basis. The movie ' Happy Feet' by George Miller is an example of recent technology in the field of dance. Whilst an animation was actually created using a motion capture studio and the well-known tap dancing penguin scene was a troupe of twenty-five plus dancers performing the learnt routine whilst hooked up to the motion capture devices. Through this and the rise of dance reality television programs such as S o you think you can dance and Dancing with the Stars as a world-wide phenomena the networks are bringing dance to the people and inspiring and encouraging more people to take the risk to dance.

With the rise in manufacture and recreational use of video games such as Nintendo Wii and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">DS <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">systems, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Playstations 2 &3 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">PSP <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Xbox <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">and its evolution the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">360 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">we have seen a lot of movies or large events capitalizing on the youth community being ‘addicted’ to video games. There has been an ongoing debate around games-based learning and whether it should be embraced at school especially in regards to boy’s education. (Moore 2007). Nintendo and Microsoft have produced many games suitable for inclusion into the dance curriculum for use on the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Wii and Xbox 360 Platforms <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">; <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Dance Dance Revolution <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Dance Central <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 17px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">Dancing with Stars <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">. Some of these games require the dance mat technology or wireless sensors for controlling of upper body movements. Whilst using these games is building dance technique it is also encouraging group collaboration and sense of timing and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: auto;">rhythm. It is also encouraging students to be multiliterate and to incorporate problem solving, higher order thinking and meta language (Moore 2007). If this inclusion of video games is going to engage and encourage students to learn more than just knowledge and incorporate a cross-curricula approach why is this style not prevalent in more schools?