Pokemon GO is making its way into the classroom

Pokemon GO had caught the attention of doctors and health specialists due to its potential for getting kids up and out of the house, and now it has found favor with at least one teacher. Iowa State University School of Education assistant professor Emily Howell is developing a way that teachers can implement Pokemon GO and other things like it into the classroom, using the game and others to help students learn.

Emily became interested in Pokemon GO as a potential learning tool after playing the game with her kids. According to Howell, this mobile game can be used to help teach kids about research and writing in accordance with Common Core standards, and ultimately do so in a way that will get the kids interested and keep them interested.

This spurred the development of a paper on the topic, which has since been published in The Reading Teacher. According to it, Pokemon GO can be used as a topic of interest about which students can perform research, doing so with actual interest as discovering the answers will help them better understand — and therefore play — the game.

Furthermore, Howell points out that Pokemon GO presents multimodal communication by utilizing a combination of directions, gestures, and visual elements. This is an important part of communication and helps further students' skills in understanding the ways communication takes place. Ultimately, the Center for Educational Transformation has given Howell a grant so that she can aid instructors in implementing technology like this into their educational plans.

SOURCE: EurekAlert