One program that I have found particularly useful this semester is a program called Virtual Child. It is a program that I have used for my Child Psychology class but it overall it can be used for any developmental psychology course. Virtual child puts students in the role of parents. They are required to make decisions on how to raise their child with the help of a virtual partner. The ageing process is broken down in to mile stone ages (newborn, 3 months, 8, 12, 15, 18, etc.) that are important to cognitive, physical, and social/emotional development. Videos explaining important information and assessments done on the child’s development are very helpful. It is a very interesting tool to use in a psychology classroom because it is a fun, interactive way to help students understand what is being taught. Each student has the opportunity to personally experience aspects of human development from infancy to late adulthood via virtually raising a child with the added bonus of choosing a name and certain physical appearance traits.
The picture above is an example of my Virtual Child Gabriel. For this particular course I am required to raise him to the age of 10 years.
Here is the URL for the Virtual Child program: http://myvirtualchild.com/
ReplyDeleteThis tool is really cool! I think it would for sure get your students interested and involved more when using this one. I like how you have your own and inserted it for an example. Virtually raising a child is a great psychology tool for anyone and will be very helpful in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI like the virtual child. I had seen it while I was taking Life Span as well. We never used it but we read about it. I was really interested in it and would have liked to have used it.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so cool! Especially since it teaches the importance of what to do with a child during certain mile stones but also has you learn as you go.
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