Abstract:

The paper analyzes the learning and development potential of traditional games and ICT based games. The first part presents the different definitions of the game through a literature review. The traditional games are the ones that transmit the culture and are mainly involving fine and/or gross motoric skills. The ICT based games are the ones that involve more cognitive functions having the movement minimized as they are played on electronic devices. ICT based games can be designed just for pleasure or can include educational components. Besides the fun and educational side, they have a negative side connected to the risks and problems they can cause which are indicated in the paper. The pilot research carried out shows that the majority of preschool teachers interviewed prefer traditional games mainly because they are functional for the maintaining of the traditions and because traditional games teach how to relate with others. The paper presents the list of the most used traditional games in the didactical work of the preschool institution analyzed and the reasons why it is important to use these games with the children. The following question analyzed is if it is important to use the ICT based games for the development of the children with the motivation for both the positive and negative answers. The pilot research analyses the perception of which is the proper age to start using ICT based games and of how much this type of games are dangerous and how much are useful. From the analyses of the last question, we get the information of which are the ICT based games the interviewed know. It is interesting that nearly half of them do not know any.

Keywords:

Game, ICT based game, learning, development, preschool teacher.