This generation of students has gone through only a few years of education where there wasn’t a piece of technology in front of them. Laptops or tablets are often given to students as early as elementary school to help them with their education.
While these pieces of technology can help students with their studies, they can also hinder students’ ability to learn, the laptops and tablets presenting themselves as a distraction in class.
Playing computer games in class is usually associated with younger adolescents, usually middle schoolers and high schoolers, and the assumption is that since college students are paying large sums of money for their education, that they do not do anything in class to disturb them from learning.
This is not true.
Although a college education does cost money, there are still times where rows of students can all be seen playing games on their computers in class. Here are some of the most popular games:
Minesweeper
Minesweeper has existed for over 35 years, and it still finds its way into classrooms. The goal of Minesweeper is simple: “sweep” all the mines.
In this game, a grid is presented, and when clicking anywhere, several numbers will appear, and some squares will remain blank. The squares that have a number on them are the center of a 3×3 grid; the number signifies how many mines are in that 3×3 grid. If all the mines are correctly flagged, the game has been won.
The only way to excel at Minesweeper is by recognizing the patterns, which can be found here.
Solitaire
Solitaire is a classic card game that has existed digitally for years on a multitude of websites. It is a very simple game, making it one of the most popular computer games to play during class.
To win Solitaire, four columns of cards will need to be placed from King down to Ace while alternating between red suits and black suits. The cards start out in seven columns, the far left column consisting of one card face up, the next column from the left consisting of two cards, the bottom one face up, the next column consisting of three cards, the bottom one face up, and so on. By the end, every card in the deck will have been organized numerically.
It is impossible to win every single game of Solitaire as luck is a big factor, but there are still strategies one can employ to make the chances of winning higher. The best strategy is to take a King that is already in one of the columns and place it in an empty column if possible. This is a better choice than taking a King from the deck (cards from the deck are drawn in a three-card-draw fashion) as it gets rid of the number of face down cards in the columns.
If there is an open column and no Kings in the columns, before taking a King from the deck, make sure it is a wise decision. If a red King is drawn from the deck and there is a red Queen in one of the columns of cards, that Queen cannot be placed anywhere until there is a black King. If a black King surfaces eventually, the red one is already in place, and there is nowhere to put it. Thinking carefully about the Kings is just one strategy that already makes the chances of winning higher.
Snake
Snake is another game that has been around for years and is most known for coming pre-downloaded on the Nokia cell phone. Snake follows a…well, snake… as it slithers across a grid eating apples; the more apples it eats, the longer the snake gets. Running into an edge of the grid or part of the snake’s body results in a loss.
There really is only one strategy for Snake; this is to keep the far left and far right columns of the grid open and have the snake turn immediately to the right once it gets to the last left column and turn immediately to the right as the snake gets to the last right column. This strategy means that once the snake slithers all the way up to the top, it always has a pathway to go down back to the bottom.
While this is the best strategy, it takes practice to get the timing of the sharp turns down.
Note: While the Chimes does not condone playing games in class, people who do choose to play these games should be the best at them.
