Video Games, Digital Games and Learning: A Theoretical Conception Vygotsky's Light

Abstract

Teaching in Brazil is part of a scenario in which students are often mererecipients of in formation and little
protagonists in their learning process. Thus, there is na urgent need to investigate new forms of teaching, which
consequently allow new ways of learning, centered on the student. Consequently, Digital Information and
Communication Technologies are inserted in a context in which new forms of learning emerge through the
interaction, communication and Access to in formation allowed by these tools, such as video games and digital
games. Therefore, the objective of this text is to outline a theoretical path that allows the convergence of the
application of digital games in schoolcontexts and the perspective of learning, approached by Vygotsky. Expanding
this idea, the focus of this work is to take a look at the possibilities of students using digital games, showing the
relationship between Vygotskian ideas and their Historical-Cultural Theory of Cognition. For this purpose, a
conceptual approach was outlined, which, in the end, concludes that eventhough it still lacks further studies regarding
the effectiveness of its use in the classroom, video games and digital games have great possibilities of becoming
powerful pedagogical tools, not as “saviors of the homeland”, but as anotheraid in this arduous process of teaching
and learning