Now Students Need To Play Pokemon Go To Get A Degree

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Pokemon Go‘s popularity has crossed gaming and is now part of academics as students at Salford University in the United Kingdom will possibly have to capture Pokemon as part of their degree. According to the Daily Mail, students taking the Business Information Technology course at an undergraduate level will have to play Pokemon Go.

Pokemon Go to make the course more accessible

How the popular mobile game relates to the Business Information Technology course is not immediately certain, but Salford University lecturer David Krepps says the game will make the course easier to grasp and more accessible. Pokemon Go fits perfectly with the course, he says.

“It uses various information systems that are accessed over the internet, a digital camera and a GPS location sensor,” Krepps said.

Krepps underlined that while the course requires students to play the mobile game, it will get a little more difficult than just catching endless amounts of Rattata. The University of Salford is a public research university which is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Manchester’s city center. The university has around 18,920 students and is in 24 hectares of parkland on the banks of the Irwell River. The business information tech course is all about the relationship between people, information systems, and businesses.

Pokémon Go will help students learn how playing the game changes the behaviors of trainers. In addition, the game will be used for making the students understand how the servers and camera are handled to deliver an experience to end users. Further, the course teaches how to manage emerging information systems and technologies in a business environment.

Critics think otherwise

However, critics have said that this move is just indicative of the dumbing-down of degrees. The notion was “farcical,” and it motivated students to rack up large debts on courses that opened up only some job prospects, said Chris McGovern of the Campaign for Real Education.

This is not the first time Pokemon Go has been used in an academic setting. For instance, the University of Idaho offers a class called Pop Culture Games, which requires students to play Pokemon Go to pass, notes The Next Web.

Steven Bird, the course instructor, says that this gaming app does more than allow the player to shoot a Pokéball. Bird says the player gets to adventure around, see different things, be active, and see the sun.

“It allows you to move in large groups and a team. You get not only physical activity, but you also get team-building and leadership.”

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