Computer Games and Digital Media for Promoting Awareness of Civic Education: A Case Study of Some Critical Problems in Thailand

Nowadays, there are many seemingly unsolvable problems around the world. Some of these problems are caused by a lack of early education on civic responsibilities that leads to people with a lack of understanding of the need for discipline, a lack of ethics, misunderstanding, misleading, and mistrust of democracy. In addition, this is exasperated by the need for competition of natural resources and lands. Children at a young age, should be exposed to civic education and encouraged to practice what is taught about their civic responsibilities, especially during their elementary level in primary schools. At present, new generations in Thailand, including many leaders at several levels tend to pay little attention to civic education. Courses and activities that provide knowledge and practice about civic education are of little concern for inclusion in curricula and classrooms at most levels of Thai educational systems. In order to begin to address these problems, the study reports on the possibility of using computer games and digital media to encourage pupils to understand about civic educations in some focused topics that involve some current critical issues in Thailand such as an understanding and respect for traffic laws, discipline in schools, and waste disposal management. The consequent results of these problems lead many serious difficulties to most Thai communities. Our proposed computer games and digital media can be used as learning support in classrooms and for civic education self-learning outside classrooms.