Comments on: Education, education, education

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:46:55 +0000

The advantage of gaming is that it is connected, via the internet, to the sum of all knowledge. So there is no problem drilling down to primary documents. Or films. Or whatever already exists.
Already the internet contains a wealth of knowledge that exists in no other form. Wikipedia is still at it’s beginning but already it is a valuable tool. All this can be incorporated into gaming.

By: Troy Goodfellow

Troy Goodfellow — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:29:40 +0000

” Imagine a public library of the near future. There will be long rows of boxes or pillars, properly classified and indexed, of course. At each box a push button and before each box a seat. Suppose you wish to “read up” on a certain episode in Napoleon’s life. Instead of consulting all the authorities, wading laboriously through a host of books, and ending bewildered, without a clear idea of exactly what did happen, and confused at every point by conflicting opinions about what did happen, you will merely seat yourself at a properly adjusted window, in a scientifically prepared room, press the button and actually see what happened.

There will be no opinions expressed. You will merely be present at the making of history. All the work of writing, revising, collating, and reproducing will have been carefully attended to by a corps of recognized experts, and you will have received a vivid and complete expression.”

That’s what D.W. Griffith said about the potential of film as a teaching medium, and he was way off the mark. Having shown both documentaries and historical dramas to students, both often pale beside evocative primary documents.

Like films, say Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”, interactive worlds will bear the imprint of their creator, making a teacher essential as more than an interactive guide. It’s tempting to think that you can just program in the debates, but you can’t without depriving students of the very critical skills of working through the debates about evidence.

Games can and should be an important part of teaching, but the accidental lessons you cite, Bruce, are the crucial ones that sometimes need undoing. Take Civ, where the accidental lesson is that progress is inevitable if you just wait long enough. Or The Sims, where the accidental lesson is that acquisition is the key to happiness. Or Spore, which is about the gamer as intelligent designer.

By: Bjorn

Bjorn — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:25:06 +0000

Well put. There’s definitely a market for both teaching and entertaining, as long as it’s dressed up as entertainment first. Civilization IV is entertainment, but a quick look into the Civilipedia (the in-game help system) reveals historic lessons on the use of Crossbows, the importance and dangers of river deltas and how different forms of government have both good and bad consequences.

I’m not a teacher, but if I was, I’d spend my time setting up historic scenarios in Civilization, have my students play them against/with each other and debrief them afterwards while educating them on what “really happened”.

Strategy games teach Clausewitz and Sun Tzu without even trying. While those lessons are most applicable in direct confrontation, the principle of force conservation, the principle of force concentration etc. are applicable to any resource constrained situation, life included.

By: JC Barnett

JC Barnett — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:01:00 +0000

It’s a tantilising prospect, isn’t it? I hate the kids, they get all the good stuff.

That said, the biggest hurdle is the way game business is set up, so as to make real edutainment almost impossible. One reason the Shakespeare MMO is so low-budget is because it relied on a grant. Who is going to pay for these educational games? How is the business going to make a profit? Until these questions can be answered I think there’ll be a bit of a reluctance to forego our mindless, genocidal entertainment. I think the biggest market is, at the moment, still the one that likes to switch off and relax with games rather than be educated (in the traditional sense of the word). At the moment “digital education” is stuck in the 90s “multimedia” area of technology.

Interesting to see the announced “Video Game Training DS”. Is that educational?