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Accepting Games Into Education

Posted by simoniker on from the bachelor's-degree-in-kirby-studies dept.

Thanks to Ludology.org for pointing to a Chronicle Of Higher Education article discussing the emerging use of games as an academic subject and educational tool. Although there are sceptics, such as David Breneman from the University Of Virginia, who says: "Horsing around with these games might teach problem solving, but you don't learn anything about the world", it's suggested that educators could modify existing games: "An instructor who knows something about games or computers could customize The Sims or Civilization for a study of, say, Roman history", but that few game designers truly understand what makes a game educational: "People seem to think that anything you click on is a game... designers come out with products that have a shellac of quizzing on top of a game."

4 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Gaming by definition.. by kmak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is to let people have fun, to let us escape life, to let us release stress, etc...

    Can you do all that and learn at the same time? Sure, but it won't be easy... one thing that comes to mind is the "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiago" series.. it was great, and you learn Geography at the same time..

    But it will take some effort on the game designer's behalf.. and they really can't expect big payoffs (maybe.. but probably not..)

    But computers are ubitquitious nowadays, so we'll see..

    --

    I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
  2. Sim Marcus Aurelius by Bonewalker · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I like this concept as an additional way of learning, not as the only tool in use.

    The article mentioned something though that could be really cool and promote a better understanding of history, or culture, or what have you. A Sims Roman-Style game could let you play the part of an emperor, government official, gladiator, or peasant in the Roman world. From there, you could make the same types of decisions for your sim character based on historical data. And, of course, you aren't limited to just Roman history, any and all major cultures could be recreated. Sounds fascinating to me.

    But, another poster did present one valid problem...you would have to convince the game company they could make money off this deal, or they wouldn't put the time and effort into it that it would really require in order to be fun and educational.

  3. Games in school by 1nihilist1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mathville?
    Anyone remember that?

    You learned plenty about real-life and mathematics. You went grocery shopping, and would have to calculate the value of your order. You would have to figure out the amount of materials you needed for different construction projects. You could go to a fair and play games that involved math. It was fun and the only point to the game was to upgrade your method of transportation, I think it went: walking - bike - car - hot air balloon - jet - UFO. Something like that.

    Then you had MathRace. Networked horse races controlled by how fast you could answer simple mathematical equations. It was great mental exercise!

    Then you had "A day in the life" which was supposed to teach you about drugs, booze and safe sex... but it never really worked for me. Meh.

  4. Speaking of Roman History... by FouRPlaY · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone once asked me what I knew about the fall of the Roman Empire. I proceded to rattle off everything I remembered from Age Of Empires II. I turned to my friend, who was a Classics major at university, and asked if that was right. He said I had just summed up everything he learned for his degree.

    Go video games! =)