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Games Are Better Educators Than We Think

Posted by simoniker on from the watch-out-for-monkeys-with-barrels dept.

Thanks to the IGDA for their new Culture Clash column, which discusses how education can work through gaming, and suggests that "mainstream, top-shelf games - especially story-driven games" are already letting us "learn volumes from our game experiences." As an example, it's argued that "Any one of us who played through Morrowind could easily ace a quiz on Vvardenfell geography, religion, politics, flora, whatever", although there's one major snag to those wanting all their classes playable: "Corporations and schools interested in educating through games look at the price tag, project length, and lack of scalability in a Fallout or Morrowind and cringe."

47 comments

  1. yes.. by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Funny

    one can really learn from games!

    like, for example, after i've played nethack i've learnt that getting spanked by nurses can be fun, and that once my cat has killed enough babies it will take on the shopkeepers and i can keep their stash!

    -

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:yes.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ahh all the things i learned from EA's seven cities of gold. thats when EA was still good.

  2. sure... by SophtwareSlump · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Games may more educational than some people think, but they don't/can't/won't replace the learning experience you get from researching a paper or listening to an interesting lecture.

    A bigger problem is when you try to argue with only some 'facts' you've obtained through gaming. Arguing with zoning committees over something you've only seen happen in Sim City isn't the smartest thing to do :)

    1. Re:sure... by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ", but they don't/can't/won't replace the learning experience you get from researching a paper or listening to an interesting lecture. "

      I don't think the suggestion was to replace education with them. I think the point of this article is to say "your kids are not necessarily wasting time playing that thing."

      I know that's true in my case. I wanted to know how games worked, so often I played them while making observations about how I'd accomplish that in programming. Also, I've paid careful attention to how a game lets you know what's happening. I'm a 3D artist now. My interest in programming has made me effective in using the scriping and expression features of my 3d app, and my attention to UI has gotten me a promotion at work. They have me test the software and suggest changes/additions to the UI to make it easier to use.

      I don't know if other kids have gotten this from gaming or not (though I'm sure a lot of programmers today have, it's all about interest level) but I can say that if my parents were Dr. Lauara'esque in keeping me away from games, I'd probably still be in retail.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:sure... by danila · · Score: 1

      I think the point of this article is to say "your kids are not necessarily wasting time playing that thing."
      Another point that needs to be made is that kids do not necessarily spend their time wisely when they take any formal education. As far as I know, all too often children (and adults) completely waste their time in schools where everyone just pretends to be learning. People are talking about complex (or basic) concepts, but nobody cares if they have any understanding whatsoever - and usually they don't.

      --
      Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
  3. Great... by Osmosis_Garett · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This will give more ammunition to the segment of society which points their fingers at video games as the blame for school shootings, increased crime rates, and any other number of childhood problems which COULD NEVER be caused by poor parenting.

  4. I've been saying that for years... by Creepy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure how much benefit Morrowind has in of itself, but Fallout was a trove of cultural information... then again, it was an M rated game, so the kids shouldn't be playing it (tho there's nothing explicit...)

    Games like Medieval Total War make excellent history lessons. I probably learned more about the 1300-1400s playing that game than I did in a history class where several weeks were devoted to that era... kinda scary (the classes were also very Euro-centric).

    1. Re:I've been saying that for years... by KDan · · Score: 0, Redundant

      True dat. Playing it right now, great game. Love all the historical info peppered into it.

      Daniel

      --
      Carpe Diem
    2. Re:I've been saying that for years... by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      You're complaining that the classes about the history of the 14th century were Euro-centric? Erm, do you realize that Columbus discovered America only in 1492? Or did you not pay attention in class? :-P

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    3. Re:I've been saying that for years... by betaray · · Score: 1

      There's more to the world than America and Europe.

    4. Re:I've been saying that for years... by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      I know that. But the history classes, even in Europe, don't usually pay much attention to that either.

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    5. Re:I've been saying that for years... by betaray · · Score: 1

      So you see why the poster says that Medieval Total War taught him more about 14th century world history than his "history classes".

    6. Re:I've been saying that for years... by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      Yes, I do. I'm not totally stupid, you know :-P

      Just a little bit ;-)

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    7. Re:I've been saying that for years... by DAldredge · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      "True dat"

      Perhaps you need an English lesson/program?

    8. Re:I've been saying that for years... by KDan · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Perhaps you need an online-dialect recognition class -- oh, and probably a "how to get your head out of your ass" manual. The latter can also be found in physical form. Just make your smart-ass remarks to enough people and you will eventually receive a free lesson and some physical help with that difficult problem.

      Daniel

      --
      Carpe Diem
  5. Educational Games by MadocGwyn · · Score: 2, Informative

    A lot of money and research goes into a lot of games for 'historical' accuracy, but in the long run its mostly 'fun' thats chosen over 'accuracy' Although a morrowind type game encompasing a real time period/geographical area would be interesting to me, its prob not very 'main-stream'. An interesting observation but unlikely to produce any actual games in the near future.

    --
    Jesus saves, everyone else takes full damage from the fireball.
    1. Re:Educational Games by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't want to say history isn't interesting, but it's hard to compare Morrowind or Knights of the Old Republic to European geography. Morrowind is fun for reasons unrelated to the geography or history, although they both make the game feel like a real world.

      But it's going to be hard to make wandering around Europe that exciting. Especially because it'll be hard to justify giving the player magic or Force powers.

      There is definatly a possibility for Age of Empires type games to succesfully teach history, but it would be difficult to apply many real world situations to enjoyable games.

      -Trillian

    2. Re:Educational Games by MadocGwyn · · Score: 1

      True, but if I read it right he wasn't talking pure educational games.
      So if you had say morrowwind, and used a real place, and all the background was real, then put the fanciful 'magic' and things in the foreground it could be damn fun and educational too. So real people in italy don't shoot fire from their eyes, but at the time period in question there were these X groups that thought X and did X.

      --
      Jesus saves, everyone else takes full damage from the fireball.
  6. What is the cost benefit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, I've played a lot of Morrowind. But given the 100+ hour scope of the game, could I have learned just as much by cracking a book and studying Morrowind culture, geography, etc for 10 hours.

    I think games can be a great transparent way of learning, but the absorption ratio is very low compared to the time you play. In order to get that transparency, the game has to be the focus over education, and in that case, it will always lose out to activities where learning is the primary task (and by this I don't mean it isn't fun, just that reading a history book can be both informative and entertaining, but simply prefers informing first, then entertaining.)

    Outcast

  7. About time. by Thedalek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now if only they'd go about it the right way.

    The typical approach of education through gaming works like this: "Let's make education fun! We'll make a game-like program, only instead of having an exciting game-like theme, it'll be educational! Kids will learn and have fun!"

    The result: Edutainment. Be honest, given the choice between an edutainment title (any edutainment title) and a good non-educational game, which would you play?

    The approach they should be using is this: "Kids are playing a lot of this game. What concepts does it convey, and how could those be applied to learning?" Almost everything is educational in some way, so all you really need to do is figure out how you're learning from the things you enjoy.

    Resource management relates directly to economics. Tech/Research trees relate directly to the fundamentals of Sociology (which, when you understand them, make History easier to understand). Most any luck-based game has an observable level of probability and statistics. Lots of card games (Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, MagiNation) have algebra in them. There's high-school level material in Monopoly, but any 10-year-old can play and understand it.

    Someone really ought to take all the education checkpoints for K-12 (that's Kindergarten through High School in the US) and cross reference them to popular "non-educational" board, card, and video games. As an educational resource, that would be gold.

    --
    Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
    1. Re:About time. by MadocGwyn · · Score: 0

      Congradulations, you basically just stated the exact points of the article:P

      --
      Jesus saves, everyone else takes full damage from the fireball.
  8. Isn't this obvious? by August_zero · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Expose somebody to something for even 2 or 3 hours and they are going to absorb some of the information. Can you remember which brick in the first stage of Super Mario Brothers held the mushroom? If you grew up playing it probably. In fact, by your 2nd or 3rd game you knew where the powerups on the first stage were, its just simple memorization.

    I would be more alarmed by people that played 30+ hours of Morrowind and didn't know some of the games culture and geography.

    --
    On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
  9. not specific to games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can recite all kinds of fantasy stuff from books I've read too. The point is, the books and the games are *interesting* and *escapist* ... if there was some way to make books/movies/games on american history (for instance) that were equally interesting, I think folks would learn the same.

    Also there is something "cooler" about learning fantasy geography than real geography...

  10. Sid Meier's Pirates by Prien715 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was sitting in 6th grade class and my teacher was talking about pirates during the Spanish empire. Someone asked why they didn't use large warships like galleons and instead preferred smaller vessels. I raised my hand and answered that larger vessels are often at the mercy of the wind. Smaller vessels, like Sloops, typically had oars. Even if the wind weren't going your way, it was possible to board a ship.

    The teacher asked where I learned that, and I felt kind've embaressed. I couldn't really say a Nintendo game could I?

    Anyway, the article begs one question: with so much history, why must we often make fictional battles and fictional plots in otherwise realistic games?

    --
    -- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
    1. Re:Sid Meier's Pirates by ctr2sprt · · Score: 1
      Age of Empires is fairly similar. The lead-ins on the campaigns are great. Talk about making history fun. It really does read more like the plot to a computer game than a pretty faithful retelling of history. There aren't many specifics, but then, how many specifics are you going to remember in 10 years (or even 1 week after the test on them)?

      Teachers are more into this stuff than some people think, too. Hey, if it makes kids more interested in learning, they're all for it. Problem is, most games branded educational are terrible, and most games branded entertainment have no educational merits whatsoever. It's hard for someone who hasn't actually played the game to tell it's any good, sometimes.

      You know, I was actually a little disappointed that RoN, AoE's heir apparent, doesn't have the historically-inspired campaigns. It's a good game, don't get me wrong. But hell, I was playing the AoE2 campaigns just to find out what happened next in the story. (I suppose I could have just picked up a history book, but...)

    2. Re:Sid Meier's Pirates by ralphclark · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not just games that work, but novels too.

      Intending to try stoking some enthusiasm for real life space exploration in my children, I just got through reading Stephen Baxter's "Voyage" to my eight and nine year old children (they read well enough themselves but they would never have read this).

      Anyway, despite this being a thoroughly adult story about an alternate NASA history, heavy with politics and technical detail about NASA procedures and technologies, the kids just loved it. Where the book assumes an adult knowledge of twentieth century history, I kept having to stop to explain about things like Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and so on. I also had many opportunities to point out current news stories and draw parallels between the book's fictional NERVA accident and the recent Columbia disaster. But the compelling story made them pay attention.

      Result: I asked my son the other day what was the main impact of Reagan's presidency on US national space policy. His answer: "Star Wars and the militarization of space". Nine years old! I asked my daughter how does Soviet space technology differ from America's. Her one-word answer: "Boilerplate!" They can also give, on request, potted career summaries of all the major characters (I suppose it's a pity the major characters were all fictional in this case).

      Yesterday at dinner I mentioned the recent radar survey of Titan's surface and the theory that there may be large liquid methane oceans on the surface. My daugher pipes up "That's Saturn's largest moon!" And my son then says that he'd been reading about the Cassini mission and how the Huygens probe was designed to float if this methane ocean theory proved to be correct.

      Mission accomplished!

      Speaking for myself, despite the obligatory history classes at school I was never able to make any sense of it until I encountered Edward Rutherfurd's novels (Sarum, London, The Forest et al). These are like collections of short stories about people in a handful of families spread across many centuries of history, and woven together into a single narrative. Everything is relevant to and thoroughly explained in it's historical context. It really brings history alive.

      So to sum up, it's the presence of a coherent narrative which grabs at your imagination, that is the key to learning. I'm certain of that now. This must surely have strong ramifications for educational policy.

      Suitable games might be thin on the ground and also too expensive to develop under strapped educational budgets, but there are plenty of historical novels around which clearly exhibit much detailed research on the part of the author.

  11. asdfasmkdf by u-238 · · Score: 0

    yeah, this may not boast the superior qualities of political and geographical enlightenment, but after playing hours upon hours of battlefield 1942 online, i can name almost any tank or plane i see, pinpoint what theater most of the major battles of ww2 took place, and once i saw a show on the history channel, "Conquest," where the narrirator went through the rules and disciplines a piolot puts himself through, as well as some established tactics, and a surprisingly large number of them i had found myself using, purly on instinct, in the game.

  12. Learning what? by Mentally_Overclocked · · Score: 1

    If Morrowind is anything like Daggerfall was, how could you actually guarantee that the user would learn any one desired aspect?

    Besides that, if it is as long and tedious as Daggerfall was, even during my last wasted summer, I wouldn't have learned anything by playing it, as I usually got too annoyed with it to care.

    Otherwise, I could really only imagine becoming familar with literature, philosophical concepts, or history trivia. It wouldn't really be conducive to learning sciences, mathematics, or any of the finer nuisances of literature like critical analysis.

    So yeah, I guess you could learn some things, but probably only the lower level building blocks or enough to strike a potential interest, which is admirable.

    Perhaps its just my being in college and my understanding of how a college education is beneficial that is clouding my judgment.

    Cheers

    --

    Mathematician, n.:
    Someone who believes imaginary things appear right before your i's.
  13. another major snag by andy_fish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This article is forgetting about another major snag. The material we learn in video games is easy to learn simply cause it is fun material. The politics of Morrowind had all kinds of rival houses fighting for control, and stuff like that - I'm sure if our party system was a little more dramatic and violent, we'd all be paying more attention. The fauna in Morrowind was worth knowing because you could use the ingredients to make magic spells - but real world herbology is not quite so interesting.

    In general, all of the existing commercial video games have had the convenience of designing the material to be as fun and engaging as possible (you may point at historical games as a counterexample, but notice that historical games are only based on the interesting moments in history). Games designed for education would not have this convenience.

    --
    & I wish I knew the password to your heart . . . &
  14. Interesting read, but... by ePIsOdEOnline · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find it interesting that the article fails to mention the research that is going into seeing if this is entirely feasable at all. Not only the work at MIT, but also a host of othe colleges all around like UTA and some others.

    http://cms.mit.edu/games/education/

    http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59855,00.ht ml

  15. And what Quake players learned? by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'd really like to see someone try a REAL rocket jump after practicing for so long on his or her computer.

    1. Re:And what Quake players learned? by bobbozzo · · Score: 1

      Well, I learned from Doom what that would probably look like.

      --
      Nothing to see here; Move along.
    2. Re:And what Quake players learned? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't rocket jump in Doom fool! You can't even point the rocket launcher up or down! I was pissed at Quake at first because I had to use the mouse to manuever properly, I was still trying to do it all on keyboard.

    3. Re:And what Quake players learned? by JFMulder · · Score: 1

      And I did even worse... I was trying to do it all from a gamepad!

      God bless dual analog sticks or keyboard+mouse :)

  16. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Corporations and schools interested in educating through games look at the price tag, project length, and lack of scalability in a Fallout or Morrowind and cringe."

    Yes, you got it, it is NOT easy to educate. When you think about how much a person learns during 2 hours of one of these games or something, if you scale that to 12 years of school everyone should know the encyclopedia britannica by heart. But they don't, because in order for a person to remember something they have to know why to remember it, and games provide such a reason: If you don't remember it, you will not get to the next level, won't play through the game... whatever.

    Sure, development time is long and so on but that is what it takes. Especially if non-educational stuff is so much fun.

  17. Duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "educating through games"

    No kidding, our politicians seem to think that kids can learn all sorts of things through games: like how to kill people. :)

  18. Silly Example by clambake · · Score: 1

    This is a bad example, because it's about an action game, but I used to be a big first-person shooter fan. Well, the other day I went to the "real" gun range for the first time, and I found that I was an amazingly good shot, right from the get-go. We fired all sorts of weapons from small handguns to scoped rifles to small assault weapons.

    I found that many of the techniques that I used in the game (when auto-aiming was off) to hit targets turned out to be successful ways to shoot in real life too. This was especially true using a wobbly rifle and scope.

    I wasn't hitting directly in the bulls-eye every time or anything, but my grouping was perfect and I was always within a couple of inches of where I was aiming, even at a great distance.

  19. The American Army is certainly aware of this by Danny+Rathjens · · Score: 3, Insightful


    http://www.americasarmy.com/

  20. Schools have their own game development tools by Draigon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, sort of.
    Schools already teach biology, physics, art, programming, etc. An extra class or club that embodies those ideas could make their own games. Funding and scalability issues are thrown out right there. Every year or two the club could produce a new game if they wanted and the price tag would be very minimal (no more than schools already pay for tech-related clubs *cough*).

    To me, money and technical issues is not the problem. The problem is still an overbearing prejudice. When I went to high school, I was taking a web design class because it was an easy grade. I could teach the class if I wanted. The class turned into free time for me to kill on anything I wanted. Well, almost. You see, some wise ass state official somehow declared it wrong for games to exist in schools in any form at all. I used my free time to make my own game for my own entertainment, teacher found me playing it, school gave me a saturday. I spent the saturday school reading a book on game design. :)

    Point is, video games are just that. Games (in the eyes of most people). A meaningless way of shedding excess energy and time, but nothing more. My bets are if schools were educated enough (hah) to see games for more than that, parents would complain instead.

    --
    -Rabbit
  21. Adventure games by slux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not a native english speaker and games were what got me started learning english when I was less than en years old. I would play games such as Monkey island and really want to understand what was happening so I had a dictionary I looked up words from.

    In a way, parser-based older adventure games were even better because you had to be able to type in the objects' names and also make no spelling mistakes. Maybe I should grab a non-english adventure game and try learning a new language. :)

    These days most games are so basic story-wise that I imagine they couldn't work as language learning tools as well. Fortunately it seems we do still have RPGs and even some adventure games altough most are playing Counter Strike.

    One more way that I've learned with games is by getting so interested about the subject that I would read the manual and even go to a library to borrow some books on the subject. This happened with Red Baron for example. It had a very informational manual and as a result, I know quite a bit about WW1 aviation now. Nowadays games are packed in DVD-style cases mostly and there is simply no room for all the stuff that always used to be a big plus in buying instead of copying.

  22. Games are excellent teachers. by arcade · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Okay, I'll probably be ridiculed for this post by some pedantic bastard - but what the heck.

    I'm Norwegian. When I went to primary school, english courses started in the 4th grade. I sucked. Couldn't understand shit, and was among the few that really couldn't get a grasp on the language. Never was any good at human languages.

    The summer between 6th and 7th grade I got my first PC. I had had various Consoles, and mostly "arcade-game"-computers before that, but now I had a PC. Think Monkey Island. Think Police Quest. Hey - think Leisure Suit Larry ;-D

    In addition, I forced myself to read "PC-Format", an english computer rag.

    Guess what happened? Went from one of the worst to one of the best in less than 6 months. These days I read english just as well as norwegian - and type both languages equally bad.

    (Okay you pedantic bastards, rip this post to shreds. Point out my spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes and so forth ;-)

    Games (and interest in the subject) are good teachers!

    --
    "Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
  23. Games???? Educational??? by Jhonny · · Score: 1

    You bet! I have learned countless words from games! Such as Mirth from heroes of might and magic three and tons of Japanese weapon names from Nethack!

    --
    DUKEY!
  24. GK by tsa · · Score: 1

    I learned a lot about voodoo from Gabriel Knight I, and a lot about the Knights Templar from GK III. The games themselves were also very enjoyable.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  25. Anyone Interested? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I for one would LOVE to see good educational games based around various topics for use as a study aid, etc...

    This seems to me like it's not exactly the best way to learn if unsupported by actual classroom or outside studying, but definitely a good learning tool.

    Is there any way to get some kind of petition to show interest in this kind of thing? Or anything already existing?

    I would die a happy man if there was some kind of educational game released using Morrowind as a basis...

  26. And... by jonathan_the_ninja · · Score: 1

    It also teaches that you will be punished for crime,
    not that you should commit crimes (like some people are saying video games teach, which is bull#$*&)
    Although, I don't think that the manager of my local Kroger is level 11...

    --
    I love NetHack.
  27. media in general (M*A*S*H) by sckeener · · Score: 1


    Despite the fact that it is half hour comedy, I learned more about the Korean War through M*A*S*H than I did in school.

    M*A*S*H didn't aim to teach about the war, but it did include facts and it did have episodes with meanings.

    The goal of an educational video game should be to teach the intangibles or big concepts being just a fun game in between the facts. Heck, Railroad Tycoon taught me a lot about money.

    --
    "Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
  28. Guess this means I should drop out... by yangotang · · Score: 0

    und drawp out o de' skoo syst3m and resort to b3c0m1n9 t3h 1337357 h4x0r th3r3 15!!!