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Your Homework is Play Video Games
GuitarNeophyte writes "Four schools in the UK will be testing a new program idea to use video games for educational use. An IT researcher, along with Electronic Arts (the software game giant) are funding the proposition. 'We're looking at developing some of the softer skills that are needed for the 21st century, such as problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration.' "
They have to play EA games? Wow, I feel sorry for them.
IIRC, Doom had a lot of very graphic anatomy lessons built in.
IMO, it is vital to make homework not feel like homework in order to get children interested in their schooling again and combat their growing apathy.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
You know - Readin', Ritin', and 'Rithmatic? After all, it worked for decades here in the USA!
If it's work, it won't bring the same satisfaction as playing a game for pleasure.
And in related news, the TEA are consulting Ouija Boards to determine the next Social Studies curriculum.
Your Homework is Play Video Games
Apparently someone skipped their English homework.
--riney
I wonder what their adult education games are like.
*moves to UK*
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
The way I see it, at least they're considering if this is a good idea, rather than going down the "games=bad" route. All of the skills they want to teach the kids, from the article, are present in games.
I'd be interested to see how this turns out, and if it's actually teacher-led "gaming", as it were, rather than "I'll sit here with a cup of tea catching up on my mountain of paperwork when you play these games and hopefully learn something".
At the very least, it's a start.
Just another harmless drunk
It's been said before that parents don't care what kind of games their kids play but rather how much time they're spending playing them.
Does this mean the next generation will procrastinate by reading Socrates and performing Fourier Transforms?
A lot of American schools have eliminated drivers ed. It would be useful for a driving simulator (not racing) that is designed to help new drivers with both normal driving (merging, heavy traffic, navigation) and emergency situations (accident avoidance, skids, bad weather, etc).
[Insert pithy quote here]
Hey, what a great idea! We never needed those before, but NOW there's some serious demand for brand new skills like problem-solving.
The owls are not what they seem
There was talk early this year (or was it last year), about the game developed by WHO, to teach young kids in the developed countries, about the plight and standard of living of people in third world countries. However, it met with the same fate as the others that I heard of in the past... the launch of such a game is covered a lot by the media, but fizzles out with no updates posted about the effectivness.
On the other hand, how does one measure the effectiveness of such an initiative?
As for this trial, one has to wonder how much of a push is it from the gaming giant to lure more children into the gaming world?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
When I was little, I had all the computer games like Operation Neptune, Super Solvers Midnight Rescue, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, Number Munchers, and so on. Those were totally awesome. I'd play them again if I had them. When I was even younger (like maybe 4), I had an awesome baseball game where at each at-bat, you choose a level of difficulty and they give you an appropriate arithmetic problem. You get it right, you get a hit. You get it wrong, you're out. /No point to this post, just waxing nostalgic...
Too bad they didn't parter with ID to make a Math Blaster FPS. Or maybe an American McGee's Reader Rabbit.
Right. Too bad they will be lacking in social skills and cultural values.
But then again, he did say "needed for the 21st century"...
Carol vs. Ghost
Top three reasons why I don't want EA involved in this
1) Homework will take 10 hours a night to complete, but "only during crunch time".
2) There are always other students willing to participate in the program if you don't want to
3) Students won't get extra credit, no matter HOW much homework they do
On a more serious note, I've been saying for YEARS that we need to focus on these so called "softer" skills. Current education is too hooked on what a child knows and how well they can memorize, not how able they are to figure things out. I realize that the subjects are supposed to be vehicles to teaching these "softer" skills, the problem is many teachers don't. They teach facts to be memorized ( especially at the higher levels ), not concepts to be thought about.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Check out these links where people have made similar arguments:
a ndvideogames.html
6 16646.htm
t icles/computer-video-games-do-have-benefits/
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hollow/1093/tv
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11
http://www.playattention.com/attention-deficit/ar
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Problem-solving... Get into difficult-to-reach sniper spot.
Resilience... Survive long enough in difficult-to-reach sniper spot to make a difference.
Persistence... Inflict as many headshots as possible without missing.
Collaboration... Can someone get me some more sniper ammo?
Oregon Trail
Dino Park Tycoon
Odell Down Under
and the endless other games we played in school. How is this new?
+5, Truth
Some work just can't be fun.
You are a product of the industrialized education system. So am I. We were taught that work wasn't fun, it was work. And it wasn't something we had a choice in, regardless.
My daughter *loves* school. She loves the work, and looking it over, so would I ( and would have, at her age. ).
When I was in 2nd grade, my math homework ( for example ) was a sheet of numbers and operators. She brings home these little booklets that have word problems, stories, with numbers. Both accomplish the same thing, but hers also teaches problem solving ( figuring out which numbers go where in the equation ) AND she enjoys it because it's a story.
I won't even get into the science. They do some awsome things with science now.
History, for some reason, they still teach like they did when I was in school. On this date, this happened. On this date, this happened. And then they test you on the dates. idiotic.
My overall point being, we were taught by our schools not to have fun while doing work. Now a days, teachers have better tools at their disposal, and kids are actually learning to have fun while working.
Now if we could only get the parents to show some interest in their child's education and get the ID people to drop it. A scary world where a teacher feels too threatened to teach science theory because of religous nuts.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Perhaps it is because of the overwhelming lack of critical thinking and other cognitive skills in young adults nowadays.
I wonder if every generation says this about the generation they produced. Meanwhile technology still progesses forward.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
We had many games that are "educational" the suprising thing though is these were well built games, and I believe the best ones came out of EGA (if I remember that company right) and EA. Carmen Sandiago anyone? I particularly liked the Super Solver series for their logic problems.
If EA is making games for children that'd be great, but Video games for homework only works when we deal with games for learning. Madden isn't going to teach anyone that much except hand and eye coordination and how not to get your QB completely sacked (then again I have yet to learn that).
All I hope is that they are as interesting and entertaining as the games in my youth, such as the typing games that had a car moving and the faster you typed the faster you went. Those games were entertaining to me, and kept my attention and taught me some spelling (though not that much) and typing.
People coming out of the 1920's education system were far smarter than what the system is producing now. They could actually read, write, and perform mathematics. Imagine that! Today you'll find many university-level students who struggle with such basic tasks.
The strict discipline of the early 20th century gave children only one choice: to learn! And so they did.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This is nothing new, until the Windows platform completely wiped out the homegrown competition, we always had educational games in schools in the UK. Companies like Sherston, 4Mation and others released loads of 'games' for schools. Googling about now, I've found a few of the old-skool education games still knocking aroung (for example Granny's Garden), and some others that never seem to have made the jump from the 8 bit days (like Suburban Fox).
Some of the games that were created back in the 90s were very closely tied in with specific National Curiculum targets, and still manages to be quite fun to play - albeit made on quite a small budget, with the sort of money that EA has to throw at production, these new generation of education games could be really good.
http://gvr.sourceforge.net/ is an interesting concept to build upon.
Depending on how it's implemented, I see no reason why games can't be developed that either (A) require a printout when a student completes a level/course to prove that it was done or (B) reports back to central repository so that the teacher can determine if the work was done.
:)
So, for example, a student plays a game that deals with the multiplication tables. The game is entertaining and informative at the same time, so the kid enjoys playing it. Once the "work" level has been "won", out goes a signal (or a report) stating that little Johnny has completed the work. The teacher has proof that the game was played and little Johnny had fun with it to the point that he looks forward to the next assignment. I don't see this as being difficult to achieve, nor to I believe that this is something that is unattainable as TFA suggests.
Obviously, there are technical issues with this (being cynical geeks we can always find flaws), but I don't see any reason why this could not be done to the point that video games, classwork, homework, and education are synonymous.
So, let's see. A boring book or a complete multimedia experience. Gee, which one do you think the kids will want more? Apparently, the cynics here have not heard of the still-popular Reader Rabbit series.
And give Taco some slack. After years of having to deal with "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" derivative posts on Slashdot, it was only a matter of time before that type of fractured grammar became a part of the Slashdot mentality.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
They should go to Konami for games they could use in gym class. Last time I checked, Dance Dance Revolution is one helluva addicting, and sweat inducing game even when you are not in workout mode.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Computer games giant Electronic Arts and education IT researcher NESTA Futurelab, are to conduct trials to see how computer games can be used as educational tools in schools.
Sales Rep: Sir! We have a problem, no one is buying our shitty games!
CEO: Hmmmm.... is it because 25 of our last 26 games have been sequals?
Sales Rep: That's part of the problem, sir, but all of our games contain a copious amount of um, shit.
CEO: Interesting. We need a new market approach.
Sales Rep: Sir?
CEO: We sell our games to schools, and say they our educational!
Sales Rep: Brialliant!
CEO: We have to make sure they buy our utter crap too, so let's say "all our genres have something to offer"...
Sales Rep: Oh Sir, the school districts will love it! I'll get the board on the phone right away. Hello Add'em '06!
just hire some kids to be bullies to pick on the kids every day. Either that, or disable "God mode" in Doom.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
You are in a 21st Centurty school, your teachers are underpaid, the facilities are obsolete, your fellow students are apathetic. It is dark. There is a computer in front of you.
>>turn on computer
The computer is on.
>>play educational game
You are distracted by the bright colors and cool sound effects. You are supposedly learning problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration; skills for which there is no test to measure your progress. You graduate.
>>get job
Your attempt to get a job fails. It is dark.
>>get job
Your attempt to get a job succeeds! You are now a fry cook at McDonalds.
>>get better job
Your attempt to get a better job fails. Your education never prepared you with either the intellectual tools or actual knowledge to succeed. You have no health care, you don't vote, and your kids will turn out even worse than you. Oh, and you've been eaten by a grue.
Your dead
As I recall, this has been done already... when I was in kindergarten (circa 1993), we had two or three old Apple IIe computers in the classroom and we were on a scheduled rotation so that every week or so every kid would get a chance to play with it for a period of time. As educational games were the only ones available (at least to us), we were learning while we played. I loved playing and always looked forward to it. Number Munchers and Word Munchers were excellent games (among many others) and I still pull out the ol' IIe from time to time to revisit some old games that were truly educational. (This is not to say my education hasn't advanced since Kindergarten, but my future children will definitely be playing some of those same games if they still work by then)
This sig left blank for page turns.
'We're looking at developing some of the softer skills that are needed for the 21st century, such as problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration.'
And, in the back of the package, in small print: Social skills not included.
Reminds me of my homework at the university, which I had at the beginning of this semester. It was to watch animated movies (ie Toy Story etc). Ok, the course was on computer graphics and animation, but anyway...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
Alright class, your homework for this weekend is to finish Squaresoft's Final Math Fantasy. It's an 80+ hour game with plenty of repetitious "math battles" and I want your Memory Card (8MB) (for Playstation 2) on my desk Monday morning.
We had this sort of thing in my time. We called it edutainment and it wasn't that popular then either.
Increasingly, Computer Game Playing (or, rather, Computer manipulation) is becoming a skill of some importance. For example, there was a recent article in the Washington Post about Coal Mining in Virginia:
c le/2005/08/14/AR2005081401174.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Back in Russia in early 1990's we had just got a new classroom with IBM computers. The computer science (we called it 'informatics') teacher let us play Sokoban and Lemmings for a grade. It was really fun, made you think logically, and gave the teacher time to go out and run errands and take smoke breaks. A win-win situation if you ask me ;)