Slashdot Mirror
Serious Gaming For Health
TecnaDigit writes "The Games for Health Conference, is being hosted this month by the Serious Games Initiative at the Maryland School of Medicine. The writers at GamEnlight have posted an editorial about the Serious Games organization. The organization has an uphill battle facing them, with the way games are so readily scorned these days. But they recognize the potential for this area as well, and work with honest dedication to develop games for a better, more knowledgeable future. The article also has an insightful look at how the uses of technology and gaming changes as we become older."
A more useful question, it seems to me, is what one gets out of such games. It seems like their "educational" value is limited to demonstrating the correctness of the underlying ruleset, which is to say, the correctness of the developers' prejudices. Passing that off as "learning" seems entirely counterproductive to me.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Fortunately the trend is well established. Thus, I predict that future videogame players will all be lean, flexible, well-muscled, finely-trained athletes able to beat up football players and steal their lunch money.
I play Nerd-Folk!
The author certainly mentions Games for Health and what's going on, but two-thirds of the article is more talking about where the educational games went. Maybe he's never heard of Leap Frog, but he does bring up a valid point.
If according to Mr. Popularity himself, Jack Thompson, violent games cause violent kids because the interaction level of aggressive games teaches them aggression far better than any other form of media, shouldn't it follow that educational games teach children educational themes far better too?
What about a game that makes a child do math problems to win? Or a game that requires chemestry, or biology? Honestly, is there any subject you couldn't stick into a game and make a billion times more fun for kids? Imagine what would happen if you hooked all their computers together, and for Billy to beat little Jimmy he'd better be quick with the algebra! Children are brilliant creatures, all you have to do is give them something they're interested in and they'll be experts in no time. What's more, you'll have to drag them away from it.
The most impressive and intelligent thing I've ever seen a child do was when my nephew learned how to play the original Warcraft. He was six years old and he understood the different units, the different buildings, and the different resources he needed to collect. He can't even work the mouse that well and he's sending a pack of water elementals down to decimate an orc town because he knows they're powerful and don't cost any wood or gold. I don't care if the game is technically about waging war, I feel he showed more organizational leadership potential than half the people who voted in the last election.
I pretty much regard it as inevidable that children will eventually be taught through interactive media. People in the not-so-distant future will actually laugh at the suggestion that you should stand in front of a group of children and lecture, much in the same way we laugh at using leeches now.