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What's In an Educational Game?
An anonymous reader writes "I work at a non-profit whose mandate is to increase science literacy and awareness. One of the methods that we've started exploring is in making free, online educational games. Our target demographic for the games is kids aged 8-12, but there is no reason the games could not also appeal to a broader age range. What would you look for in an educational game? Does length and depth of gameplay matter to you, or would you rather play a trivial game with subconscious educational value?"
I'm looking to have fun in a way that is utterly disconnected from the real world. Civ4 is about as "educational" as I'd be willing to mess with. It gives you the history behind the units and buildings in the civilopedia, but that history is 100% optional to look at. If the game stopped me with a message like "Did you know that ancient bronze-age spears can take down a B-17 bomber if they're thrown real hard?" it would come across as obtrusive and/or preachy.
Without the sound they are going to have to read alot of text.
Also will help with memorization since they will have to remember things like favorite colors, birthdates, likes, dislikes, etc.
(/Sarcasm) Really, Educational and Games seems to always fail.
I certainly learned more about history from games like Colonization than I did in school. It's too bad that most Sim games, like Spore, distort reality horribly when they could have been made into valuable learning experiences with little effort.
Does length and depth of gameplay matter to you, or would you rather play a trivial game with subconscious educational value?
In a paper we recently discussed, researchers noted that
Ironically, they may even be less likely to become game makers themselves, helping to perpetuate the cycle. Many have suggested that games function as crucial gatekeepers for interest in science, technology, engineering and math.
By that logic, almost all games offer children an actively engaged exercise in problem solving. Edutainment games seem to be dry and boring with the ulterior motive easily spoon fed to the player.
I would stress games that have various degrees of puzzle solving but little obvious educational value. Look up the Castle of Dr. Brain. I played the hell out of that and would welcome a web based clone with higher level difficulty! I also feel it gave me great puzzle solving skills.
Also, I'd like to caution you that we are a extreme set of the population. Opinions here may not be valuable to someone trying to reach the rest of the population. Of course we are predisposed to enjoy depth and length over trivial pop cap games with flashing jewels.
My work here is dung.
Seriously, there was this one game I used to play years back where two numbers would pop up, if you added them correctly your little gun would blast some aliens that were running down a hall towards you. These weren't nice looking aliens either, it really made you want to add!
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
I think for the age range you are targeting, the style of game that would have the most educational value (as in that something is actually learned and reinforced) works around putting understanding of concepts to use to solve problems within the game. The biggest problem for many students is being taught concepts but not how to apply them or use them to critically think through a challenge. If the game centered around having to discover and then apply scientific ideas/concepts to navigate through the game to reach various goals, then students would not just learn random facts or trivia, but would actually gain experience in critical thinking and application of abstract information.
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Here's a short list of things found in educational games:
The Towers of Hanoi
Numbers that need to be munched
People dying of dysentery
Typing tutorials which can let you get 300 words per minute by spamming the 'a' and space bar
Man, I miss my Apple 2e.
(p.s., captcha=expelled)
is that educational games are usually (by which I mean always) not fun.
I like *fun* games. If it's fun, then you can make me learn all you want.
The problem is that most educational games start with the lesson and then try to build the game around it. Start with a good game and then make it educational.
What captivates me is some type of mystery where an unknown has to be solved. Totally dating myself here, but I remember spending hours playing "The Halley Project" on the old C64. Basically flying a spaceship around the solar system gathering clues on where to go next...heading to the library [this was pre internet] to research the clues, fly to the next destination, etc.
Code. Some pictures. Maybe a couple sounds.
Next?
Seriously though, there are a lot of people who are saying that educational games aren't fun, but I remember some from my childhood that I always enjoyed. Gizmos and Gadgets was one. I also enjoyed the Math Blaster ones. Maybe its because I was a nerd, maybe they just tried harder back then, but I think they made you think and you enjoyed the game at the same time.
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The first thing you need to define is: what would be the goal of the game. It's probably not for time consuming leisure but to get the kids to learn something. But what do you want them to learn? Do you want them to learn math, then you'll need to integrate math somehow, for reading you should integrate words somehow, if you want to increase reaction time or cognition then you'll have to probably build a shooter. It also has to be fun and rewarding, if the kid doesn't like playing with it then they are going to get disengaged and not learn anything. If it takes to long to learn how to play the game or it gets too difficult too quick, the kids won't like it, likewise if it is going to be too easy for too long, they will again get bored. Maybe an algorithm that detects the rate of speed the kid is learning at or the level the kid is at already would be helpful. Then you will also require the story of the game to be involved in whatever you want to learn them. If for example you are trying to teach reading (and subsequently writing) you might not want to have too much multiple choice or clicking answers but have them type in answers. If you are trying to teach math they again will have to somehow learn math through involvement in the story. Math (addition, substraction, multiplication) is fairly simple for most but thinking about how to solve a math problem (understanding the problem) is much more involved and that is what they are going to need. Example: A company charges a flat rate of 7c per minute for a phone call but always charges at least 70c. What is the actual per minute cost of a 7 minute call. That is a question that I recently saw on an entrance exam for a college and a question that most of the students struggled with answering correctly.
Some general guidelines.
- Refrain from including a commercial character (eg. Spongebob or Teletubbies), that way you won't run into copyright issues and the game will also not become boring or old very quickly (whenever a new character comes out)
- Make sure you understand the level of understanding of your audience as well as their progress and at what point it is too easy, too difficult or too boring.
- Make sure you concentrate on a good story and a good involvement of your subject into that story.
- Make sure that the game makes the kids feel rewarded or feel better. If they are going to see it as a classroom/schooling instead of a game they will not get engaged in it.
- Ask an actual kid what they think about it at certain points. Make a storybook and ask them if that's something they'll like. Talk to child psychologists and teachers as well.
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I like a game that is easy to get into but then can take up your whole life trying to master it. In my younger years for example I was a Dutch youthchampion in chess. That is what I look for in a game, not to many rules, relative easy to get you started but still providing you with a great challenge after you have learned the basics. I like stuf like sokoban, sudoku, atoms.
Just to tack onto the above point, I agree overtly educational games are a waste of energy. Puzzles and resource management games, like Oregon Trail, have a much better chance at successfully completing your requirements.
I think an intellectual hero as the players avatar would be a nice touch. A Susan Calvin or Hari Seldon character that uses knowledge and wisdom (a Tom Swift without the natural genius) to solve problems. Instead of the absent minded professor and his beautiful-yet-intelligent-and-spunky daughter needing rescuing, have the scientist do the rescuing. Or better yet, have the absent minded professor's hard working apprentice do the rescuing. You know, a young man or woman that your target demographic can relate to.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
Education is a very broad term. Teaching language is very different from teaching arithmetic or science or music. Rock Band is decent for teaching beginning drum skills. An adventure game or even a specialized MMO could be useful for language immersion.
Go rent it, or whatever.
Something that allows kids to interact with the games through exploration and puzzle solving. Any of you remember those make your own adventure books, if someone can use that same basic concept I think would not be very boring to play.
I highly recommend "Mindrover." In this game, you build and program a little robot that goes through obstacle courses, fights other robots, etc. It's got an intuitive graphical programming language (though you can edit the files directly for a more advanced, hands-on approach). You get to program the robot's default behavior, define how it responds to threats, program "hunting" strategies, etc.
The main website appears to be down, but here's the community site with a demo for free download. If someone had given me this game when I was a kid, I'd definitely be a better programmer today.
One has only to look at Oregon Trail to get your answers.
The thing that made Orgeon Trail a success IMO is that little information was forced upon the user. Anything information that was trying to be taught, was presented either in a place that the user had to go and ask for the information, or was a part of the actual game itself. Talking with townsfolk would reveal historic facts. The player did not have to talk with the townsfolk to play the game. However, the key was how much information was stuffed into the game itself. Nearly everybody these days knows the options one has to get a wagon across a river: ford the river, caulk the wagon and float it, or pay for the ferry. It was an integral part of the game and choosing was simple: just select one option and go. Since there were consequences from every decision, players grew to understand that fording a river that is 5 feet high was likely a bad idea and would cut the game short due to drowning.
What one can get from all of this is that the key to making an educational game is to incorporate what you are trying to teach into the game, while still letting the player bypass most of it.
I'd like to know from whence this alleged mandate comes.
I think you mean you are another group with a common bond and you have a goal. "Non Profit"? I didn't see any mention of 501C.
Increase science literacy and awareness - maybe you could explain just what metric you would use.
"Science Alberta Foundation operates under the governance of a volunteer Board of Directors composed of accomplished individuals from across the province"
did you get the PR you were looking for?
You have to start with Instructional Objectives if you're going to create an educational game.
The trick is designing these in a way that translates into a teachable experience that's fun and sticks to what you're trying to teach.
The hard part is doing this well. It's kind of like translating a book to a screenplay. Some things translate well (scenery, dialog), but other things have to be reworked into a different presentation (timelines, inner thoughts, points of view, backstory).
If you're trying to teach based on recall, your game is going to be one big pop quiz.
If you're teaching rules, you need to create a plausible scenario where they can make the right decision based on the rules, and design the game in a way that creates enough opportunities.
If you're teaching attitudes, you have a lot more flexibility in gameplay, but the number of different interactions if often limited.
You need to think about whether you want the game to actually teach people the information, or whether it should be a testing tool. And, while with games you want there to be a clear winner, the idea behind education is to teach everyone, so make sure the losers aren't simply discouraged from learning about the topic.
This brings to mind the discussions in the commentary mode in Half Life 2 and company. A big issue with testing was keeping the players focus on something without forcing them to look a certain way, usually by some obvious event in a direction not encumbered with dull scenery.
Another focus, and I've seen this in a lot of games, is never to tell you what to do but make figuring out that the solution easy the first time in a simple form, then being given a much more complex form of it to work with sometime later. Throughout the game, you're given more 'tools' for solutions and they stack up into greater puzzles but never anything so incredibly complicated it'll piss the player off.
Research is the most important part of these massive efforts and contenders like Valve put a Hell of a lot of money into it. In this case I would suggest some of your own research applied to the already improved methods.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Forgoing game play and resorting to strictly to trivia is an easy way to create a game fast and expand it easily but in my opinion it doesn't keep you coming back. When I was a kid I practically wore out the pocket atlas that came with Carmen Sandiego not only was I learning about geography I was playing a fun game. Even after I had seen all of the different questions I continued to play because it was fun and therefore continued to reinforce what I learned.
The length of the game should be short but engaging because you don't want it to be a tedious experience. If it is a short but intense experience you can always play a second round but if it takes too long or it becomes boring then the game will be abandoned and the point of it is lost. I my opinion is that 5 to 10 minute rounds of game play are best. It is short enough that a teacher might be able to sneak it in at the end of a class or depending on the platform a child can play quickly on a mobile device.
Serious games and educationally oriented games are beginning to take traction as a viable educational technology. Ask the Googles about "serious games". The research in this field has gone from researchers simply dismissing games to researchers embracing games and investigating the impact of games on targeted educational outcomes.
As a starting point Jim Gee has a great book on the subject. Here's a quick blurb: http://www.xplanazine.com/2004/10/what-video-games-have-to-tell-us-about-learning-and-literacy-a-brief-look
and a link to the book from the Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Video-Games-Teach-Learning-Literacy/dp/1403961697
Alberta is in Canada. 501(c) is for U.S. Federal income taxes.
Ask this question on twitter #gamedesign
A group of people with deeper expereince than here will have some thoughts on it.
right but a Non Profit is likely to be registered in USA if from Canada. my assumption. pardons.
It all sort of depends on what gender you're targetting. If you want to target the girls, your software should include unlockable furniture, clothes, pets, ponies and a cute main character. If you want to target the boys, include enemies that challenge them "You can never defeat me!", levels, unlockable weapons, armor, and violent situations. Japanimation is huge with the kiddy crowd nowadays. Including such art would not lessen your audience or the games' appeal among minors. Your game is now horribly addictive.
As far as gameplay goes, it's not that important as long as you've followed my instructions to this point. Try playing some of the old Super Solvers games -- we LOVED those games. Don't forget to include secrets and hidden clickables for the kids to laugh about. Put silly trivia in the loading screens (kids love trivia they can tell their parents) like "You can burp by swallowing a mouthful of air" or "A grizzly bear's nose is 1 million times more powerful than a human's!"
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Hi anonymous reader: I used to work in a very similar situation here in the states. I will tell you what I said at an exec meeting that carried a lot and still holds true with this genre: Make it fun; you only get to bore a kid once.
Goodluck, contact me if you want to talk about any of this.
kulakovich
Provide a way for kids to interact with sophisticated models in interesting ways. They'll learn to do science, not just that DNA is a double helix.
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I would think there are better places to ask this question, if you want a reply from the people the question is addressed at. If it does turn out that this is where 8 - 12's spend their time, then I'm in the wrong place - though it could explain some of the comments that appear.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I've always thought that Darwin Pond was a cool piece of free (beer) software that could be used to teach evolution. It's a simulation game with swimming organisms that compete for food and mates. There's even assortative mating built in.
What's great about it is there's no fixed goal, it's completely up to the player--maybe you want to try to breed fast swimmers or cool moving swimmers. You can watch the abundance of types change through time, try out your own "designed" types or introduce random mutations into the population.
I would recommend games like this.
If i just look at resent games I have played for entertainment, I would have to say I found Valve's Portal to be quite educational. It forces to you really think and problem solve. I feel problem solving is crucial to an educational game. Portal was entertaining enough to keep my attention and forced me to use problem solving skills. win/win
if i am at work or school, i want something short but sweet, ie tetris, planar, 3d puzzles, or games like the incredible machine.
I do enjoy games with virtually no educational value too, but what it boils down to is score, time or however you can compare it to your friends or those around the world.
Am i SMRT?
I doubt i would want to play an education game that take a long time (not including playing the same thing over and over)
But i wouldn't mind being proven wrong... is there a game that is considered long that many people like?
A game with emphasis on beauty and immersion could teach me a lot of things. Like the Myst games; immersive enough to have me decipher an alien number system. Could as well have taught me hexadecimals or binary numbers.
That it runs in computers that meant to be educational (like the XO) is a plus.
Also, educational in what topics? for what target age? You could count world of goo or civilization educational, but are totally different kind of education or required age.
I don't think it has to be complicated to be good (and addictive/engrossing)
A simple Q & A type thing with images etc., that gives feedback to the users can be very good.
Do a wiki search for "table quiz" - they are popular in the UK and Ireland.
Rosetta Stone whilst not a game is an educational application that is very rewarding to use.
It kinda makes me wonder though if at that point it's really an educational game, or just a fun RTS that's just vaguely historically themed.
E.g., at Agincourt,
- it wasn't on a hill, it was on flat ground. The hill was at Crecy.
- it wasn't just archers. About 1/5 of the English army were dismounted knights functioning as a heavy pikemen in front of the archers. The hail of arrows and the mud were one factor, but without that wall of pikes the French heavy cavalry would have reached the archers and cut them down. With heavy losses, but they would have.
In effect, what really happened was more of a "the knights lost to combined arms" case than "the knights lost to archers."
- the terrain played a more massive part than just the mud. There also was the fact that it was flanked on both sides by heavy woods, which was as good as impenetrable during a battle. (Anyone trying to make their way through it, would have arrived the next day at best.) Which allowed the relatively small number of pikemen to form a phalanx 4 rows deep and still completely prevent access to the archers, as well as be immune to flanking. (When facing lots of cavalry, flanking is your #1 worry. That's what the cavalry is there for.)
Plus, it severely limited how many french could actually get into melee with the English. Even on foot and packed shoulder to shoulder, there seems to have been room for a little over 200 in a line. Which severely blunted the whole numbers advantage of the French. By contemporary French accounts, those in the third row of the attack wave already couldn't use their swords against the English.
Worse yet, the French ended up packed in a tight formation, which is the worst possible kind against missile fire.
On an open hilltop, the story would have been very different.
- the french heavy armour played a much lesser role in their delay. The heaviest armour (chain or plate alike) at the time was about 40 pounds, and it would be almost another 200 years before plate got to be 60 pounds. Compared to the weight of the human and the horse, that was peanuts.
The terrain there was freshly ploughed earth and literally soaked in water. Some people have actually drowned in that mud, which gives an idea of how liquid it was. Even without armour, marching through it would have been a pain.
On the whole, probably the armour still actually helped. Otherwise they'd be dead even sooner.
- it wasn't really "a few" archers. It was 5000 archers, raining a total of 1000 arrows per second upon the enemy. To give you a comparison, it's the equivalent of over a hundred M-60 machineguns on full auto, non-stop. It wasn't just missile fire, it was concentrated missile fire, the kind that would not be seen again until WW1.
Etc.
So basically did that game really teach you much history, or was it just a game? I just have to wonder.
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Historical based, but didn't have to learn a thing. And I get to shoot things and get into sword fights.
If flash based games don't bother you, look at some of Wickedpissah's offerings. They certainly get me thinking about physics, though they're not intended to be instructional. I think that children, especially older ones, might really get a kick out of some of them, and get an intuitive feel for how objects interact at the same time.
The educational part need to be hidden as part of the game. SO they are learning witbhout realiing it.
And the game need to be entertaining.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We used this book in a game design class I took. While certainly not an end-all-be-all book on game design, it certainly got the class thinking about some of the subtleties in games. How to approach accomplishment in the game, how to encourage the player to keep going (important for younger ones so they don't get frustrated), etc...
fiasco into a game.
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Kilgore T.
I would suggest you take a working game and add background information. If you proceed a different way, for example designing the teaching goals first, you put your own creativity to a very hard test.
For example I was recently asked what I would like to see in the "Modern Combat" Add-On to Battle for Wesnoth as unit descriptions. I answered: I want to see the history of these units. But providing history demands quite an effort in research.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
A good emotional game should evoke the feelings. The protagonist should be a rotund, past-her-prime female who recounts her tales of being swept off her feet by two English gentlement, one of whom deserves her, and the other being the object of her affections. A side quest to collect the most flowers could only add to such a game.
My wife is a middle school science teacher. I suggested she should tell the kids that learning science is like learning the cheat codes to the universe.
How about making that a bit more literal. Maybe concepts could be adapted to be "cheat codes" or "upgrades" in actual games. Think of how much time is spent in games trying to improve and optimize character, weapon, or vehicle abilities. What if you had a game that let you upgrade your weapons by applying new concepts. For example, complete a task and you are taught f=ma. You get to modify your weapon by choosing m. Next task and you are given more information, such as how a is a function of m. Start introducing more variables. Every variable and every interaction is a teachable concept.
Heck, eventually you could have some kid working on differential equations for orbital mechanics so that he can kick his buddy's ass during 5th period math. The kid discovers Holman transfers so that he has maximum weapons payload to dump on his friend.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
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I'm assuming here that education is your primary goal, and the game is simply the means to achieve that goal.
Here's why you're asking the wrong people:
Most educational software is lousy. This is because the people who write it tend to fall into one of two groups:
Teaching is all about getting ideas across, so the people you need to talk to are the best teachers. Some may hang around on /., but by and large you're going to get ideas from people who have never tried to get ideas across in their life.
I did learn a lot about mithocondrias while playing parasite eve ( PlayStation ) .
Growing up, I played a number of great edutainment titles from Headbone Interactive, specifically the Elroy series. Since they were made in Macromedia Director, they could probably be ported to the web these days. What other company could be brave enough to make an entire game about pants? Pantsylvania was the strangest of the bunch...
A game that allows you to send your opponent home crying for his/her mama simply by know more than he/she does would provide some serious learning incentive. "I'll show you! (sniff) I'm gonna memorize the periodic table, Maxwell's equations and the US Constitution, and then you'll be sorry!"
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Making a game that looks educational while still being fun is the easy part. The real challenge is figuring out whether or not a given game is actually contributing to learning. The research on measuring retention of facts learned through play, short term and long, is in a sad state.
The major difference between "educational" games and so called "non-educational" games, is that the developer's goal in educational games is to use the game to teach some "thing" where in non-educational games the purpose is generally the game-itself. This is a completely artifical distinction based on if you're teaching pure "content" (such as learning the colors, or geopgraphy) versus as "skill" (such as memory, or problem solving). For example, if my game is about teaching world geography, I wouldn't want to constrain the player to North America because they are not good at the execution of game (e.g. flying a plane to photograph landmarks). If the goal is teaching memory-through-geography, I would constain them to a small geographic area until they demonstate proficiency. (granted, this is an oversimplification)
The Sim City games are like this... resource management skills are fundamental throughout, but as you go later the balancing, scope and city size make that skill harder to execute, but doesn't require the user to engage in complicated play before reaching the "resource management" stuff.
Also consider the question; "Is this a game that is going to be used directly by schools as part of their cirriculm or is this a game you're hoping kids will come to of their own volition?" It completely changes the level of "overtness" in learning that you can use to get their maximum adoption. This makes the distinction even more important because a teacher does not want users (students) to not reach the educational content for lack of game-playing skills.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
The most important thing to teach 8-12 year olds, more important than reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, is how to not have babies. We're going on 7 billion people with 3 people being added every second (taking in to account deaths; there are actually more births per second than that). Our resource consumption is edging out other animal species and melting the ice caps. Barbie's Horse Adventures should have an entire section on how horses are better than boys. Carmen Sandiego should be sure to visit pharmacies of all nations and explore the birth control options in each one. Wii Fit should teach lots of body positions where copulation isn't physically possible. Dungeon Maker 2000 should... well, Dungeon Maker 2000 is fine as it is. Guys staying indoors all summer long working out optimal orc placement in dungeons aren't going to be making any babies.
I suggest you ask some children in your target audience what games they like to play (not strictly video games, all games). You might also take a walk down to the toy store and see what's there. Here are a few timeless examples that translate well in the video game medium:
...and all of these are of course more fun to play with friends and family.
All of these activities have intrinsic educational value. For science, I suspect Puzzle games would perhaps best develop problem-solving, experimentation, and observational skills. Just remember to make it fun.
First, please find yourself a dictionary and look up the words "science" and "technology". They are not the same thing. (While you're at it look up the words "education" and "training".) Creating and playing electronic games is quite appealing to us technologists, but is in no sense science. And learning how to program is technical training, not education. Instead give them some copper wire, a couple of nails some wood and let them do some real science.
-- Consensus - 50% probability that the majority are wrong.
My oldest is still younger than your target group, but I can tell you a bit about what he finds entertaining and educational.
First of all, he's pre-literate. Computer games have been a real motivator for his literacy and numeracy, though. While our generation's first sight words were things like dog, cat, boy, girl... he recognizes start, next, exit, off, on, and his own name, as well as our names (he started picking those up when we were all playing Peggle a whole lot, and we didn't want him playing under our names!).
So, games that don't require a ton of literacy to play, but where it's going to be easier to do things if you can read prompts or buttons, can encourage sight-reading in younger kids. I wouldn't be surprised if instructions or useful background information that scrolls by at a slow speed might improve reading speed and accuracy in older kids.
Numeracy has been an even bigger thing for our son, though. One day he was watching me play Bubble Spinner. He read off my score: "You have 83 points!" then I shot a ball and got three more points. "86!" I made another shot and got six points. "89-- er... 92 points!" he had intuitively assumed that 89 was next in the series, without being aware he was identifying a pattern or doing math. He can also read off five digit numbers correctly, and thanks to various iterations of Desktop Tower Defense, is learning how "money" works.
So, you can teach a lot about math and numbers just by having a semi-complicated scoring system, such as one where you earn points that you can then spend on upgrades, which cost different amounts of money, have different ammunition requirements, can kill different numbers of creatures (or pop different numbers of balloons, or stun different numbers of monkeys, or whatever) per shot, and so on.
The hardest part is to balance the relatively low tolerance for frustration that most kids have, with the need to be persistently engaging and somewhat challenging so they don't get bored. Something that you can have fun with at first, but can do MORE with as you learn more about it, is ideal.
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"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Speaking from experience in playing educational games. I'm currently a 19 year old male. My Father, being very tech oriented, bought me MANY educational PC games, I'll just list a few:
JumpStart $X Grade by Knowledge Adventure (where $X is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, though I lost interest after 4th)
Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets by The Learning Company
JumpStart 3rd Grade and Gizmos & Gadgets were by far my favorite at the time. As a previous reply brought up, I also played Age of Empires 2: Gold Edition as a kid... I remember a specific campaign entitled "El Sid" where you go kill the Spanish King (if I recall). It was later brought up in an 11th grade history class.
JumpStart was by far the best game, the general plot: A scientist owns this huge mansion built into a mountain. He has a bratty little girl. The scientist goes off to some convention, while hes away his daughter fails a history test so she decides to use her fathers time machine to alter history to match her test answers. She sends back various robotic inhabitants of the mansion back in time to alter various parts of history (IE instead an astronomer discovering that the Sun is the center of the Solar System, he discovers that Polly (the daughter) is the center of the solar system). You help the "head robot" to prevent Polly from altering time. You perform various puzzles around the mountain to get clues and charg up the time machine. Some include learning about art, cooking, doing multiplication, patterns (simon says), Hand-eye coordination (a moonlander type game), among MANY others.
Gizmo's & Gadgets was also one of my favorite games. The Learning Company makes a huge amount of education games, Super Solvers, Midnight Madness, Reader Rabbit, etc. Basically in G&G a mad scientist owns a car construction shop right next to your car construction shop, and hes threatening to take you over. He decides to race you 20 times with 20 different vehicles (cars/planes/helicopters). You agree and he cheats by sending over a bunch of chimps (actual monkeys) to your shop to steal all your parts. Basically you have to go out to the warehouse, and get your parts back. Because of how its layed out you have to do various puzzles. For instance, weight balancing, electrical wiring (basic light bulb, switch, batteries, but does teach series/parallel), Energy, Force, Magnetics, Simple Machines, and Gears. Anyway, you get various parts back and build your car and race. If you lose you go back and make it better (different propellor, wheels, etc) until you win.
Educational games can be fun. I'm speaking from experience. I liked G&G so much that I still have an ISO of it 10 years later. Sadly it wont run on any current operating sytems, someday I'll start up a W98se Virtual machine and play around with it. If you're looking for more research take a look at Borderbund, Knowledge Adventure, and The Learning Company.
Thanks,
Smark
http://www.spectralcoding.com/
I think you have to be clear as to whether you're teaching facts or concepts.
For example, the World Traveler IQ Challenge
seems largely fact-based. Where is X -- click on it -- get feedback -- improve at an incredible rate. But you're actually learning "concepts", because you build up a map rather than just "X is the capital of Y" etc. The map gives you an implicit understanding of geography, so you don't have to memorise a list to know all the countries neighbouring Eritrea, for example.
Then there's Slime Forest Adventure. Again, it looks as though you're learning facts (Symbol X is sound Y), but you're actually making a deeper mental association as it's the quickest way.
Or take Typing of the Dead. They don't tell you how to type, they make you do it. A few pointers, and then they rely on you tuning in to touch-typing because it's the most efficient way -- hence you need to do it to win.
So if we're talking concepts, we can actually liberate ourselves from the old boring model of answer-a-question-to-get-to-the-next-stage because that's just facts, and facts are rarely the goal. If you look at Lunar Lander and its successors (particularly Thrust), you have to get an intuitive feel for momentum to win the game. Take this on to E-Motion, and you've got a game that is built around conservation of momentum and elastic forces. These games teach you the concept without you ever learning a single fact. These can be the basis for later learning -- once you've got a concept to hang it on, learning facts is easy, because you can picture it and thus understand it.
The hard point is selling the notion to the sponsors. Sadly, too many people think education is all about facts....
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
learn about projectile motion, angles, and parabolas..
All games are "educational" in the sense that they teach skills. However, many games teach skills that are not particularly useful outside of the game itself. The trick then is to find/design games which use real-world skills. The possibilities are rather endless. Flashcard teaching games, and oldies like Number Munchers are the most obvious types, but they are by no means the only types. Games with historically based plots, or real-world physics, or skills practice like Tux Type, or creative problem-solving games like The Incredible Machine, or logic games like Minesweeper can all be included in the category of "educational."
In other words, the best way to decide what counts as an educational game is to decide what you wish to teach first, and then find or design games that make use of it. As long as it presents a difficult, but surmountable challenge, people will enjoy it.
Instead of focusing on games, you could expand the card decks available for free/OSS non-linear learning tools and help promote those tools.
http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/
and
http://web.mac.com/jrc/Genius/
are ones I have used.
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
I have been thinking about a Math MMORPG that is based on educational learning. For instance:
Mage: Level of Mage is based on Mathematic ability of the player. If you can answer a high level Algebra problem then you can cast that 7th level spell. Effectiveness could also be determined by how close the player was to the answer.
Fighter: Thac0 is based on the historical knowledge of the user. "What year was the Battle of Hastings?"
Thief: ThaC0 could be based on something like Art History and thieving abilities based on something like Philosophy.
etc.
I think it would be great if this could be done and hosted by a nonprofit organization to promote learning. The concept would take away the MMORPG process of grinding away at useless button clicks and would encourage learning something other than stupid game mechanics. And finally once someone understood the system, playing would be better for casual gamers.
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
All games are educational. Why we find things 'fun' is fundamentaly linked to how the human mind learns and all the positive reinforcement it gives itself when it is accomplishing something and enhancing itself.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I recommend that you read Brain Rot by Theodore Grey and Jerry Glynn. Among other things, it discusses this very topic. The summary I took away from it is you should make the game open-ended, giving full freedom to the player to go down the wrong paths, rather than being led down the right path.
Interesting snippets:
Software should not be unnecessarily hard to use, but neither should it shy away from or disguise the inherent richness of the subject matter. It should be open-ended, deep, and capable of doing senseless things if asked.
In a continuation of the above point, in a discussion of programs to teach geometry:
If students decide to build a completely useless geometrical construction, the program won't stop them. It lets them discover for themselves that their construction is uninteresting. This is very important: By allowing freedom to go off in the wrong direction, the software is giving students the opportunity to learn.
A game with both long term and short term goals is important. To keep a kid interested you need short term gratification, but obviously complex problem solving can't be done in 15 minutes. I thought that Sim City mix both well because with 15 minutes of play you can make some improvements, but you are always working towards a challenging goal that feels great when you complete it. And you are allowed to stop and come back to it letting you brainstorm while you are off the computer on how to expand and improve your city/people. Also, if you make a mistake, you can see the effects but you don't necessarily have to start from scratch. Overtime, you get better at planning and thinking out your decisions. You use trial and error then you start to predict (accurately) what might happen if you put something in place based off previous experience. This is applicable to real life. With little puzzle games you only get the instant gratification of solving something right away and you don't utilize your long term planning skills. Also, you learn how to control and manipulate multiple variables - a key for scientific inquiry latter on.
"Engineering. Where the noble, semi-skilled laborers execute the vision of those who think and dream." -Sheldon
An old prof of mine who spoke with authority and much enthusiasm regarding the subject of education and games recently produced a series of podcasts on that subject:
http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/
Play Rocky's Boots by Warren Robinett. The almost-perfect educational game. (I had it on Commodore 64, but I believe there's a Apple II image downloadable from this site: http://www.warrenrobinett.com/rockysboots/ )
Comment of the year
It really is flooded, you just have to take a harder look at what is already out there.
I'm 25 years old, male, and an avid gamer. From my own experience this is what I've built:
1.) Colonization, Civilization 1-4, Rise of Nations, and Age of Empires:
I learned more history from these games than I did from my history classes when I was in school. Half of that is because I was more interested in the game than I was in class, and the other half is because it is a much more interactive and "in your face" approach. Besides the history I learned, I also learned about resource management, pursuing goals, and the strengthened my ability to adapt to unexpected and difficult situations.
2.) Fast forward to MMOs. Ultima Online, Shadowbane, WoW, EVE Online:
These games are great teachers of personality recognition and prediction in others. They're also great for teaching leadership skills, money management, how to navigate in a competitive market, interviewing and job (guild) application skills, and teamwork skills. I know that a lot of people would laugh at this... but after organizing and leading groups of 25-40 people around 3 times/week to complete very specific and challenging tasks, I feel that my leadership abilities as a whole are ten times as strong as they were 3 years ago. I've had to make people who don't like each other cooperate for a common goal. I've had to conduct interviews and evaluate the abilities of a team member. I've had to budget resources. I've had to work with a committee of individuals to set policies... and I've had to do it all internationally with a group of people that represents 5 different languages and their primary spoken. I haven't experienced anything else outside of MMOs and actual "real life" business that builds these skills so effectively.
I know that your goal is to make a game that educates subconsciously... but I think that the market is already pretty booming for games that meet that criteria.
To add, Also look at Super Solvers, Number Muncher, Operation Neptune, others. Hell, just go see this company.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The thing about educational games are that alot of people dismiss them simply because they are educational. I'd say that the focus should not be about the game being educational in itself, but rather making people more interested in educational topics. There is no real need to "trick" them into learning things they should be learning in class, i would rather say that it is their motivation to study hard in class that needs to be raised rather than directly teaching.
... would be a great idea. I've often thought the problem isn't "educational games" it's TAKING AN EXISTING GAME adding educational elements and just let the kids play the f'n game and get out of their way.
You can't have a game that isn't fun to play, if you make educational "game" that isn't fun or addictive to play it's pointless because the whole point of education is practice and re-enforcement of the things you want the students to learn.
I think the whole culture of school has done a lot ot kill curiousity in kids and school is just seen as another form of work which kids hate and can't wait to get out of because their curiousity is killed because of the lack of autonomy.
I remember taking ancient history class and remembering a crapload of stuff from civ that was useless because all the games of civ I had played was not meant to reinforce events in hitsory. Now imagine if you took history and made a fun game out of it, you wouldn't even have to make everything exactly like hitsory but use the game to re-enforce your rememberance of key events and whatnot.
I think a game like Empire Total war modified or Civ would be a good start at creating "Educational" games. Since you want to force a education into a "game" and then not have the game be attractive for students to play at all.
You can ask Wikipedia too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game ... there's even Games With A Purpose, and some others are surprisingly interesting (depending on our age and interests, of course): http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/ and UN's http://www.food-force.com/
Have fun... and learn!
Animoog.org
... Immune attack
http://fas.org/immuneattack/download
THIS game if it was made in higher definition would be fantastic, I remember being intrigued while playing this game and thinking what would happen if you got professional game developers making stuff like this.
There's nothing quite like moving around your immune system and zapping bugs that really reenforced remembering stuff.
Number Munchers was a great game that truly made you better at arithmetic in a practical way. I'd like to see a modern, 3D Number Munchers where you can level up, earn badges for achievements, unlock levels, and compete online.
Alcumus at artofproblemsolving.com is an innovative learning tool that is almost a game.
I'd like to see an RPG where the lead is a hacker, and the player must literally write programs that work in order to pass parts of the game. There is already a website for contest programming with a robot judge that tests the validity of programs students have submitted. This just needs to be incorporated into a game.
Don't water down the educational content. It doesn't have to be as fun as a normal video game. Aim for the students who want to learn. If a teacher makes you play an educational game in school, that is still a lot more fun than most classroom activities.
There is huge potential for educational games to revolutionize education, along with video lectures and other internet content.
Check out www.dreambox.com, educational math site for kids.
My 6-year old daughter loved it: she found the games fun.
As a parent, I loved it:
-the site provided excellent information to parents to indicate specifically what the educational goals were in concrete terms and what your child had achieved so far
-the activities were clearly well matched to the educational goals
If anyone can do a site as effective for science as Dreambox is for math, it would be wonderful.
Nearly every game is educational. On release day its US$60 and two months later it is 25-50% less. It's a lesson on early adoption, collecting the 'willingness to pay" amount, ... ;-)
I wrote an educational game to get accepted at a school a few months ago, here is a video (it's a math game):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaho6q5vIW4
While this is only a small demo to prove that I can program, it _does_ show how educational games can be made fun (at least, I think it's more fun than any other math fighting game I've ever played :p). I think what's wrong with educational games today is that they are percieved as educational first and game second, you have to make the player see the game as a game, and not think too much about being educated.
I eventually want to fully design and implement the idea some time in the future.
At least, that was what worked in Alien Rescue http://alienrescue.edb.utexas.edu/, a problem based learning game.
...here's an interesting rant from one of the guys behind Mathematica.
Something tells me that you should be a game developer.
Crayon Physics Deluxe or a similar one (albeit more a simulator than a game) named Phun
Learn about the real world.
You want a shining example of a really good educational game? Try Quarky and Quaysoo's Turbo Science, a 1992 MS-DOS game published by Sierra designed to teach scientific concepts to children. Lots of sweet cartoon animation, and stealthfully educational.
1. The game minus the educational part should still be a solid game.
Imagine if I took Oregon Trail, but the game was about a colony on another planet running low on a vital resource on the other side of the planet. You choose your profession which determined starting stats, abilities, etc, and packed up a vehicle to drive to the other side... in other words, gameplay exactly the same as OT, but different setting and everything renamed. What's left is a sim with a survival goal, and a strong focus on resource management and random events. It would work just fine as a game on its own.
What if Number Munchers used colored dots on the squares instead of math problems, with each level displaying a list of colors you could or couldn't eat? It'd still be a game about choosing targets carefully and quickly while dodging various monster types.
If the player can't enjoy the game AS A GAME, then no one will stick with it long enough to actually learn anything.
2. Learning should be part of the game, not hastily tacked on.
Sure, you're looking up geography info in Carmen Sandiego, but what you're really doing as a player is following a trail of clues. In time, you'll actually learn stuff about various countries simply because it's part of the game.
There's a flash game called Super Energy Apocalypse. It's an defense RTS with zombies - they attack every night, and you build towers to gun them down. Of course, your base needs power to operate, and like many RTSes, you get this by building power plants. However, instead of just the generic plant, it has various types of actual power plants. For instance, you can build solar panels pretty cheaply, but they don't function at night. This can help you supply research operations during the day and store some energy, but try to rely fully on it and your base runs out of power at night you can get eaten by zombies. Oil plants are extremely reliable, but they pollute heavily, and that makes the zombies stronger. Etc. You have to come up with a power generation scheme that works - and true to life, you can't avoid polluting entirely on many maps, so you have to try to minimize it instead. Result: The player actually walks away with a decent understanding of alternative power sources and their strengths and weaknesses... but he's not taking a class, he's just figuring out how to kill zombies more efficiently. :)
There was a game where you run a lemonade stand and try to make as much money as possible in 30 days. The game is designed to teach you the basics of business - supply and demand, reacting to changing market conditions, long term planning to capitalize on unplanned good conditions and survive unplanned bad ones, etc. You'll never see any of that terminology though - you're just running your stand, making more stuff on hotter days, buying materials when prices are low, being wary of the occasional thunderstorm making you sell nothing, etc. You just try to figure out a strategy to land on a high score list, but ultimately, you're picking up the basics of business in the process.
3. The game needs replay value. Oregon trail has you trying out different professions and starting conditions, Carmen Sandiego has you working up the ranks of a detective agency, etc. This in turn means the player keeps coming back and getting more knowledge (Carmen Sandiego) or further improving a skill (Word/Number Munchers).
4. There needs to be an actual challenge. The crook can get away (Carmen Sandiego), you get eaten (Number Munchers), your base is overrun by zombies (Super Energy Apocalypse). To move on in the game, you have to actually learn something AND actually get better at the game.
5. At ALL times, it plays like a game, not a class. The lesson MUST be part of the game, forcing a player to read stuff that he isn't going to use IN the game results in skipped text or the player simply walking away.
Another game that fits into the category of "Educational but you might not know it" was Starcon2. I was interacting with a young man once and I mentioned something about Enceladus. He stopped what he was doing, gave me a strange look, and asked "Do you play Starcon?" I was a bit confused and said, "No. That's one of the moons of Saturn." He was amazed. He thought someone had made up all the moons of the planets for a fictional game, where in reality they had used actual existing Astronomy facts for their game.
He had played the game quite a bit, and knew many of the moons of the planets in our solar system, as well as many stars and constellations, and he didn't even know they were real! He was learning real Science by accident.
The game doesn't concentrate on teaching you such things, but you need minerals on several of these moons to build up your spaceship. Then you need to travel to some constellations or named stars in order to make contact with different alien races.
I have thought about the huge amount of information that you learn playing games like World of Warcraft or Everquest. I played for several months, and learned vast amounts of information about History, Geography, Politics, even Science of a fictional place. That could have been more valuable if it had been even a little bit patterned after real places in the History of Earth. Imagine, instead of Crossing the continent of Antonica going through the pass of Highhold Keeep heading for Qeynos, if you could cross Europe going through the Alps heading for Shanghai. Or instead of raiding the Plane of Fear, if you could go visit Old Japan, or Medieval Europe, and actually talk to real historical figures and do actual historical quests. Do a quest for Hannibal that has to do with feeding his elephants. Do a quest for Maria Antoinette that has to do with eating cake in instead of bread. Instead of filling your brain with fictional people and events, you could be learning real History.
There are scenarios of Civ2 that have simulated real Earth maps with actual real cities on them. You can learn some real Geography very easily. And some History as well if they're set up that way. Something as simple as using Constantinople instead of Istanbul or Gaul instead of France teaches older versions of Geography.
There are some serious possibilities here.
I found a lot of education games at http://www.gamestreamer.com/ They have lots of different types of games that I get from there, but I torture my kids with the educational ones.
As a teacher, I must say that educational games have about as much value as educational videos. Which is little to none. They take up a lot of time, but students get no real value from using them. Take any student who spends an hour watching a video about China. At best, the student may remember one or two names, maybe a city and perhaps a random event. Is that educational? I really don't think so. Especially not for a one or two hour investment in time.
Educational games have the same problem. They take up a lot of time (great for classroom management I suppose) but really provide nothing overtly educational. That same student can learn a few things about WWII by watching Spielberg's movie "1941". But it's hard to call that educational.
And for the record, I consider text books to be as worthless as videos and educational games.