Scientists recommend educational gaming
by Ross Miller 
{ Oct 18th 2006 at 12:52PM }
The Federation of American Scientists have concluded that gaming can provide skills useful in the job market and attributes that would facilitate learning. Making logical deductions, staying on task, staying motivated and goal-oriented despite constant failure, and infinite patience are all abilities gamers have and students need. Can we somehow converge gaming and education in such a way as to retain motivation while providing an educational environment?Following a Summit on Educational Games, FAS has released a report (PDF file) that calls on the government to fund research into educational games: establishing new approaches to educational games, evaluating their merit, and working with established game developers to devise new strategies. FAS also calls on business leaders to put a greater emphasis on educational software, particularly in the K-12 school system.
Formed in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists, FAS is endorsed by 67 Nobel Laureates. They have in the past developed three games: Immune Attack, Discover Babylon, and Mutli Casualty Incident Response.
[Via ars technica; thanks, jayntampa]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Halobreaker @ Oct 18th 2006 1:16PM
We played Number & Word Munchers, Oregon trail, Odel Lake, Luis and Clark, and Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego back in my k-5. Although mnost of those were on an Apple IIs, WITWICS wasn't until middle chool with some pre-pentium IBMs.
Now that I reflect on that time number and Word Munchers helped a lot with math and spelling, and it was fun. Oregon trail didn't help much except to become a banker, learn to shoot, don't talk to native americans, and most importantly AVOID DYSENTERY!
the rest were just kind of fun, Luis and Clark was good for history(even though I originally thought it was a superman game.) WITWICS was just a good game for retaining information and knowing geography.
At the school I work or the kids mostly just use painting programs. Nothing really exciting or motivational what so ever.
Platinum Skeet @ Oct 18th 2006 1:31PM
I had Reading Rabbit, Number Munchers and Orgen Trail.
But all that was from k-5. After middleschool on there were no games... :(
Ahms @ Oct 18th 2006 1:48PM
"Making logical deductions, staying on task, staying motivated and goal-oriented despite constant failure, and infinite patience are all abilities gamers have and students need."
Educational software itself is a good thing, especially since it would help kids get more tech-savvy at a younger age and understand this new digital world (without hopefully taking it all for granted) better. Trying to say it makes gamers better, more rational people...you can just read Joystiq comments on here and find error with that, or anywhere in the gaming corners of the net :) If anything it *detracts* from being more patient since these are all instant mediums: "-50 DKP #*&@^$!!!!"
jcmschwa @ Oct 18th 2006 2:39PM
I took a keyboarding class in 7th grade that has probably been the most beneficial to everything else i've had to do. But if we could've played typing of the dead, that would've been fucking awesome!
Pal @ Oct 18th 2006 3:58PM
Typing of the Dead is awesome indeed. Have it for the Dreamcast and PC!
I remember playing Reading Rabbit, Word/Number Munchers, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Great fun, but didn't play any games in class in middle school and up.
Did anyone play Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets? Didn't play it in school, but it was made by The Learning Company, and man, it was a blast!
jcmschwa @ Oct 18th 2006 3:48PM
Ahms, I do agree with you that educational games are useful in teaching young children how to use technology. And I think many children in grades K-5 are excited to be able to learn on a computer as opposed to doing a worksheet. So in that sense, educational games are engaging. But they're never really that hard. I suppose for the masses educational games are difficult enough. But I remember playing Number Munchers and even the Sesame Street games on the NES. And I don't remember them ever being difficult. At the same time, I think some non-educational games have latent functions which are very educational. I remember taking my N64 and Mario64 to my grandparents' house one summer. My little cousin is pretty sheltered and never really played games. I let her play and she watched me play. Whenever a speech bubble popped up I made her read all of the words helping her along before I pushed any buttons. Any RPG or text intensive game could be used for the same purpose while still being a fun game. Granted it's kind of intensive for the supervisor role (like having to make sure they read every word). I think she had played games like Freddy the Fish on her PC, but I think Mario64 appealed to her because it was a "big kid" game. I know it's not really, but it was on a real gaming machine as opposed to my uncle's office computer and that was enough to wow her.
The FAS (which by the way, has a great site if you're looking for weapons systems specs) recommends new approaches to educational gaming. But how so? I don't have time to read all 53 pages of the PDF file because I have class in 15 minutes, but I will say that whoever thought of the ridiculously absurd idea of paying to have House of the Dead 2 converted into Typing of the Dead might be a genius. Granted they may not have taken the most appropriate game to transform into a basic typing teacher, it is pretty damn cool. Anyone who hasn played it should download it illegally and check it out just for to see for yourself. Typing came out 2 years after House of the Dead 2. I'm not sure if SEGA decided to convert it for humor's sake or if someone paid them to, but it can't have cost that much. (if someone finds figures please post) The business model itself is worth looking at. Why couldn't more companies convert their games into educational software for a price? Or if not for a price then maybe as a tax cut incentive (which i guess is still of monetary value, and thus a price).
I think the biggest problem with educational games is that--with the exception of the real young students like kindergarteners and first graders--older grade schoolers recognize that they are more like educational tools and less like games. Typing of the Dead is a good example of how to create a fun educational game. It uses the same story and stuff. The only difference is in the power ups and the input device.
Can't anyone else take this model and use it with other games teaching different subjects?
alec @ Oct 18th 2006 4:52PM
the only thing i really used is mathblaster that was fun