Adults Too Quick to Dismiss Educational Gaming?

netbuzz writes "A new survey finds that more than half of K-12 students believe that educational video games in school would help them learn (no surprise), although only 15% of teachers and 19% of parents agree. Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results. 'Only 3% of elementary school students say they do not play video games of any kind. Students surveyed say learning via video games would help them better understand difficult concepts, become more engaged in the subject matter and practice skills. There's no mention of the games being fun, but that goes without saying.'"

will someone please

[OrochimaruVoldemort]

think of the children

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[gr8_phk]

I've said it a lot... Teach them to MAKE games. Even programming simple stuff teaches a lot.

General Rule With Prior Generations

[eldavojohn]

I don't know about your parents but mine were rife with "I didn't have it, why do you need it?" mentality. Luckily I convinced them to get a computer but it wasn't until I moved out that they had the internet ...

It's about breaking down barriers and proving that games can be more useful than just leisure and entertainment. Collaboration, teamwork, and problem solving are just a few things that come from games without the edutainment factor predesigned into them.

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[Mastadex]

Funny you should say that, because I understood the concept of chemistry through a game called Atomix [wikipedia.org] then from my grade school science teacher.

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[nametaken]

I'm pushing 30 and when I was in elementary school we regularly played games like PAWS, Number Crunchers, Oregon Trail, and a host of other games of varied educational value.

The most important thing I learned? How to reinstall DOS on old machine that belonged to my dad before he found out and whooped me for screwing up a $5k machine. Longest night of my life, pre-High School days.

Good lord, I'm going to have to find some old episodes of Mr. Wizard, an Apple II emulator and a copy of Number Crunchers... ha

Re:General Rule With Prior Generations

[MrSteveSD]

Unless you are unlucky enough to be in Iraq, shooting snipers and throwing grenades is not much of a useful skill. You may also find that your skills are not actually so useful in the real world. Trying going to Iraq and rapidly jumping up and down in the hope of avoiding enemy fire :)

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[spun]

Are you trying to be funny or are you just unimaginative? There are more types of games than just FPS. Many strategy games can teach economic concepts, math, and critical thinking. RPGs could be used to teach history; I'm sure many people remember more about pioneer life from playing Oregon Trail than they do from history lessons. Games can very easily teach physics, math, logic, chemistry, biology, and much more.

Re:General Rule With Prior Generations

[CSMatt]

The only thing I learned from the Oregon Trail was never to ford a river.

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[MrSteveSD]

Especially if Josey Wales is on the opposite side.

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[servognome]

I learned plenty about health care - without medical insurance Joebob will die of dysentery

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[vertigoCiel]

I learned that shooting as many buffalo as possible wasn't worth it, because I could only carry 250 pounds of the resulting 20,000 pounds of meat back to the wagon.

Damn was it fun, though.

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[MrSteveSD]

Are you trying to be funny or are you just unimaginative?

Funny.

There are more types of games than just FPS. Many strategy games can teach economic concepts, math, and critical thinking.

Which contemporary strategy games do you feel are particularly valuable in teaching these concepts? What kind of math? Simple subtraction an addition or anything more advanced?

I'm sure many people remember more about pioneer life from playing Oregon Trail than they do from history lessons.

That is a very old game! There were lots of educational games back in those days. You could learn quite a bit of history from a game like that. However, even when it comes to learning something like history, it's likely to be pretty one-sided in a modern game. I mean, they aren't going to make "Land Grab 1846 -

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[spun]

There is lots of potential but not with most of the mainstream games available today. Now whether mainstream games could be designed to be really educational and simultaneously fun is another issue.

This is exactly how I feel. Most strategy games teach some sort of critical thinking. Or rather, one must learn it to play well. I'd say the SimCity, Tycoon, and Civilization games all do a good job. As for math, eh, addition and subtraction pretty much covers it in today's games. And as for bias, well, history books and lessons have it too.

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[MrSteveSD]

And as for bias, well, history books and lessons have it too.

You're absolutely right about that and it's particularly bad in schools. For example, during my schooling in the UK I don't remember learning about how 20,000 civilians died in British concentration camps in South Africa, or about how we let millions of Indians die in famines while simultaneously shipping food out of the country. I don't know about history in US schools but I should imagine the bad stuff is glossed over or omitted in a similar way. In fact at the same time all those children were dying

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[Qzukk]

As for math, eh, addition and subtraction pretty much covers it in today's games.

Math stuff is overrated anyway. Now, looking at the weather report for the week to determine how much raw material you should buy, then figure out what you're going to charge for a cold cup of lemonade, that's a real lesson for you. Oh, and you have $10, how many bags of sugar can you buy at $2.15 a bag, how many lemons can you buy at $1 a pound, how many small/medium/large cups you can buy... and then how many cups can you m

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[mobby_6kl]

> There are more types of games than just FPS

Exactly. I used to tell my parents that playing Carmageddon will help me improve my driving skills once I'm old enough to drive. I think it tought me a lot of neat tricks like dealing with the police, other drivers and pedestrians, not to mention the need to carefuly consider the cons and pros of each car model before making the final decision.

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[rtb61]

I think the word you are looking for is simulation, not games. Computer generated simulations can be used as cost effective teaching tools, where the students can work on doing research to understand how changes in the variables will alter the outcomes and the logic behind the change mechanisms.

So more worthwhile research topics for universities might be the creation of said simulations for various educational topics including the required associated research materials to support the simulation.

A good t

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[Anguirel]

No, I think he means exactly what he said -- games. Standard (non-video) games have been used for years to help teach physics and geometry, among other things. With games that can simplify physics to eliminate certain aspects, you can have a basic no-fancy-spin billiards that teaches angles and collision physics. Various puzzle games (e.g. Castle of Dr. Brain [wikipedia.org]) teach logic and critical analysis skills. A trivia-style game could be used on almost any subject to make learning it more enjoyable than dry tex

Re:General Rule With Prior Generations

[eln]

I think it even goes beyond that though, because the elementary school kids of today have parents that grew up in the video game era. Many of these parents certainly grew up playing video games and should know that video games are not as harmful as their parents thought they were. Many of them probably remember playing games like Oregon Trail, so they would know that games can be at least somewhat educational.

However, I think especially when you're dealing with young parents, they tend to not really know how to react to these sorts of things, so they by default fall back on what their parents thought.

Growing up in the '80s, most parents of that time felt that video games had absolutely no value, and their use for any purpose was to be actively discouraged. While today's parents may not see games as pure evil, they are still harboring a lot of this latent fear of gaming that was hammered into them by their parents, even though they themselves played video games quite a lot and (probably) didn't end up as sociopaths.

I think people tend to be very over-conservative about these things when they are just starting out as parents, because they are terrified of doing anything that might "ruin" their kids. Sort of like how people keep the hand sanitizer around at all times with the first child, but by the time the third or fourth rolls around, they clean the pacifier by sticking it in their own mouths for half a second.

Re:General Rule With Prior Generations

[AKAImBatman]

Or perhaps the parents of today remember the whole Edutainment boom and what a load of crock it was? We tried the idea of mixing games and education. Save for a few specific instances*, the games did a much poorer job at teaching over traditional methods.

And I think that's where part of the problem lies. The summary suggests that some teachers are having wonderful results with games. Yet I guarantee you that with that game time, a Blue Back Speller, and a few sheets of number tables, I could teach those kids far more than the game will ever teach them.

Of course, my methods may not appeal to the "new math" crowd, or the anti-phonetics crowd. None the less, I've seen the results of a variety of methods, and the traditional, straight-to-the-point methods of phonics and number tables are far more effective.

I'm not against the idea of games as teaching aides, I simply haven't seen very many effective implementations of the concept. And besides, most kids can be excited by practical applications of their knowledge over trying to make the learning process more "fun". Give them a reason to learn, and you'd be surprised how fast they soak up that knowledge!

* I did have good luck with my son both on Fraction Fever and Odell Lake. (Though we used the latter as reading practice.)

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[el americano]

We should also note that studies indicate that video games, like television, have detrimental effects on the attention span of the very young. I wouldn't consider it for kindergarten age children. They're just learning self control, how to listen, and follow instructions. Sitting them down in front of a computer isn't likely to teach them the most important things they need top learn at that age. Even in the area of fine motor skills, I'd rather they learn to use a pencil than a game controller.

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[Belial6]

I have yet to see a legitimate study on video games and television. I have seen lots of them that start with the conclusion that they are bad, and then try to justify that conclusion with bad math.

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[el americano]

And TV's education abilities are proven in iron-clad studies to be more effective than traditional methods?

A parent without the resources and time to conduct their own studies must weigh the possible risks and benefits of television and video games:

Maybe:
-Very young children don't yet distinguish completely between real and pretend.
-Children who watch TV excessively are more passive are less creative.
-TV takes away from play time, which is more valuable for developing children.
-TV is a risk factor for child

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[Belial6]

And TV's education abilities are proven in iron-clad studies to be more effective than traditional methods?

I have yet to see a legitimate study on video games and television.

Your biased is plain to see from your very first sentence. Is that you Jonathan Green [theonion.com]? Maybe if you watched more TV, you would have better comprehension of English.

Maybe:

Yes, a very BIG maybe.

-Very young children don't yet distinguish completely between real and pretend.

If you believe this argument, then to keep from being a hypocrate, you would also have to believe that reading books are bad for children, and in fact even reading to children as bad. Sorry. I'm not buying it.

-Children who watch TV excessively are more passive

Need you be reminded that Corrolation does not imply causation [wikipedia.org]. In fact, any corrolation could more like

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[porcupine8]

You obviously haven't looked too hard. Here's a hint: The positive ones don't get picked up by the media, so you'll have to actually use Google scholar or something. Although I will warn you, there are real, good studies giving converging evidence that TV isn't great for the youngest kids (like, pre-preschool aged). You may have to accept that sometimes science finds out things you don't like. But there are studies showing actual benefits to both video games and TV under the right circumstances.

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[rpillala]

There's an affective component of learning that's lost on the standardized test crowd which actually includes most teachers. Specific, measurable objectives are the order of the day and who's opposed to that? Such objectives re inherently limited and limiting. The elusive and prized "higher order thinking skills" (which I don't think is a correct usage of the term "higher order") are promoted by open ended inquiry, where a student can learn a great deal in the attempt and quite possibly produce no measur

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[DeadChobi]

That's basically all the high-stakes tests ask for. Even the tests which supposedly test students' reasoning still provide a stimulus, like a canned experiment with outcome and procedural information, and ask students to do very specific things which all use a fairly standard wording, like "comparing" the results of the experiment. A better test of students' reasoning would be asking for an evaluation of the procedure, but quite honestly nobody expects students to actually evaluate anything critically. The

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[porcupine8]

I guarantee you that with that game time, a Blue Back Speller, and a few sheets of number tables, I could teach those kids far more than the game will ever teach them.

Because all you need in life is basic phonics decoding skills and the multiplication tables, amirite?

The Edutainment boom was full of two types of games: the very behaviorist/conditioning kind where if you add enough numbers right, you get to play a game at the end; and the motivation-for-rote-learning kind like Fraction Fever. These don't

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[syousef]

Well no shit Sherlock. Educational games are a SUPPLEMENT. Trying to teach a kid solely through gaming is asinine. Adding interesting games to the mix to demonstrate practically a concept you've taught is fantastic. Think of teaching kids about timetables and then getting them to try to keep a train on schedule in a sim, or about conversion and teaching them to keep a plane in the air (correct airspeed) given stall speed in different units. Games shouldn't ever be the WHOLE story. If you get a guy a hammer

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[geekoid]

Many people have weak minds and think however the man up front of the church tells them to thing, regardless of their experiences.

I grew up in the 70's and my parents saw the value of games.

Mostly, Their value to shut me the hell up!

I didn't have it, why do you need it and not PE?

[ObiWonKanblomi]

Seriously, I didn't have it and I don't see why kids need them now to learn.

From hindsight, I grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood in the 1980s. My parents threw in all they earned for me to attend a Catholic school**, and they didn't offer much in the way of computers. When I went on to Catholic high school in the early 90s, I didn't get much in the way with computers until I took AP Computer Science which was taught using already old 286 boxes. I went on to earn my BSCS and have been developing

Re:I didn't have it, why do you need it and not PE

[hardburn]

Except that PE today consists largely of simple exercises and the most non-competitive games you can find, because it'd be a real tragedy to tell a child that they might not be good at something.

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[ObiWonKanblomi]

Except that PE today consists largely of simple exercises and the most non-competitive games you can find, because it'd be a real tragedy to tell a child that they might not be good at something.

No.

The same could be said of a kid who doesn't do well in a math game. "You're just no good with math", etc.

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[mwvdlee]

Seriously, I didn't have it and I don't see why kids need them now to learn.

This only makes sense if your education was 100% perfect.
I'll just assume this isn't so, in which case things could be improved.
I'm also assuming you want your kids to have those improvements.
Educational games might be that improvement.
They might not be, but claiming they're not because you didn't have them is shortsighted at best.
Thank god cavemen didn't think like that or we wouldn't have any education at all.

I remember math games as a kid

[cephah]

I remember those games where the math game gave you a series of equations and once they were all solved it would tell you how many you got correct and your overall statistics and speed. Was about 10 years ago but it really helped me a lot. With the amazing progress in computer science these 10 years I imagine if someone made something similar, maybe wrapped a better interface around it with more interactivity, kids would really benefit from it.

C64 educational games

[Spy der Mann]

Some C64 games I loved when I was a kid:

- Dungeons of Algebra Dragons. When you encountered a dragon it gave you an equation to solve. If you failed, you lost health.

- Playful professor. You had to solve math problems to make a little guy move in a haunted mansion and allow him to capture a cute little ghost. When you captured the ghost, you won!

- 9 to 5. The boss was chasing a secretary across an office hall while you had to type a sentence. If you typed faster, the secretary gained speed, while on every t

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[CrazyJim1]

I'm actually plotting a math program to end all math programs. If anyone wants to get in league with me, my email is: [e-mail]. I'm in conceptual stages. I'm gonna bring all those workbooks into the computer format with its animation and so forth. The cool thing with my math program is that it will suit anyone who is 4 yrs old to people who have trouble with differential equations. It will auto fit you into the right math level, and as long as you're willing to work on math problems, it

Alternatively: kids prefer games to regular ....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

... studying. Of course kids will pick the fun option.

I don't really care *how* kids learn, so long as they really are learning.

Far too many educational methods (both regular and games) are ineffective as teaching tools. Many so-called educational games just teach nothing (yes, there are many that are effective).

Re:Alternatively: kids prefer games to regular ...

[ArcherB]

Many so-called educational games just teach nothing (yes, there are many that are effective).

I don't think I learned a damn thing from "Oregon Trail". [gamespy.com]

I assume today's games are better at both teaching and entertainment.

They're primarily entertainment

[EmbeddedJanitor]

They have to be to compete with other entertainment options available to kids. The entertainment comes before education.

Putting "educational" on the box just helps the kids con their parents into buying the game.

Re:Alternatively: kids prefer games to regular ...

[fermion]

Pretty much. If you asked the average middle school kid if they would learn more if they had cute, preferably naked, teachers, they would probably say yes as well. If you asked primary school kids if they would learn more if they were taught by santa clause, they would probably say yes.

What kids want are not always possible or practical. That is why important things are handled by competent adults, when possible. This is not to say that kids are always wrong, or games are always bad, just that a survey

Re:Alternatively: kids prefer games to regular ...

[TheSkyIsPurple]

So Johnny, here I have 2 dead hookers and over there I have 3 more. How many dead hookers do I have all together?
5!
Very good. Now while we're here, let's discuss our anatomy lessons.

Sorry... reflexive thought whenever someone leaves themselves so open =-)

Don't survey kids, check the research!

[glpierce]

You are correct. There is a decent amount of research being done on this, and it pretty uniformly shows that educational games are less effective than other teaching techniques over the same period of time. Basically, the game is just getting in the way of the learning (every "fun" aspect functions as a distractor from the educational aspects).

Number Munchers anyone?

[Gat0r30y]

This game [wikipedia.org] was bad ass. I never thought of it as educational as a kid, but I certainly wouldn't have any problem with kids playing that in school.

Re:Number Munchers anyone?

[damn_registrars]

I grew up in Minnesota - which is what the M in MECC stood for - and we had Number Munchers, Word Munchers, Oregon Trail, and a variety of other educational games. All for the trusty Apple IIgs. If anything like those is available when my own (as of yet unborn) children reach school age, I would also support those titles in the classroom.

One of the first logic-based problems I remember from school was a "lights-out" bonus round from one of the Munchers.

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[Digestromath]

I remember we had Math Blaster, alot of little mini games teaching all your basic math things.

We also had the first iteration of Carmen Sandiego games for geography, which I have to say is a great way to learn about the world.

Kid Pix was like photoshop for elementary school.

And for some reason they let us play Sim City, I don't really know what it was meant to teach us but I feel I learned something from it.

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[siriuskase]

Sim City, now that game had an agenda. The only way to make a stable city was to keep lowering the taxes. Made me wonder how accurate the simulation was because if it was at all accurate, no intelligent person would tolerate taxation above a very small amount It also had a rather ruthless urban renewal technique, invite a monster or a natural disaster to occur.

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[Broken scope]

Oh man, kid pix, those were the days.

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[spikedvodka]

Believe it or not... kid pix is still around... and still only for mac

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[maglor_83]

We also had the first iteration of Carmen Sandiego games for geography, which I have to say is a great way to learn about the world.

Not so much these days. You have to fly to Moscow when she drives away in a car with a red flag.

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[k_187]

If you were in elementary school while the Apple II reigned supreme, you probably played those games.

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[langelgjm]

Yeah, I remember that game very well. In fact, I was just about to play an online version for kicks at http://www.muncherz.com [muncherz.com], but the site's down. I wonder if an influx of nostalgic /.ers is responsible.

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[bussdriver]

online version
http://numbermunchers.org/ [numbermunchers.org]

Ummm....

[Otter]

Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results.

Is the second half of that simply made up by the submitter? It's certainly not in the link and I don't see it in the link's link.

Take that out and this basically comes down to "Parents don't think children should have candy for breakfast; children disagree".

Thats Sad

[j_kenpo]

I think the general stigma that games are for "fun" and have little to add educationally is a bit sad. I have found some educational games to be incredible at learning new things, such as MySpanish Coach for the DS, which is especially good for when I travel. Granted, its not my only source of material, but it has been an invaluable study tool. And lets not forget, games like Police Quest were used an instructional tools many years ago.

I wonder how much the 3D shooters and GTA's have to do with the negative

Math maze

[Andrew Kismet]

In my last year of Primary School, the single class computer was oversubscribed because of the one game it had: a simple maze game, where certain paths were blocked with 'enemies'. On the earliest levels, these enemies would bring up simple addition problems which had to solved in under 10 seconds. I can't recall the exact penalty for failure, but the motivation to get it right was there. On later stages, subtraction, multiplication, division and simple algebra became commonplace. The quickest way around a maze would take you through harder problems - longer routes would evade the problem but reduce your overall score for a level. For a few solid weeks, it became highly competitive amongst all the boys in our class.

Being brought up with games, both at home and in school, I see no reason to oppose them now. Provided they're correctly and professionally designed, appeal to both boys and girls, and are usable by both students and teachers, they'll help increase mathematical, literary, and scientific skills. The only thing they're unlikely to help with are more creative subjects, and I'm sure the spread of computers will be the ruination of handwriting everywhere.

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[TriezGamer]

Why? It could simply be a statement of fact. If the girls didn't play, then why should GP mention them?

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[AcidPenguin9873]

Why should the GP mention the sex of those who were competing at all, other than to backdoor a debate about girls and math?

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[Your.Master]

Two reasons.

1. In order to point out that the games must target various demographics. A point which he explicitly made a sentence or two later.

We're making it fun so that children will voluntarily and willingly engage in the game, and thereby learn from it. If you target the male demographic, then mostly boys will find it fun and mostly girls will not find it fun. Yes, not every girl is going to play "dress-me-up-Barbie" and not every boy is going to want to play "Break stuff with Hammers EXTREME", but

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[slimjim8094]

So, to use the OP as a case study, math games target mostly boys?

One anecdote does not a case study make.

Listen - he was saying that, in his 5th class, the guys played one game and the girls played another. He mentioned this and off-handedly mentioned that publishers must account for different tastes - of which he mentioned several (sexes, teachers and students, professionally designed).

Not some big agenda. He only said that if publishers want to make a successful educational game, they needed to do stuff. One of which was account for both genders. He didn't cunningly h

non-video games can be educational too

[OrangeTide]

Back when I was in school we played a lot of games in the classroom as part of the curriculum. Especially in the lower grades. Sure video games can be an educational tool, but so can the non-video variety. And games that allow a large number of students to participate at once have their own unique dynamic that I think every kid should experience. And it's not something you can really get with a video game. Sorry, but an MMO is not really the same as 20 students in a class room all trying to play a game together in their noisy and chaotic way.

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[Blakey Rat]

Even in high school, we have a civics teacher who taught us a lot about the world with Civilization (the original board game the computer game is based on, although he had the computer game available also.) And when I left high school, I spent a summer with a group playing games like Diplomacy, Axis and Allies, Shogun, etc. They're obviously not for everybody, but you learn a lot about how the real world works by playing Diplomacy. Especially when you get stabbed in the back by all the other players, and di

I grew up with educational video games in the 80s.

[Vellmont]

They were mostly games where you had to use lay/lie correctly, or add up numbers, or whatever. This was in the early 80s on PET computers.

I also remember some weird machine that combined a record player with a series of slides. It asked some questions via the record player and you entered in a choice from a series of a few buttons. (I'm still dying to know what this thing was, so if anyone knows, please respond).

Anyway, I don't see what peoples issue is. If modern educational games are anything like wha

List of Games?

[oni]

I'm sure slashdotters can suggest some good educational games. My favorite is Oribter, it's a spaceflight simulator, but based on real physics. Playing it teaches kids about the scale of the universe, the energies involved in space travel, general math, and of course, orbital mechanics.

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

Re:

[rpillala]

Quia (http://www.quia.com) has a lot of web based games where you answer questions in order to take your turn in, say, Battleship. We have a projector/input board combo that simulates a touchscreen in my classroom and can do these as a whole class, but it would work just as well on a small screen.

I...am the Word Wizard.

[Perseid]

Welcome to my cave.

Evolution of teaching

[Digestromath]

Using electronic gaming is just an evolution of regular teaching methods. Using games is a tried and true method to teaching children.

Teachers will use all sorts of classic games to kids. I remember bingo, card games and charades all being used to help me learn french in elementary school (Anglophone Canadian thing I guess).

So what is electronic gaming but the next step?

Plus there are all the advantages to exposing our children to technology. Less of a concern today, but it was different 30 years ago.

Goes without saying?

[frovingslosh]

There's no mention of the games being fun, but that goes without saying

I take exception with this statement. Having seen many supposedly educational games, my impression is that most if not all of then are not fun, and many are not very educational. Many are an absolute waste and should be treated with the disdain that this article indicates that many parents have.

Adoption rates

[jonaskoelker]

Although only 15% of teachers [...] agree. Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results.

In other words, more than two thirds of the teachers who think games can be educational are already using them. That's a not too shabby adoption rate.

However, if they are as socially skilled as slashdot gamers, I predict difficulties when it comes to advocacy ;)

Oh really?

[steveo777]

Number Munchers [wikipedia.org] FTW!

Actually, these types of games really did teach my how to quickly process simple math. The only reason I ever lost was those dang Troggles!!!

I learned pretty well...

[austinian]

...something that the teacher wasn't even teaching, and that I wouldn't be taught for near 5 years. In second grade, I was able to teach myself algebra by analyzing problems and their solutions as posed by an educational game that we were encouraged to play (for its arithmatic game, but that was too easy). If someone had then taught me the order of operations and negative numbers, I would have had a much better start in my math education. Sadly, this did not happen, they taught multiplication tables instead

My son's learned a lot

[PIPBoy3000]

My son Sam has been playing video games for several years and I feel he's learned quite a bit:

• WWII weapons suck and are extremely inaccurate.
• Always lay down suppressing fire and try to flank the enemy.
• When engaging the enemy, use overwhelming force whenever possible.
• If you pull back on the stick while firing afterburners, you will black out.

Joking aside, I think gaming has snuck in a variety of educational facts into his noggin. Planning, thinking logically, history, reading, and problem solving are just a few of the things I've noticed rubbing off in the name of fun.

Back in the day when I taught high school biology, I wrote a dog breeding program that taught genetics. The kids loved it, even though the interface was simple and the genetics were overly simplified. The key is that a game must be fun first and slyly sneak in some educational content along the way.

Vocabulary

[BountyX]

Computer Learning was a huge part of my school growing up. Elementary and Middle School taught with interactive games.
We Had:

Magic Garden (math, vocab, typing speed, was givien to us in first grade on Mac machines and early pcs)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (was in our library)

Oregon Trail (was in our library, on an early mac)

Accelerated Reader program (quizzing system where books are worth points for reading based on difficulty and size)

I cant remember the others. I remember I learned the words dex

So True

[TastyCakes]

These kids are so right. I learned at least 90% of my personal skills through Quake Team Fortress back in the late 90s. Or should I say 5kyllz?

It was a simpler time...

Number crunchers and Oregon Trail

[scottymuse]

Great game for the Apple IIe that we had in my elementary school was Number Crunchers. Great for memorizing your multiplication tables. You'd run around on a grid and eat all the numbers that were multiples of 4 or something while there were some bad things chasing you. And what didn't I learn from Oregon Trail! I would have no idea chimney rock even existed without that game! And I learned moderation. After shooting one buffalo when hunting, no need to shoot anything else because you couldn't haul al

hmm... when I read "Educational Gaming"

[sesshomaru]

..electronics didn't come to mind at all. Good old strategic wargames, those are educational!

Children should be forced, forced I say, to participate in miniature restagings of the Battle of the Bulge [wikipedia.org] and the Battle of Fredricksburg! Also, simulations of Warsaw Pact versus NATO during the height of the Cold War. (I just ran into a young lady who didn't know what the Warsaw Pact was! The outrage!)

Oh, and what about the bleak future when there is only war! Children should be forced to learn about this

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[meringuoid]

Oh, and what about the bleak future when there is only war! Children should be forced to learn about this as well. How will they prepare their distant descendants for Imperial service otherwise?

The average high school closely resembles a Chaos cult anyway. I think they'll cope.

I don't think so

[earlymon]

Whenever I see "survey" in a summary, I RTFA. Here's the relevant quote:

The Speak Up data is collected through online surveys and verified through a series of focus groups and interviews with representative groups of students, educators and parents. To participate, districts register their schools and schedule time for their students and staff to take the 15 minute online surveys, and promote the survey to parents in their community. The survey is a convenience sampling with schools and districts (not generally individuals) self-selecting for participation. To minimize bias in the survey data, significant outreach is done to ensure adequate regional, socio-economic and racial/ethnic/cultural distribution.

(emphasis mine) from: http://www.tomorrow.org/docs/National%20Findings%20Speak%20Up%202007.pdf [tomorrow.org]

And when I see what the basis of the conclusions are, topped off by the title of this submission, I want to reach for my revolver.

I, for one, am moving neither too quick nor too slow to dismiss this survey as essentially meaningless. In addition, it was conducted online so I haven't found the actual survey questions yet, but the naysayers he

Still have a long way to go

[noric]

As an a intern for a major game development company, I had an opportunity to sit in on a debate between a university professor and the company President (2006). The professor's area of specialization was in psychology and serious games; ie he was the 'Pro games in school' fellow. What I remember most from the debate was the President firmly shooting down the idea of ever producing any serious (educational) games. In his opinion there is no money in education.

So the point is we're at a standstill. Educatio

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[Seraphim_72]

Education authorities don't believe in the teaching power of games...

As someone who works in the higher education field I can tell you that you are completely wrong. You are right though, in that EA and their ilk have no desire to get in the market at the moment, but there are a number of smaller groups that do. There are lots of newsletters, conferences, groups and organizations in this area, and a lot of educators very interested in seeing what can be done. I don't know what you saw, but it wasn't th

The Ultimate Educational Programs:

[TerranFury]

1 - gcc

2 - Firefox (w. Google & Wikipedia)

When their powers combine, you can build anything. It's like Legos on crack. And who doesn't like Legos?

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[pcgabe]

It's like Legos on crack. And who doesn't like Legos?

Or crack?

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[TerranFury]

Mmm, indeed. What better way to increase U.S. test scores than with concentration-enhancing uppers?

The funny thing is that I was actually being serious about gcc and Firefox! Learning to program changes the way you think and helps to motivate much of math. Growing up it had always been recognized that my chief skills were verbal, not quantitative (I still have trouble with arithmetic), yet now I'm embarking on a PhD in control theory -- a very mathematical discipline! Teaching myself to program litera

Games shouldn't teach "facts"...

[7Prime]

Educational methods that revolve around memorization, be it in games or anything else, are usually very ineffecient. Teaching facts is along the lines of giving a man a fish instead of teaching him how to do so. Once you learn that fact, it does little to nothing to your overall education in other areas.

The most effective teaching methods involve giving students the tools to be able to learn how to learn. Most learning will be done on a student's own through exploration, even if much of it is passive.

That's where video games come in. Legend of Zelda may not teach you Mayan history, it might not show you, directly, how to do algebra, but it develops problem solving and creative thinking skills in fairly complex ways that will make a student's job in learning those things FAR easier. Zelda isn't even an "education game" but its innate problem solving is more involved that almost any story problem you'll encounter in HS, and kids play Zelda in grade school. The problem is, it's not easilly quantifiable because there are no hard-and-fast facts being learned, but as I said, fact learning is one of the least inefficient educational methods. Sure, facts must be taught, but there should be much less emphasis on fact learning and more emphasis on critical thinking skills.

Meanwhile, over the course of Zelda, or even an adventure FPS, RPG, or most other modern games, you're reading a lot of on-screen text, you're doing mathmatical computation for stats, puzzles, and the like... and all surrounded by various time limits that act as drill. And to top it off, it's fun and doesn't FEEL like work. What more could an educator ask for?

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[Qzukk]

What more could an educator ask for?

Something that can be put onto a standardized test?

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[7Prime]

That's the kind of thing that a truly GOOD educator isn't asking for. Standardized tests hinder education terribly. Of course, we need accountability for education, but the current strategies of standardized testing are pretty bad.

No Child Left Behind needs to be... left behind.

Apple used to be the leader

[Tatsh]

I remember being in elementary school (US) and all they had were of course classic Macs, this kind [wikipedia.org] or something similar, because Apple gave a better bulk discount than IBM or clones at the time. In elementary school, we had quite a number of games that were tons of fun IMO and people ALWAYS wanted to play (including me). We had typing programmes as well. In about 3rd grade, we had [wikipedia.org] these Macs [wikipedia.org], and the most popular games in class were Treasure Mountain! [wikipedia.org] (very arithmetic-oriented, to the point where it would

Portal

[bionicpill]

I say make them play portal to improve their reasoning skills, and teach them to think of creative solutions to complex problems. Also to keep them paranoid of rogue computers and robots, since that is a future threat our kids will surely have to face.

And there is a HUGE market for them

[Frenchy_2001]

Educational Gaming is *ALREADY* here and it's already making a killing in the market, not only for kids but particularly for adults.
Some of the best sellers on the Nintendo DS could easily be classified as Edutainment. Games like Brain Age, Flash Focus or Brain Coach are all games that will also teach you to use your abilities. More recently, games like my French/Spanish Coach or My Word Coach are designed to improve your mastery of your language or start on a new one.
Those "games" work by making the necessary repetition of teaching (especially for language) less tedious than "classic" methods. After all, it does not really matters how little Johnny learnt to associate head with cabeza, it just needs to be drilled into his mind until the association is automatic. If it takes simple games to take the tedious part away, I'm all for it. I personally "play" My Spanish Coach and this has been the easiest method for me to get motivated and learn that language (YMMV).
The DS has been a revolution on that front, seen as a very nice gadget by lots of adults on top as a game console for kids. The touch screen interface blends the genre and allows new type of software for such a cheap gadget (~$100, far cheaper than a pda and much wider spread).

Check some of the games available on DS. Lots of choices.

Flavors of educational games

[Animats]

Educational games come in two basic flavors. In the first, the "education" consists of puzzles which have to be solved to advance gameplay. These are basically drill-and-practice programs with gameplay wrapped around them. If it makes dull drill and practice tolerable, why not? Most such games are trivial. There were many such games in the DOS era; today they're in Flash. Try Type Type Revolution [onlytypinggames.com], which is exactly what you think it is.

The other class of educational games are simulators, designed to t

As an adult who learned a LOT from games...

[SvnLyrBrto]

.... I have no doubt at all as to their potential effectiveness. And if I ever decide to have kids, I hope that I can work some kind of educational gaming into their upbringing. I kind of despair at the prospect though. Occasionally I wonder through the kids/educational shelves of Best Buy or the Apple Store, and I can't help but notice what a lineup of utter crap that "educational gaming" has available these days.

And it's really just sad, considering that I *DID* in fact learn a lot with educational gam

words from an older parent...

[FlyingGuy]

I became a parent at the age of 42 ( intentionally) and now my son is going to be 7 soon and I am looking at the half century mark looming before me. My conscious childhood was from say 1967 through 1977. Back then video games were a rare thing. As time has gone by I have watched the transition from Pong to WOW and those sorts of things.

I have serious doubt about getting my 7 year old a video game console or a DS2 or those kinds of things because I think it takes away from his experience of the real worl

Google Earth

[Bayoudegradeable]

Using Google Earth to zoom in on cities of the world I print out a "snapshot," usually showing a key feature of a city; building, river, coastline, etc. I put it on the board and the kids get three guess each (a day) to figure out which city it is. They eat it up, often begging me to print up a new city as I get to school. Not really a "video game" but a use of amazingly cool software. For this instance, and perhaps it's true for using actual games, it is the competition of winning, of being the first to get the city that is driving many of my kids. I wonder how much the desire to win drives the "fun" behind academic video games.

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[Bryansix]

You haven't looked too hard have you? A quick check on google turned this up. http://shop.knowledgeadventure.com/Departments/JumpStart-Series.aspx [knowledgeadventure.com]

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[fructose]

I'll be damned if my kid hasn't picked up some from her Leapster. All the games have some educational content, and she loves the animal games. They use a reward system like XBox Achievements to get them motivation to play more mini games. And the mini games are things like fill in the missing letter, and simple math. My daughter is 5 and she loves it. There are plenty of games to pick from too, so there are options for everyone.

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[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yes. I recommend linux. You learn all sorts of things digging in the source code. It also makes a great bedtime story.

/linux/arch/i386/boot/main.c

void main(void)
{
/* First, copy the boot header into the "zeropage" */
copy_boot_params();
...
go_to_protected_mode();
}

I love happy endings.

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[Bryansix]

Oregon Trail? The one where you ate only the smaller fish but had to watch out for anglers? Both great games and both educational.

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[blahplusplus]

"I don't know about you guys, but the vast majority of the video games I played at school were lame. The only one I remember fondly was a typing game based on the 'Puff the Magic Dragon' story."

I believe it's a matter of you not getting in contact with the right games, why is scrabble for instance fun, and acrophobia not? Both essentially teach spelling whether one is aware of it or not.

I'm sure there are plenty of other games that can take advantage of this like Civilization 4 and Medieval 2 : Total war s

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[meringuoid]

Maybe someone has found out how to write educational games that are fun to play. Maybe the situation has changed. I still have to be convinced.

Well, there's Brain Age, which has done more for the nation's mental arithmetic skills than anything else since Carol Vorderman. That's fun all right, and I don't think it's left the top ten bestsellers list in the last two years.

Other than that: you'd be surprised how much you pick up from Sid Meier. The background information in the Civilopedia and its eqivalen

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[brkello]

Those "flash cards" can hold millions of books. In any case, please list the education software you have looked at. You don't have to answer it because I know it would be little if any. This is just your knee jerk reaction...I don't know why...because you didn't have it growing up? you only see games as a waste?

The funny thing is that you really don't get much out of school other than how to be successful in a school setting. Degrees show more that you are willing to work and learn something rather th