Comments on: First thoughts from Barcelona

By: Daniel Livingstone

Daniel Livingstone — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:04:20 +0000

Hi Nicola,
sorry wasnt able to get to Barcelona this year
Agree with you 100% that what is being learned is an important question. It is not enough to say that children will learn from something, we need to consider what is being learned.

As Neil Postman wrote, *everything* is educational - from poverty we learn hopelessness, from politics we learn cynicism…

It could be argued that many games teach us that violence is a suitable and correct response to a wide range of situation. Though I think you might be wrong on ‘Bully’ - most of the game charges the player with the defending the weak from other bigger bullies.

Also agree the high-end production values thing is something of a red-herring. Millions of kids play Runescape and are fully immersed because of what they are doing - even though it is graphically extremely primitive compared to WoW etc.

By: Emma

Emma — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:04:56 +0000

I know it’s not particularly current, but as a child we had a crude ‘mavis beacon’ typing game, where you drove a car and as you typed the words the car went faster, and the text got harder, teaching touch typing and literacy etc etc.

It was not high end. Infact it was pretty basic. But we are also talking about it being in about 1992. I only had about 3 computer games (Alley cat being the only other I can remember!) So I played it incessantly, and a low end game was better than no game.

It had massive playability, and as a result I have been able to touch type very well since the age of about 15 onwards.

I wouldn’t have learnt this without the game. However in today’s market where even throwaway promotional games have such high production values (although usually little lasting playability) - and there is such a high volume of free games out there, it is less easy to see how this crude but effective teaching method would work today. We live in a world where computers are used for virtually everything unlike when I was growing up Adults ‘worked’ on them and children ‘played’ (even though the tape always crashed halfway through).

There is definitely a role for the teacher to play in this instance. If we were given lessons at school where the option was to use a book to learn the subject matter for an hour or a game - I think we know which is more popular.

By: Alistair Owens

Alistair Owens — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:20:45 +0000

Harnessing the advance in educational games technology will be a boon to children. The greatest retention in learning is associated with practice. What greater way to practice than incorpaate the function in a video game.

Kids love to play games and improve to the next level. This ” learning in disguise” also has another hidden element; children learn a huge amount from other children. Capturing interest, presenting a challenge and inducing ready support is an amazing combination. But the game designers need to liaise closely with teachers to combine the two disciplines correctly.

Alistair Owens