Video games in the Classroom?
A new report finds surprising parallels between learning techniques and killing aliens. If the Federation of American Scientists made a list of educational videogames, you might expect to find Oregon Trail, the story of Conestoga wagons trekking into the American West, or the geography favorite
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? And don’t forget Half-Life 2. That’s the one where you burn alien zombies to death with exploding barrels of fuel.
OK, that’s exaggerating—but only a little. Where parents see hours wasted in front of a screen, these scientists see potential. An FAS study released this week, titled “Harnessing the power of video games for learning,” reports that best-selling games are built in surprisingly pedagogical ways. Players improve at their own pace. Beating a level requires experimentation, failure and learning from mistakes. Most new games can be played online, requiring collaboration and leadership. Game play is precisely calibrated to balance challenge and progress. It’s a stark contrast to a typical classroom in which one teacher tries to engage 30 students with printed information. “It’s like hiring an individual tutor for every student,” says FAS president Henry Kelly of using videogames to teach. “There’s a big argument going on now about whether kids are being tested too much or too little. In a game, you’re continuously being tested and you don’t mind it.”
Some commercial games are already being used in the classroom. The Civilization series lets users build empires in ancient Persia and other historical periods, and RollerCoaster Tycoon, where players construct a theme park, combines physics and business management. And the U.S. military makes extensive use of video simulations: the Army reports 7.6 million users have registered for America’s Army, a training and recruiting game.
The report calls for a new generation of educational games that are as immersive and graphics-intensive as megabudget titles like Madden NFL 07 and Battlefield 2142. “When you show a child a traditional educational game, they’ll roll their eyes,” says Kay Howell, a coauthor of the study. “But I don’t think they roll their eyes because it’s learning; I think it’s because there’s such a huge and obvious gap in quality compared to what they play at home.” The federal government, she says, should close that gap by underwriting new game-publishing houses.
But some educational observers find the videogame recommendations too unorthodox. “This is really silly,” says Chester E. Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a K-12 education research group in Washington. “Are they next going to propose government-funded studies of the educational value of comic books, reality TV shows and instant messaging?” Other critics contend the report’s recommendations shouldn’t be seen as a cure-all. “We think it’s a good idea that this stuff is being explored,” says Chad Colby, a spokesman for the Department of Education. “People do tend to look at these things as silver bullets, or a fix in themselves, when it’s really one tool out of many.” The larger problem with the federation’s ideas, Colby says, is a lack of familiarity with how education funding works: only 8.3 percent of the country’s total education budget comes from the federal government, and most of that is targeted toward students in poverty.
The study’s recommendations might be hard to implement: not all school districts have computers and networks capable of running high-end games. The FAS report calls for the production of games that can be Web-based and downloadable to PCs, but it might be less expensive to design games for the established consoles that many families already have at home. “These are technologies that kids and young adults are living with every day of their lives,” says Howell. “Why do we expect them to leave that behind when they go into a learning environment?”
Nick Summers
Newsweek
OK, that’s exaggerating—but only a little. Where parents see hours wasted in front of a screen, these scientists see potential. An FAS study released this week, titled “Harnessing the power of video games for learning,” reports that best-selling games are built in surprisingly pedagogical ways. Players improve at their own pace. Beating a level requires experimentation, failure and learning from mistakes. Most new games can be played online, requiring collaboration and leadership. Game play is precisely calibrated to balance challenge and progress. It’s a stark contrast to a typical classroom in which one teacher tries to engage 30 students with printed information. “It’s like hiring an individual tutor for every student,” says FAS president Henry Kelly of using videogames to teach. “There’s a big argument going on now about whether kids are being tested too much or too little. In a game, you’re continuously being tested and you don’t mind it.”
Some commercial games are already being used in the classroom. The Civilization series lets users build empires in ancient Persia and other historical periods, and RollerCoaster Tycoon, where players construct a theme park, combines physics and business management. And the U.S. military makes extensive use of video simulations: the Army reports 7.6 million users have registered for America’s Army, a training and recruiting game.
The report calls for a new generation of educational games that are as immersive and graphics-intensive as megabudget titles like Madden NFL 07 and Battlefield 2142. “When you show a child a traditional educational game, they’ll roll their eyes,” says Kay Howell, a coauthor of the study. “But I don’t think they roll their eyes because it’s learning; I think it’s because there’s such a huge and obvious gap in quality compared to what they play at home.” The federal government, she says, should close that gap by underwriting new game-publishing houses.
But some educational observers find the videogame recommendations too unorthodox. “This is really silly,” says Chester E. Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a K-12 education research group in Washington. “Are they next going to propose government-funded studies of the educational value of comic books, reality TV shows and instant messaging?” Other critics contend the report’s recommendations shouldn’t be seen as a cure-all. “We think it’s a good idea that this stuff is being explored,” says Chad Colby, a spokesman for the Department of Education. “People do tend to look at these things as silver bullets, or a fix in themselves, when it’s really one tool out of many.” The larger problem with the federation’s ideas, Colby says, is a lack of familiarity with how education funding works: only 8.3 percent of the country’s total education budget comes from the federal government, and most of that is targeted toward students in poverty.
The study’s recommendations might be hard to implement: not all school districts have computers and networks capable of running high-end games. The FAS report calls for the production of games that can be Web-based and downloadable to PCs, but it might be less expensive to design games for the established consoles that many families already have at home. “These are technologies that kids and young adults are living with every day of their lives,” says Howell. “Why do we expect them to leave that behind when they go into a learning environment?”
Nick Summers
Newsweek
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