One of my favorite topics of discussion with just about anybody (and almost everyone has an opinion about this) is gaming as an educational tool. Do people learn from gaming? Does it develop critical thinking skills? I’ll admit a bias towards always answering yes, but really I think it depends on the games. Saying that games are educational is like saying that food is good for you. It all depends on what you’re consuming.
I had the pleasure to be one of the first generations to grow up with consumer video games. I started playing games on an old Apple off of 5-1/4? diskettes. Seeing that I really enjoyed using the computer, my dad spent money to buy a lot of educational games. One game involved math equations that had to be answered by jumping over the appropriate square on a pogostick. As you progressed, the equations got more difficult and you moved faster across the screen. Critical thinking on the fly with hand-eye coordination thrown in, not to mention math superpowers.
Another game worth mention was Zork, which certainly required reading comprehension and non-linear problem solving. Myst came along a little later and required the same sort of problem solving but required more visual literacy (a term I’ve seen come up frequently of late in library discussion). Moving off the computer and onto the console, games became less obviously educational, but still required some of the same sorts of skills. Critical thinking and problem solving are what games are all about, one way or another. Even in games like Grand Theft Auto (the black sheep of gaming, at the moment), players often have to come up with clever solutions to multi-faceted problems.
I’ve recently started noticing an increase in a certain kind of game that wouldn’t have been possible ten years ago, and is perhaps the most research-oriented non-linear type of game yet. Via the Wikipedia description:
An alternate reality game (ARG) is a cross media game that deliberately blurs the line between in-game experiences and the real world. While these games may primarily be centered around online resources, events which happen as part of the game may be communicated to the players in a number of forms.
This new kind of game is mind-boggling. Crossing nearly every platform from hidden real-world clues to decoding online cryptographics to collectible trading cards to scheduled events run like massive treasure hunts, ARGs, when done well, are a new evolution in gaming.
ABC television recently announced an ARG-like game for fans of its show “Lost”, which allows players to uncover clues that piece together the history and backstory of characters and locations.
I Love Bees was another ARG marketing game that cleverly blurred the line between reality and the Halo universe. Players, on their own, discovered hidden messages in images, linked them to audio messages which, when run in order, played out character stories which wove together, and uncovered GPS coordinates across the world which tied into phone booth locations.
In the end, it was just clever marketing, but does that matter if people are enjoying themselves solving an incredibly complex mystery with other people all over the world?
Recently, Perplex City caught my eye. Offering a real $200,000 reward, the game involves solving puzzles, following stories, uncovering hidden information, and competing against and with other players across the world. The story is some of the best written sci-fi you might come across and all the more poignant for that it’s interactive. As for the puzzles, some are relatively easy to solve, given time and thought. You can sign up and answer a couple example puzzle cards here. Other cards have puzzles that are so difficult that the company has admitted that it doesn’t expect them to be solved.
One requires that the Riemann Hypothesis be proven true or false. I don’t even begin to understand the problem (my pogostick math game never got quite that far). Another puzzle requires a massive decryption effort that hundreds of users have joined together to try and solve via brute force processing. This is crowdsourcing at its most sociable. What if, via a game mechanism, the Riemann Hypothesis were solved? It’s been a mathematical conundrum for over a century now, and if it were solved by gamers working together (not likely, but possible), I’d be ecstatic.
To get back on a simpler note, Flash games bring us back to our Apple roots, with clever puzzle games that have an apparent educational value. Lore over at Table of Malcontents consistently links to games that are downright enjoyable and make my brain feel like it’s getting some exercise. Some of my recent favorites include 3-D Logic, which involves mapping colors around a cube; ClickDragType, in which solving the puzzles largely requires figuring out what the rules are, which is very enjoyable in itself; and Gwigle, which challenges you and teaches you how to utilize advancing googling technique all at the same time.
There are a ton of games out there. Perhaps not all of them are of educational value, but hey, sometimes it’s okay to have a little fun as well. I think it’s most important that if you’re going to have an opinion on educational gaming, you see some of what’s available that isn’t released by Rockstar and doesn’t involve shooting things. Because the fact is that kids are into video games. We’ve tried to bring the kids to the education with limited success. Maybe it’s time we try harder to bring education to the kids.