kitchen table math, the sequel: Why aren't educational games any better?

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Why aren't educational games any better?

I saw this article, and thought it was a terrific explanation why it's hard to find video games that are both compelling and educational.  (This link is for Myth 3. . . the whole series hasn't been published)

1 comment:

SteveH said...

I would say that the problem is that it's a game. If I want to learn something, I don't want to play a game. That wastes too much time. My son learned a number of things about WWII playing Blazing Angels, but the learning to time ratio was not very good and coverage of the topic was not the goal. The games I bought my son when he was little had really bad learning to time ratios. It's unrealistic to think that you can get something for nothing or that learning should be fun like a game.

The kind of learning program I want is one that gets right to the point. It should be flexible, detect my weak areas, and enforce a certain performance level of mastery. The fun I will have is learning new things as quickly as possible. This should be possible and would be so much better than any sort of YouTube video. If done properly, differentiated instruction might have a chance.