World of the Digital Natives: Hands-on Learning Through Gaming?

In the beginning, there was only television’s warm glow. The Muppets put on a wacky variety show every night, Voltron cut the bad guys down to size and the Thundercats saved the day five times a week. Back then I didn’t think there was any way that my TV Titians could ever be upstaged. What could be better than watching the adventures of the world’s greatest heroes?

In December of 1985, I was barely three years old. My father had recently purchased an Apple II-C computer a few months before and was looking for software he could use to introduce me and my brother to the fledgling digital world. He chose KidWriter – a program where children write and illustrate their own story book page by page, albeit in pea soup green thanks to the Apple’s monochrome monitor. It was a little bit like television, but here I was the one who controlled the action. I hungered for more, and soon, my father obliged.

The Kidwriter title screen... on a color monitor!

Over the next several years I played games like Pac-Man, Moon Patrol, Test Drive and my favorite, Dig Dug. But it wasn’t until 1988 or 1989 when a chance encounter with Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt and the Nintendo Entertainment System at my aunt’s house ensured that my free time for the rest of eternity would be spent in front of a television or computer monitor with a controller in my hands. And though I never stopped hangin’ with my boob-tube buddies, it was clear that gaming was my new – and permanent – sweetheart.

Approximately 25 years after Dad bought KidWriter, I’ve amassed more than 1,000 video games spanning almost three decades, from E.T. for the Atari 2600 and a quazi-legal copy of NES Earth Bound to Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. KidWriter, of course, remains in my collection.

Seeing as how I’ve grown up with technology, I’ve always been rather comfortable with it. It’s worth noting that technology was introduced to me as something fun and it wasn’t until I was about 12 years old that I began using it for school, so perhaps that explains the extent to which computers and gaming are integrated into my life. Also, very few of my computer skills were taught to me by another person. My father taught me the basics – what an .exe file is, how to run programs, etc. – and I’ve been learning on my own ever since.


Productivity ended the day I discovered you, Nintendo.



The essence of technology for me, and I think many of my “digital native” peers would agree, is exploration. Since the days of Pac-man and printer paper with tear-off edges, it has been more gratifying for me to figure out computer programs and other technology on my own, reading the manual at a later time if at all. When it comes to computers, it’s easier for me to remember what I discover on my own than through reading or time in the classroom.

Technology lends itself to that kind of thing. Whereas the facts in a book need to be memorized, much of what a person can do with technology needs to “come from within.” Reading and lectures can tell you how to jump to the next platform in Castlevania or do a simple combo attack in Street Fighter II, but until the player experiences it for him or herself, it’s just words. We all know how to hit a baseball: You swing the bat. But you don’t get the hang of it until you’ve swung and missed a few pitches.

Otherwise you’re just watching someone else do it, like in a classroom… or on a television show. And as I discovered early in my life, just watching a character like Lion-o from Thundercats have an adventure can be good, but it’s always more rewarding to take up the quest yourself – if only through the comforting embrace of a Nintendo Entertainment System.

I’ve been told that learning can’t take place without emotional involvement. So what better tool than gaming for getting people like me emotionally involved in the classroom? Perhaps it’s the silly dream of a second-rate educator who finds himself more suited to the theoretical than the practical. But then again, a lot of the “digital natives” that I was asked to lecture to would have been much more interested in writing KidWriter stories than anything I had to say.

I don’t think I’m the one who will wind up revolutionizing the current educational paradigm in American schools, but I think I know how that future superstar teacher will do it.

The future of education ...was yesterday? Maybe.

Reading, Writing and... Gaming?

In my brief tenure as an English teacher, I found that some middle school students have been less than enthusiastic about the learning process. Maybe all of the reading turns ‘em off. Maybe they find the subject matter difficult.

Or maybe they’re just bored to tears.

Enter “stealth education.” That is, circumstances where the student finds the learning process highly enjoyable and wants to continue of his or her own accord. The Liemandt Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on improving education, sees great potential in the concept, and is ready to put their money where their mouth is: They’re hosting a contest where teams of up to eight college students create a video game that teaches math and science. The prize is a cool $25,000.

This was taken at the Liemandt Foundation's latest "Lemonade Day," which has nothing to do
with what we're talking about. But it IS hella creepy.

Contestants certainly have their work cut out for them, as previous attempts at “edutainment” have been, shall we say, a few steps below brilliant. (Mario Teaches Typing will forever haunt my restless dreams, and I’m convinced that Mario is Missing was some sort of sadistic programmer’s joke taken to tragic extremes.) The finalists have already been flown to San Francisco to showcase their games and are waiting with baited breath for the judges’ decision.

Let’s just hope the winning entry is better than, say, The Typing of the Dead.

This is not what your mother meant when she said "use your words."

Back to School Week: The Learning Game Vol. 3

"You fail."

With the first week of school finally coming to an end, plenty of kids and teens have already experienced their first massive failures of the year and are dreading the rest of the drab experience that is American Education system. Everyone else is scraping by or overachieving as usual, but one thing is for certain: All but the most soulless of emo-brats can't wait to get home and conquer worlds on their Wiis, PS3s and Xbox 360s (if they haven't red-ringed yet, that is).

"Wouldn't it be awesome it we could play video games in school?" they ask each other. It's been a common schoolyard theme since even before the invaders from space blasted their way into arcades everywhere in the early '80s.

Little do they know, however, that it's already happening in select classrooms throughout the world. According to The Scholastic Stylus: Nintendo DS in the Classroom, a wonderfully written article by the super attractive and talented Matt, "learning games" like language and math tutors have already been put into use by schools in Ireland and Japan. There's also great potential in implementing Nintendo's hit handheld in special education classrooms worldwide. So while this generation my never get to take up the stylus themselves and knock out a few equations, maybe it'll be common place for their offspring.

What might be a little more feasible for the classrooms of today is good ol' fiction - interactive fiction, that is. Despite its name, the article Interactive Fiction: The Missing Link has nothing to do with the protagonist of the Zelda series and everything to do with old school text-based adventures like the Zork series. Popular back when computers were lucky to have more than 1 kilobyte of RAM and still prevalent to some extent today, interactive fiction games are all about reading and problem solving, but in a way that puts the player in total control of the outcome; sort of like an electronic Choose Your Own Adventure book. Games like this could be a great way to get reluctant students reading and enjoying it, and prolific readers soaking in even more wordage than before. Besides, I'd take Zork over atrocities like Jane Eyre any day.

Now if you're finished with all this educational stuff, why not take a break and read today's Extra Credit Bonus Link, Another Roadside Tragedy. It's the sad story of a small child, a Happy Meal box, and one extremely ticked off motorist.

Yes, it's who you think it is.

Enjoy the weekend, students, because Monday always comes so awfully fast.

Back to School Week: The Learning Game Vol. HA HA FOOLED YOU It’s Super Mario Time!

HOOLIGANS

As of noon on September 9, 2010, there were at least 25 hooligans roaming the streets within a mile and a half mile radius of my home. I know it’s not Yom Kipper yet and according to the local school district’s website, these kids should be in school today. How am supposed to post the last volume of The Learning Game with today’s students blatantly skipping school to smoke cigarettes, knock over statues and terrorize dogs?

I’ll post the final volume of The Learning Game tomorrow, when these hoodlums decide that school is where it’s at. For now I wouldn’t feel right talking about education when so many of our youths are blatantly ignoring it. But fear not; sweet, sweet content is just a scroll away. As I’ve know since I was a small, annoying child, Super Mario fixes everything!

OR DOES HE!?

The Other Side of the Flagpole

You think it’s fun to stomp on our heads. You think it’s fun to kick us around. You think it’s fun to steal our coins, eat our mushrooms and pull up our flowers. Well you know what? I think you’re all SICK. Did you ever stop to think how we feel? Can’t any of you people think for yourselves?

Do you even know what you’re doing to us? I assure you, this is no game. All of our poles are ruined, because that fat man keeps tearing down the flags! We had to install many a spinning fire stick security system around our precious flagpoles, but he keeps jumping over them at the right time and stealing the flags anyway. Not even our best question mark blocks hovering randomly in the sky can stop his demented lust for our flags. No castle is safe from his thieving ways either! He just walks right in and starts stealing money and breaking things. You can forget about building anything out of bricks too, because that red ruffian comes by and smashes them all, looking for money! I bet he spends it on drugs, too! Anyone as obsessed with mushrooms and eating flowers as he is has to be a druggie!

And for the love of Zelda, do you have any idea what it’s like to tell a child that his father was murdered by that sinister mustachioed man?

By Silent KV

“Mommy, why hasn’t Papa Goomba been home for the past three weeks?”

“I’m sorry, son, but your father isn’t in another castle like I’ve been telling you. He’s… dead!”

“Dead!?”

“Yes son! It’s true! He was – oh, I can barely say it! – he was stomped to death by Super Mario! And then that evil man robbed your father’s flat corpse of all 100 of his points!”

“Daddy! Nooooooooooo!”

Maybe if you knew the real deal about that Super Mario guy and his brother, what’s-his-name, you’d think twice about killing our people and ransacking our homes. We’re not the villains here, he is. Him and his brother, what's-his-name.

Everything was fine before he showed up. We lived as a tight knit community. We all had steady jobs: some of us walking back and forth on the same piece of terrain all day, and others periodically popping out of pipes, throwing a fireball, and ducking back inside. Then, after a hard day’s work, it was back home to relax by walking back and forth in the same room until daybreak. Everyone enjoyed their existence and had no reason to complain.

But then one day, a fat, sinister shadow befell the land. The man in red had arrived. We were helpless against his futuristic technologies; we had never seen a creature that large move with such agility. For example, if he’s walking, he can stop and go in the opposite direction without having to bump into a pipe first! And he can go faster than just walking; he can run! How could we even begin to compete with advanced military strategies like that?

It'sa me, MURDER-O

Knowing he was physically superior to us, he began ruling over us with an iron fist. His first move was to have is girlfriend, Princess Toadstool, imprison our kind and handsome leader, King Koopa. With him out of the way, he and his brother were free to begin stealing our money and killing us any time they wanted.

So I beg of you all; please stop assisting this man’s heinous crimes! He’s brainwashed you all into thinking that we’re somehow bad, and yet, what proof has he ever given you? When, besides the few times our fearless King Koopa has escaped from the Princess’ evil grasp, have any of us attacked you? Well, besides the Hammer Brothers; I guess sometimes they get a little careless with their tools.

We all just want to go back to our normal lives! We want to be able to walk aimlessly again, and pop in and out of pipes without fear! Please, I implore you! Don’t let the man in red seduce you to a life of crime!

Why can we all just be goombas?

Back to School Week: The Learning Game Vol. 2

Image by Ilese Lotta, frustrated student from Germany

Does your writing hand ache yet from the billions of notes you've been taking? Is your back sore from walking around all day with a backpack chock-full of awful reading goodness? Are you ready for summer 2011 already?

Well don't look now, but the educational entertainment has just begun! Everyone's favorite underemployed English teacher, me, has a few assignments for you. This second double-sized dose of The Learning Game explores some of the obstacles that prevent gaming from being integrated into the current world of American education, and then we'll take a nostalgic gander at the benefits of the good ol' Nintendo Entertainment System on the totally radical youth of the '80s and '90s.

Yes, it's homework. No, it's not that hard. And yes, it'll be on the quiz. Any other questions?

The Challenges of Implementing Gaming in the Classroom

I have no idea what these kids are doing, but it looks important.

If mixing education and video games were easy, I'd have done it already. You might have already guessed that, but if you take a minute to sit down and ponder all the problems associated with such a proposal, your head starts to hurt worse than the time your little cousin forgot to wear his Wii remote strap and lobbed it right into your eye socket. Here I examine just a few of the ways both education in America and gaming itself would have to evolve in order to truly fit hand in Power Golved hand.

Thinking Critically: A Link to the Past

When I was but a wee lad, most adults in my life were either indifferent to gaming or spent long amounts of time trying to convince me that Nintendo was evil and would eventually consume my family and I as some sort of fleshy midnight treat. Whenever someone said I was wasting my time, I replied that I was developing my hand-eye coordination, though I never knew why that was a good thing.

In this essay, I finally found a solid way to defend the gaming heroes of my youth. And it only took me two short decades!

Extra Credit Bonus Link: PlayStation Home:

All Investment and NO RETURN....

Hey guys! I think I found Waldo!

One of the first posts I made when I this blog started picking up steam was about PlayStation Home, the PS3 social networking program. It's scarier than words can describe... so of course, I spend the whole article trying to do just that. Fun for the whole family over 18!

Okay, so are you all done reading this edition of The Learning Game? Then in the words of the immortal Duke Nukem (the game character, not the guy from Captain Planet): "Get back to work you slacker!"

Back to School Week: The Learning Game Vol. 1

Welcome back, suckaz!

If you're an American between the ages of five and 17 years old, I'm sorry. About 95 percent of you either went back to school last week or you'll be frantically buying a new wardrobe today or tomorrow and marching back into a classroom sometime in the next 72 hours. I feel your pain; I'm a certified English Language Arts teacher and if the economy hadn’t taken a headshot or 17 recently, I'd probably be captain of my first classroom right now instead of selling computers at Best Buy.

No more Thrill Kill!?

Your parents probably told you that you can’t play as many video games during the school year as you did during the scorcher days of the summer, which is a total bummer. And for you old people out there like me, just imagine how it would feel if someone told YOU that you can’t play Street Fighter every night! ...wait, that's called college. So to anyone lamenting the loss of their gaming hours, keep your chin up high and take note: There are people out there who think gaming holds an important place on the classroom.

One of them is me.

Last year I created a blog called “The Learning Game” as part of a grad school class. The blog focused on how video games could be intertwined with education to form something that the student AND the teacher could get excited about. In honor of students everywhere going back to school, I’ve imported and enhanced the The Learning Game to Wordsmith VG in its entirety. Think of it as the difference between the original Metroid on the NES and the Metroid: Zero Mission remake on the Gameboy Advance, only this time instead of stupid alien space pirates taking over some alien planet, it’s all gravy. Besides, you’re getting two posts a day, which is more than 1.99 times more words for you to read (or ignore)!

Pull up a chair and get ready to learn something from, class.

He's FROM SPACE, dude.

The Value of Gaming in Education

Examine the possibility of video games making the move from entertainment to educational. It's still far off, but the idea is much more feasable than it was 10 years ago.

Just a tad different from the book.

Les Misérables: The Fighting Game

You know, every classic novel should be converted into a fighting game.  This one is more entertaining than a garbage truck full of angry Frenchmen!


Extra Credit Bonus Link: It’s Itoi’s Word, Charlie Brown!

If you’ve got some time to spare after class, take a gander at this essay comparing the world of Shigasato Itoi’s Famicom (NES) classic MOTHER 1 to the endeavors of Charles Shultz’s Peanuts characters. There’s more than meets the eye going on here in this progressively poingent essay. It was the first post here on Wordsmith VG, so if you missed it, now's your chance to get a little more studying in!

I made the MOTHER series! LOVE ME.

The Scholastic Stylus: Nintendo DS in the Classroom

I was observing a committee on special education (CSE) meeting the other day, waiting for a parent to show up – turns out she thought the meeting was scheduled for 20 minutes later than it was – and the school psychologist blurted out something in passing that, unbeknownst to her, stole my focus for the rest of the meeting.

A few weeks before, she had been called to testify in a court case regarding one of the children in the district. The psychologist arrived at court at 9 a.m., but wasn’t called to testify until 4 p.m.

“Good thing I had my Nintendo,” she said.

The psychologist was referring, of course, to the Nintendo Dual Screen (DS) portable video game system. Armed with a built-in monitor and a “touch screen” located just below, most Nintendo DS games are controlled in part or in whole using a small stylus. Seeing as how the original incarnation of the DS is more than half a decade old at this point, that’s nothing astonishing anymore. But while immersed in the special education setting, an idea popped into my head: What if we used the Nintendo DS as a way for children with physical and other disabilities to build their motor skills? The stylus is held and operated just like a pencil – a skill that could transfer to school work – and in some games, like Brain Age, writing numbers and letters is the key to advancing.

“So what?” you might ask. “A pencil and paper is about $199 cheaper.”

That’s a good point. However, writing letters and numbers over and over again on a sheet of paper is about as entertaining as doing 500 pushups and it’s just as tedious. What DS games can offer today’s learners is motivation: There’s something highly satisfying about moving ahead and being able to measure one’s progress, whether that progress is deeper into the dank and dangerous dungeons of the newest Castlevania game or to new scholastic heights in Big Brain Academy.

Consider this: According to educational theorist James Gee in his book Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul: Pleasure and Learning (2006), as human beings, enjoyment plays a huge role in our learning. “Learning is a deep human need, like eating and mating,” he said. “So the real paradox is not that pleasure and learning go together, but, rather, how and why school manages to separate them” (p. 29).

Using DS games, then, could be one of the steps to reconnecting schools with the pleasure of learning. For students who find learning difficult – like possibly children with motor skill or other disabilities – an education that includes a little Nintendo DS learning fun might be just the thing to help invigorate their scholastic careers.

As my CSE meeting wore on, the parent now on her way, I also wondered if the educational applications of the Nintendo DS aren’t limited to special education learners. What about other types of students?

According to a July 11, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Beyond Pokemon: Nintendo DS Goes to School in Japan” by Yukari Iwatani Kane, the DS has been helping English as a second language (ESL) students increase their grasp of the English language. As students write English words like “tree” and “woman” on their school-supplied DS systems, an electronic voice calls out “Cool!” if the student writes the word correctly or “Come on!” if he or she makes a mistake.

“Work sheets were such a pain,” said Minori Yamanaka, a 13-year-old student at Otokoyama Higashi Junior High School. “These exercises feel like a game” (Kane, 2007).

But it’s not just Japan that’s utilizing the Nintendo DS for educational purposes, and it’s not just for language acquisition: According to an article by Lousie Holden in the Irish Times entitled "How Nintendo Can Boot Your Child's Perfomance in Maths," published Nov. 10, 2009, at least two schools in Ireland are using the Nintendo DS to teach math skills to their middle school students. The results, she said, are encouraging.

“Three classes spent approximately 15 minutes a day using two games, Maths Training and Brain Training,” wrote Holden. “All three classes in each grade were given mathematical tests (Drumcondra tests) before and after the trial period. The results of the Drumcondra tests were as follows: In 6th-class maths, relative to their peers, the Nintendo group scored substantially better. Gains were ‘obvious and significant’” (Holden, 2009).

So if the DS really aids in grasping the English language with students in Japan, why couldn’t it work with ESL students anywhere? And if Japanese and Irish schools are already implementing the Nintendo DS in their classes with educational success as Kane and Holden point out in their articles, why not in American special and general education classrooms as well, with software specifically designed to achieve maximum educational benefits?

It comes down to a lack of time for teacher training and wide scale implementation of the DS devices, the stigma that Nintendo products are for entertainment only and, of course, a lack of cash for the hardware and software.

“There is definitely support for the idea, but whether we can get money for it at this time is questionable,” pointed out Robbie O’Leary, principal of Sacred Heart Senior National School in Killinarden, Tallaght (Holden, 2009). O’Leary’s remarks no doubt echo the concerns of other educators in schools across the globe.

Back at my CSE meeting, an overwhelmed mother was relieved as a set of important services for her child were put into place. As I left the meeting, I too was a bit overwhelmed, my mind abuzz with educational possibilities and problems of Nintendo’s popular portable.

Interactive Fiction: The Missing Link

From Ooze: Creepy Nites

While absentmindedly browsing through the content of the "abandonware" website House of Games one night before going to bed, I discovered a game called Ooze: Creepy Nites. Expecting some moderately entertaining, slime-saturated action game from the late ‘80s, I said “what the heck” and clicked the link to a description and download. There was probably slime there somewhere, judging by the screenshots, but something in the review made me forget all about cheap horror thrills: The game, they said, is an “interactive fiction” title.

For some reason, before seeing the phrase “interactive fiction” on that web page, it had never occurred to me that the genre is brimming with education possibilities – especially in the English language arts field. It was exciting moment for me, even more so than if Ooze had been the forgettable Super Mario meets The Blob experience I had anticipated.

For those of us who are late to the party, interactive fiction is a genre of video games that presents information and gameplay textually. The idea is to immerse the player in the story in the same way a novel would. Older games of the genre have no graphics, only text. Newer titles like Ooze: Creepy Nites utilize some graphics, but the words are still the most important part of the game. The player interacts with the game by typing commands such as “go west,” “take credit card” or “use hamster in microwave,” depending on what’s in his or her inventory and what's available in the surroundings. Interactive fiction games require the player to carefully read pages and pages of text, to keep track of many small details, and to creatively solve problems.

The swanky contents of The Lurking Horror game box

Games like Zork, Beyond the Titanic, The Lurking Horror and almost every other title ever made by the company Infocom belong in the interactive fiction category. I’ve always called games like these as “text-based adventures,” but that’s probably because I’m a console player at heart and these kinds of games are mainly PC/MAC affairs. I guess that before reading that Ooze: Creepy Nites review, I was sort of out of the interactive fiction loop.

You might be thinking: "Okay, so you play the games by reading text. Big deal."

But here’s where it gets really exciting for educators: According to Nick Manfort and Paulo Urbano, authors of an extensive article on interactive fiction called “A Quarta Era da Ficção Interactiva” originally printed the Portuguese magazine Nada about three years ago, interactive fiction works can be understood both as literary narratives and as video games. That’s a powerful assertion: Perhaps interactive fiction is the truest and most practical melding of education and video games to date.

I think one of the reasons that some students find the standard English fare boring is because they’ve grown up in an interactive world and the ELA cannon is about as linear as possible. In a era where entertainment comes in the form of minute-long YouTube videos and the user is basically in control of every second of his or her leisure time, the methodical pace of classic works like Dickens’ Great Expectations and Wharton’s The Age of Innocence is putting off our students. Interactive fiction games might be just the thing to reverse situations like this.

I’m not suggesting that we dumb down the classics by using interactive fiction versions to further fracture the attention spans of today’s youth; it’s quite the opposite, actually. By tapping into their need for stimulation by putting them in control of interactive fiction games, our students might be motivated to read the often sizable blocks of text in between player actions. As they get used to reading and comprehending – having been reintroduced to an ancient art though a modern medium – they’ll perhaps be more willing and capable to tackle the English cannon and reading in general.

Taking it one step further by having our students create their own interactive fiction games or websites is another wonderful possibility. Not only would the students have to keep track of plot elements, grammar, word usage and a host of other critical writing techniques, they would also have to learn programming techniques and game design mechanics. By combining the old with the new, teachers might be able to tap into a third set of emerging skills that could help define the next generation of authors.

You know, I still haven’t download Ooze: Creepy Nites, due in small part to the game’s atrocious spelling of the word “nights,” but mostly because my mind has been buzzing with the possibilities of interactive fiction in the classroom. I’m sure the game won’t be that great given the silly graphics and storyline, but it just might be the missing link between gaming and education that I’ve been searching for.

Yeah, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I’m so exited, I don’t even care.

Les Misérables: The Fighting Game

If you ever wanted to beat up one of the characters from Les Misérables, here’s your chance.


Arm Joe, created by an amateur programmer from Japan, is a one-on-one fighting game in the same vein as Street Fighter II and King of Fighters. Based on the Les Misérables musical, the game features anime style representations of Les Mis characters like Jean Valjean, Enjolras, Marius, Cosette, Éponine, Thénardier and Javert. The physical embodiment of judgment serves as the game’s final boss.

In case you’re wondering, the name Arm Joe is a parody of the play’s Japanese title, Ah Mojou, meaning “Ah, cruelty.”

As someone who has daydreamed about a one-on-one fighting game adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and a first person, 3D version of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in just knowing that Arm Joe exists. However, the game itself has some control and balance issues: Some characters are hopelessly underpowered and others can easily win matches using a single attack over and over again. The graphics and sound are excellent, though, and overall it’s a pretty decent game. Given the fact that Arm Joe is a free download, it seems a little inappropriate to criticize it too harshly.

Arm Joe brings the characters of Les Misérables to life in a way that’s virtually impossible in any other medium. Introducing students to Arm Joe might just be the key to getting some of them interested in the novel or the musical, or it could be used as a sort of enrichment exercise after finishing Les Misérables in class.

Purists might complain that this game isn’t a faithful adaptation of the Les Misérables novel or musical – and they would be correct. Just consider Robojean, the cyborg version of Valjean who fires rockets at his opponents, and Ponpon, a bunny creature who has nothing to do with the Les Mis mythos who is inexplicably tossed in with the rest of the characters. However, a creative teacher might take the opportunity to discuss the differences and similarities between the works, as well as talking about how ideas, stories and sensibilities change as they move to new kinds of media. After all, there are some key alterations between the stage version of Les Misérables and Victor Hugo’s original novel, so changes in new adaptations of the story are to be expected.

Teachers might also use Arm Joe to help explain the concept of parody to their students, given the humorous aspects of the game in contrast to the seriousness of the musical and novel.

I hope that more game makers, both independent and commercial, will use classic novels as inspiration for future video games. Faithful game adaptations of the classics might be one of the stepping stones in using gaming to educate our students.

Download Arm Joe.

The Challenges of Implementing Gaming in the Classroom

There are plenty of formidable obstacles that educators and game developers must overcome before video games can be a viable teaching tool in traditional classrooms.

1. Most video games require skill.

You can tell this kid's got the skillz!

With a textbook, novel or handout, teachers can assign chapters for their students to read. Each student is given the same amount of reading, and baring any sort of disabilities, everyone has the same “chance” of completing the assignment. But with a video game, in which progress is skill-based, there’s no guarantee a student will be able to finish the assignment. Also, unlike a book, one can’t just skip to the next chapter if they haven’t done their homework the previous night. If the player cannot complete a task in a game, there is often no way to continue. Making the game easier is one way to even the odds, but that often deadens the impact and would rob the students of the full gaming experience.

A creative teacher might find a way around this by asking his or her students to poke around with no specific goals other than sampling the atmosphere of the game. Some games, like Myst, can be played for hours in a very satisfying way without advancing the plot.

2. No two players will have the same experience.

If everyone reading this blog decided to play through the same video game – even a more linear one like the first Super Mario Bros. – we would all have different experiences. A longtime player might finish the game in about ten minutes (warp to world 4-1 at the end of 1-2, warp to world 8-1 at the beginning of 4-2, then finish the game as normal). A first time player might spend hours falling down pits and cursing Nintendo, and without skipping levels, eventually finish the game by the skin of their teeth. Others still might decide to collect every coin they see and never make it past the first few stages.

Compare this to reading a novel or a textbook. There’s a definite beginning and end to printed material, defined by how many words and pages are in between Point A and Point B. While the reader can (and should) bring his or her experiences to the material, everyone who reads the assigned text will have been exposed to exactly the same content.

Obviously, divergent experiences might lead to some difficulties in uniform teaching. However, this situation could lead to a creative discussion or assignment where everyone’s experiences are melded into one main idea or project.

3. It’s a lot easier to read a boring textbook than it is to play through a boring game.

What was the worst book you had to read in high school? Was it a chore to finish? Did it hurt your head? Now imagine reading that book six times in a row. It doesn’t sound appealing, does it?

I hate you AND The Jungle, Upton Sinclair!

Some video games last for 100 hours or more, where as a textbook or novel will likely take much less time to complete. Anyone who’s ever dropped $50 on a bad video game may have found themselves slogging though it on principle, but that was by their own choice. Assigning a gaming experience that the student finds tedious might actually do more to push them away from education than assigning a dull textbook.

4. Games are expensive and require specific consoles to function.

Imagine that, as an English teacher, I ask my students to play up to the Returners’ Hideout in Final Fantasy VI. The school would have to provide each student with Playstation, a memory card, a controller and a copy of the game. Assuming the school is paying list price for the equipment, that’s approximately $85 per student without tax ($50 for a PS1, $15 for a memory card and $20 for the greatest hits version of the game). If I’m teaching 120 students, that comes out to be $10,200.

Hey, he's pretty good!

This scenario is for old hardware and an old game. If I wanted my students to experience a newer game like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patroits on the PlayStation 3 platform, the price jumps to $39,600: $300 for a PS3 with 80 gig hard drive and $30 for the game. And unlike textbooks (especially those in the English language arts), gaming equipment can’t be used for very many years in a row; just look at what happened to EVERYONE'S Xbox 360s.

Clearly, there would need to be a different distribution method if gaming in the classroom is to be a viable option. Digital distribution is by far the cheapest, and a license for use by 100 or more students could likely be obtained for a fraction of the cost of hard copies.

Great for lit crit!

Conclusion: Though the educational potential of the video game medium is great, as gaming exists today, there are too many difficulties putting it to use in mainstream classrooms. My recommendation at this point is for teachers is to use gaming to enhance their lessons, just as they might use allusions to films or books to cement concepts in their student’s minds. For example, one might compare the events of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw to those in the Silent Hill series. In both, it’s never clear if the protagonist is hallucinating or if the supernatural events seen through their eyes are truly happening. Students familiar with Silent Hill will gain a deeper understanding of The Turn of the Screw, and those who aren’t won't lose anything. Similarly, a social studies teacher might suggest to his or her class that they spend some time with the History Channel video game Civil War: A Nation Divided. While it’s a fictional account of real events, the game can help illustrate the look and feel of the period and help bring history to life in the minds of our students.

For the younger crowd, video games can be used to enhance reading skills. Many role playing games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and even the accursed Pokémon are text-heavy and provide wonderful motivation to improve the player’s reading ability.

Finally, remember that all knowledge is power. Think back to a time in your life when you solved a problem with something you learned from a game show, a film, or a novel. Consider that a student of yours might find themselves in the same situation, using knowledge from a video game to aid them.

The Value of Gaming in Education

When you think of video games, what comes to mind? Tiny spaceships shooting down invaders from beyond? Bleeps and bloops? High scores?

Space Invaders, early 1980s

Times have changed. Game soundtracks are now orchestrated, the visuals are on par with anything one might see in a computer animated Hollywood film, and the storylines go far beyond shooting down aliens or saving the princess. Games are no longer relegated to the back of pizzerias and instead are found in homes worldwide. Just like the internet, children born after the year 2000 are growing up with interactive entertainment at their fingertips.

So if gaming is wide spread and accessible, and our students are compelled to complete Halo and Modern Warfare more than their homework, why, aside from a few uninspiring “edutainment” titles, haven’t we acknowledged the educational potential of this fledgling medium?

I am convinced that video games are one of many new texts of the younger generations, going hand-in-hand with web pages, blogs and other forms of digital media. If teachers do not embrace this and other forms of neo-literacy, I fear we will be left in the Stone Age of education, hardly able to reach our students.

Now you might be thinking: “Okay, so what can a student learn from a video game, aside from how to throw fireballs and blow things up?”

According to educational theorist James Paul Gee in his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, video games can aid in developing problem solving skills. In a speech at Vassar Collage on April 2, 2009, Gee used the game Portal as an example, saying that players must find unorthodox ways of getting their character from Point A to Point B. Those skills, he said, can be transferred to real life situations. Instead of moving a character in a video game, Portal players may one day use similar logic to move a building or find a new way to transport a large group of people.

From the game Portal, by Valve

Gee also said is that for learning to take place, one must be emotionally involved with the material. Video games fit the bill better than any other form of media available. Combining education and gaming would be an excellent way to provide an emotional component to what we must teach students. Gee used Sid Meier’s Civilization as an example: One might not feel much of a connection to an event like Custer’s Last Stand, but if one were to try to come up with ways to change the outcome of the event, he or she might feel much more “in tune” with it.

There are other applications as well. As technology improves, so to do the number of high-quality video game narratives that utilize foreshadowing, irony, metaphor and more – all the things that English Language Arts students must know to succeed – in ways equal to much of the cannon literature of the curriculum. For example, the games Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams and Rule of Rose rival pieces like The Yellow Wallpaper and The Bell Jar in terms of delving into the psychology of a fragile mind; Braid and Earthbound pack as poignant and metaphorical punch as Animal Farm; and the Metal Gear Solid series, in ways just as memorable as any war novel I’ve ever read, makes real the horrors of battle and the effect on the individual, while also calling into question what it means to be a hero.

One of Braid's many puzzles

It will be a long, tough road to convince the masses that gaming has more value than just mindless entertainment. However, that day can and must come, lest our tech-hungry students become bogged down in the quagmire of educational malaise and our teachers fight an unwinnable battle.