Jonathan Shih Commentary on Kurt Squire’s "Video Games In Education" (2003) In his paper, Squire seems to be concerned with only mainstream video games – games that are aimed at audiences solely for entertainment, and ones that have no intended educational purposes. He does briefly mention old “drill and practice” edutainment games like Reader Rabbit that were developed for use in elementary school classrooms, and although he states that little-to-no research has been done regarding the effectiveness of these programs, I think that the majority of teachers and parents who have used these games would agree that they were fairly successful merely because they provided a welcome change from the daily ritual of lectures and physical activities in the classroom. Add to that the fact that there was the added excitement – “I get to use a computer!” – factor back in the late 1980s and early 1990s [I’m sure that a lot of us in the class can attest to our experiencing that back in grade school]. Despite all of this, children’s lives have changed dramatically nowadays with the explosion of countless media and entertainment choices. I believe that Squire neglects to realize and consider that, because of this, many once-insignificant factors must be taken into consideration when video and computer games are developed primarily with educational purposes in mind. Every teacher and parent knows that it is difficult to motivate kids when kids think that they are doing some activity simply for the sake of learning. Attention spans are especially short these days – “I don’t want to do this, I’d rather be doing that” is the first reaction that comes to kids’ minds. That’s why I believe that the key is to find the perfect balance between entertainment and education – children need to be fully engaged and motivated without being entirely cognizant that they are “being educated” or are supposed to be learning. I believe that this is very important to consider, especially since children constantly seek out engaging, non-school-related diversions like video games and sports. It is true that people of all ages love video games because of the stimulating simulated experiences that many provide, and that gamers are likely to be motivated to tackle complex, goal-oriented tasks simply because of the exhilaration they get from playing these games. Nevertheless, the video games that Squire examines (i.e. Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers 2) were clearly developed to target audiences seeking entertainment. There needs to be more investigation into not just any genre of video games, but ones that attempt to include and balance entertaining and educational elements – games that aren’t just ridiculously repetitive text-input exercises wrapped around a computerized graphics package like Reader Rabbit. We have seen it done successfully before in a parallel medium – television. Sesame Street’s combination of teaching fundamentals and entertaining characters effectively simulates an entire world of make-believe for children – children who aren’t even consciously aware that they are learning while they are watching. Similarly, there have been computer games in the past that have successfully blended entertainment and educational elements without being outright and explicit in their primarily pedagogical purpose – Oregon Trail and Treasure Mountain immediately come to mind. I believe that the task has now become – how can we effectively develop successful video games that possess these qualities in today’s entertainment-saturated world? |