If you don't believe that video games are good educational tools, look up Ananth Pai. I spent a few hours today watching TED videos on gamefication. One gamefication expert mentioned this guy named Ananth Pai. Mr. Pai is from India. He is a teacher in the U.S. and mostly teaches 3rd grade. His teaching record, based on tests scores of students, was just as crummy as most other U.S. teachers, until one day his 6th grade daughter suggested that his students might respond better if they were able to use Nintendo DS handheld consoles in the classroom for learning. Initially, he thought her suggestion was absurd, and even said that he would never allow that. Soon after though, he spent some time hanging out at BestBuy, asking children if they would like it if their classes used those game consoles for learning. They all said that they would like that a lot. So, Mr. Pai bought enough Nintendo DS consoles for his entire class (out of his own pockets, because the administration thought the idea was absurd). Eventually, he added desktop computers, and even XBox Kinect. His third grade class, which had started with math and reading skills below what is typically expected for a third grader, ended that school year with math and reading skills typically expected of students halfway through forth grade (they learned more than a grade and a half of material in one grade). His students' test scores improved by 2 to 5 times what was typical for the school. In addition, when those students moved on, they maintained their lead, even though the classes for later grades were not gamefied in any way.
This is one case of evidence that games are great learning tools. As I have mentioned before, Khan Academy has shown that children will even respond well to game-like reward systems, with no other game-like elements. Mr Pai's experience has caught the attention of several large corporations that regularly donate money to education, as well as education system officials for several states. Unfortunately, this buzz happened in 2011, and we still don't have a large scale gamefication of schools in the U.S. Why not? We have all sorts of evidence that this works, and the U.S. education system is becoming one of the worst in the world. Our government keeps trying to think of new ways to improve the education system, and in the process has managed to hobble it more successfully than it has ever been in the history of our country. Why do we keep trying new things, hoping they will work, when the answer is staring us in the face?
Most Americans that do believe video games can be useful learning tools think that educational games have to be designed to be educational to be effective. Up until today I believed that, to some degree. Games like World of WarCraft have great benefits for general education and brain development, but they just don't teach specific subjects very consistently. Some Wow players might get good at math from managing their imaginary in-game money. Others might get better reading skills from reading all of the storyline text presented when accepting quests, or from communicating with other players. Many players just ignore the difficult elements though. The game is designed so that this does not make it much more difficult, because otherwise it would not retain players very well. Most commercial games are designed so that players only have to learn what they want to learn from the game. Besides that, many of the mental benefits of these games are not easily quantifiable and while they are useful real life skills, they are just not considered important enough to dedicate school time to learning (spatial memory and mapping skills, for instance). It would be reasonable to assume, knowing only this, that games are good for general mental exercise and improvement, but not for learning specific subjects. Today I learned that this is totally wrong.
Mr Pai bought store shelf commercial games for his Nintendo DS consoles. He chose ones with obvious educational value, but not the kind of games that are specifically designed to teach 3rd graders math and reading. One of the games was a collection of simple brain games. These are intended to be mentally stimulating, but they were not designed to teach 3rd grade math. They were designed to be entertaining. One of these games casts the player in the role of a cashier. The player rings up items, then takes payment for them. The player must then count out the change for the payment. Players get points when they count out the correct change. Students in Mr. Pai's class would play this game and compete to see who could get the highest score. This is one of the many games they used to improve their math skills.
The reason that these games are so successful at teaching is that they are engaging. A typical classroom lecture is boring, especially to 3rd graders. With usually only one hour per day and a class of 30 students, a teacher can only devote 2 minutes of personal time per student, assuming that no lecture is given. A 30 minute lecture leaves only 1 minute per student. This is not enough time for meaningful one on one time with all of the students that need it. Engaging games encourage the students to learn on their own. This leaves more time for the teacher to spend with students that really need help. Mr. Pai also found that this eliminates the need for homework, giving the students more free time outside of class (though, nearly every study on the subject has found that more than 15 minutes per day of homework has no discernible benefits anyhow). Some students would even play some of the online games they used in class at home after school, for entertainment.
In summary, there is plenty of evidence that gamefication is superior to everything else that we have tried for improving our education system. The most effective learning games are not necessarily those designed specifically for learning. Games that are engaging help keep the interest of students. What we really need to do is find or make a bunch of games that are engaging and also happen to be educational, then use these game in our schools to teach our children. Based on the results of people like Ananth Pai, and Salman Khan of Khan Academy, our educational system could easily and quickly become one of the best in the world, instead of one of the worst, if we would embrace gamefication, instead of treating it like an absurd joke.
Lord Rybec
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