June 2004

Education Arcade

Continued from page 2

By Sally Atwood

Games as Teachers

The idea of games as teachers has yet to be welcomed by most educators. Some believe that academic content cannot be transmitted through games. Others see games as great problem-solving exercises that have no connection to the real world. Still others believe that games are violent and encourage antisocial behavior, but Jenkins challenges that perception. "The most successful-selling games are not violent," he says. Jenkins points to two bestselling series, Civilization and SimCity-which deal with history and city management, respectively-that have an educational bent and are sometimes used in classrooms to teach history and urban planning. But he predicts that the strongest resistance to using games as serious teaching tools will be rooted in the difficulty of testing knowledge gained through them. "We are geared to measurable test results," he says. "Games are better at [developing] a deeper level of understanding of the big picture," instead of helping students remember specific dates or events.

To those concerned that games could overtake traditional teaching methods, Jenkins points out that they are meant to augment existing curricula. "What you do with the game in the classroom is as important as the game itself," he says. "Teachers need to be trained to think about it, because the classroom changes dramatically" when a game is introduced. Nor are games intended to replace textbooks. Jenkins says that in the ideal scenario, textbooks would become like manuals that students use to negotiate games.

Games' migration toward the classroom is natural, since today's junior faculty members grew up playing computer and video games. The ubiquitous use of computer games among college students reveals a medium with growing power. A recent survey of college students by the Pew Research Center showed that 65 percent of U.S. college students play computer, video, and online games. According to Jenkins, in a recent survey of MIT undergraduates, 100 percent of respondents had played computer games in high school, and most continue to play them on campus. Classroom games done right "will unleash a huge potential," says James Gee, professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been pursuing games research for years.