Talking About Games...

I met Andrew Brown earlier in the week and we had a quick chat about BETT, the frustrations of site blocking in schools and... games in education.

Derek Robertson and Andrew Brown
Originally uploaded by Ewan A few

A few of the things we said about games are, I think, worth repeating here.

Firstly, I said that roughly a quarter of the students I spoke to, claimed to be gamers. This illustrates something that Ewan McIntosh has said to our students on previous occasions - that the children who grew up playing games on home computers like the ZX Spectrum are now adults, parents even, and are still playing computer games. Andrew said that he had been surprised at the number of Playstation games in the shops with an 18+ rating. The image of the game player as a spotty teenage boy no longer holds water (if it ever did). {Comment: Having said that, I suspect there a a fair number of gamers under 18 who are playing 18+ games. Perhaps their parents are unaware, uncaring or uninformed.}

Another aspect related to gaming that struck me is the way Nintendo is advertising its products. It has families sitting on the couch playing games together and two people on a plane (Patrick Stewart and Julie Walters) bonding over More Brain Training on the DS.



As far as Nintendo is concerned, it is not just the spotty teenager bit that's wrong, the the stereotype of the isolated loner playing games is wrong too. I realise that most (all?) the modern games machines support networked multipayer games but Nintendo are going further. Gaming is a communal, family activity.

Does this have any relevance for games in education? I think it probably does. Increasing numbers of teachers will be gamers themselves and aware of the motivating power and immersive nature of commercial, off the shelf games. This combined with the rehabilitation of gamers in the media as mature, sensible adults and happy family members will hopefully make it easier to introduce games in he classroom.

Is this right? Am I being over overoptimistic? I'd be keen to know what you think.

I'll try to post my presentation on games in education soon (which draws heavily on the work of Derek Robertson). For now though I'll close with the observation that playing virtual tennis on the Wii has resulted in a very unvirtual pain in my arm! I made the mistake of trying to make up for lack of technique with brute strength... it didn't work. :-(