pixel for a thought: educational games

ANNOUNCEMENT (that didn't warrant its own post): I finally got on board the Twitter bandwagon with the rest of the writers and geeks, so you can stalk me there if you so wish (@ajfreemont). I'm also on Google+ and getting into a habit of posting content there often when I know it might actually have a chance of getting seen. The Facebook page is pretty much exclusively tied to this blog as a social media RSS feed, but Twitter and G+ are reserved for my persona, projects and people interactions. Rest assured, I have much more interesting stuff to talk about than what you see a couple times a week here on the blog. [/announcement]

 

There exists in the universe a word that can singlehandedly induce nausea (in students), elation (in FOX News journalists), groans (from hardcore gamers), and highs (in standardized test scores).

 

That word is "edutainment." Irony of ironies. Either it's hyped to be the saving cake of exaltation for hyperactive, sugar-addicted kids in the classroom who "just don't get it" when the teacher lectures, or it's stereotyped as the black-sheep, adopted child of the game industry who got dragged into claiming custody of it when politicians and education organizations insisted that you can make multiplication tables look more exciting if there are aliens. 

 

Also, you can make broccoli look more exciting if you put headphones on it. I still detest eating it though.

Ironically, one of my fondest childhood memories was of this "5-A-Day" nutrition game I played for hours at a time. I never understood a word about calories, but hey, at least the graphics amazed me!

Edutainment is different from that more popular buzzword catching on lately, "gamification." The latter refers to the (sinful?) (divine?) act of incorporating popular gameplay techniques and mechanics into decidedly non-gaming parts of our lives; the former refers to games purposed to instruct or teach rather than to entertain. We've had "edutainment" around since the 1990s, probably timed around the violence controversy in the U.S. Senate that got the industry turning on its heels. To me, gamification will do to edutainment what the web 2.0/HTML5 movement is doing to the Internet right now—create an entirely new definition of digital interactivity with a much higher focus on user-friendly design and player-generated content.

 

Like practically everything else I've ever discussed on this blog, it's all good in moderation. Everything has a time and a place. But how exactly is that moderation achieved in an oxymoronic piece like an "educational video game"? The two terms don't exactly go together like Peach and Mario.

 

Edutainment has its place among games, but as we all know, the best games are the ones that weren't overtly educational. If you were born in the '80s or early '90s and ever touched a computer, what did you play? Any of the Oregon Trail version titles and thematic spin-offs; Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing For Kids!; the many adventures of Carmen Sandiego... besides the fact that these were the first games available to us to begin with, they had amusing characters and intriguing narratives. They were games first—the educational mechanic was a natural follow-up ingredient. We knew the difference between a "fun game," and a fun game. We knew the difference between a dinner of "hipster-headphones" broccoli, and a dinner of our own customized salad with a reasonable dessert on the side.

 

Edutainment designers finally started picking up on this detail a few years ago. Educational games in 2011, at least the ones that are getting playtime in the classroom, steer away from grade-school academic subjects like grammar and multiplication toward arenas of social psychology and politics that are already well adapted for traditional game mechanics and generate realistic, interesting storylines due to their morally ambiguous natures (check out Games4Change if you haven't yet for some stellar examples). They're appreciated no longer for their "learning objectives," but the gameplay is unique, or the art is fascinating, or the sound design is phenomenal, or any other number of genuine "game" qualifications. Edutainment's dark closet days of industry exile are drawing to a close. No matter social, puzzle, action, educational—they're on the right track, because they were born this way.

 

What are your thoughts on "edutainment"? Classy or crassy? Any particular poignant personal experiences with the genre?