A videogame adaptation of Romeo & Juliet has been developed at the University of Guelph with the intent to help raise literacy in children and expose them to the classics.
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'Speare, as Daniel Fischlin's game is called, lures students into learning about Shakespeare by requiring them to build a spaceship, which they then use to collect stolen knowledge — the bard's plays. Players collect spheres containing bits of knowledge and link them in an attempt to restore peace to the galaxy. They are also fed information about Shakespeare and tested on it during the game. Their scores are tallied based on their performance on the game's literacy component.
"Kids love this game, and when we tested it, we found that literacy scores increased by an amazing 72 per cent after just one hour of game play," Fischlin said in a written statement.
The game, created with the Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project (CASP), is aimed at students aged 10 to 15.
Back in my day we learned how to spell from real games, like Oregon Trail! No reason the youngins can't have a bit o' the squirrel shooting in between learning arithmetic via adding up the supplies/tools/family members lost after unsuccessfully fording a river, or learning how to spell dysentery after the matriarch of the group dies from it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this helps kids learn more about Shakespere and improves literacy more than... uh not doing anything at all, or playing Halo. But it doesn't hold a candle to actually spending that time reading the books. Or any books for that matter. These education programs are really just ways of helping parents feel less guilty about the fact that their kids spend all their time watching TV or playing games. Which is why they get crap "edu-games" which are tossed aside in favor of Madden, or the get them the Wii and DDR and think it will substitute for fresh air and exercise.
I'm not really hostile to the idea, but it seems like these things are basically like low-fat brownies that people take to feel like they're dieting, or "learn while you sleep" tapes. They're placebos meant to make people feel better while they avoid an activity. Which in this case is just reading a book.
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Originally Posted by Johan
My God, IrishWhiskey, you were right about everything!
I believe my literacy was helped along significantly by games like Final Fantasy. But I don't see how focusing on Shakespeare can aid a child's literacy any more than your average JRPG (with a non-shit translation), unless you want them speaking in a Shakespearian dialect.
Then again, I wouldn't mind producing my own mini-Picard...
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Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this helps kids learn more about Shakespere and improves literacy more than... uh not doing anything at all, or playing Halo. But it doesn't hold a candle to actually spending that time reading the books. Or any books for that matter. These education programs are really just ways of helping parents feel less guilty about the fact that their kids spend all their time watching TV or playing games. Which is why they get crap "edu-games" which are tossed aside in favor of Madden, or the get them the Wii and DDR and think it will substitute for fresh air and exercise.
The idea of edutainment software is not to replace normal study, but to supplement it by creating learning that is fun.
If it's a decent game, why the heck not? The Brain games for the DS - Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, etc - have been proven to improve math skills and cognitive skills in kids and adults. It's been demonstrated for years that trivia games (like Trivial Pursuit) help develop your general knowledge.
So if a set of educators can make a fun and compelling game that happens to get kids more familiar with some classical literature, more power to them.
Ming you, that 'fun' and 'compelling' qualifiers are of vital importance, and usually the main sticking point.
BTW, Oregon Trail *ruled*.
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"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James D. Nicoll
yup... as in where you live and just down the street from me!
And I'm definately an advocate of real reading via books, etc., but I don't see why it's a bad thing if the kid's have fun AND learn a thing or two.
That said, the best 'edutainment' games are the ones that aren't explicitely so. Games like Civ and Sim City are great.
the game that got me the most was Gabriel Knight 2. Not only was it a cool game, but after I finished it, I went out to the library and got a couple books about Germany and Wagner, subjects that held little interest to me prior to playing the game.
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"This computer is so slow that I'm having framerate issues with Dwarf Fortress!"
- Me at my in-laws.
Why? It seems like most of the stuff is the worst of both worlds, neither entertaining not particularly informative.
Because it can be so much better. . . The mistake that most of them make is to put too much game in them and the "game" is always really crappy and half-assed.
I think there could be a very large market for interactive documentaries though - especially if they came with accreditation and gave access to inexpensive and standardized college.
Here's an idea to get the young'uns interested in poetry.
We'll take the latest chart topping 50 Cent or Ludacris album and interleave the tracks with spoken poetry by Wordsworth, Keats and Blake! The kids will love it!
Heh... Reminds me of way back when I played Star Trek over an 110 Baud Acoustic modem. I had all of the decimal equivalents of fractions from 1/1 to 8/8 memorized to nine decimal points. I never used the "computer" to calculate the trajectory of my photo torpedoes.
Ah, good times...
(Ok kiddies, Gramps will let you go on playing with your X-Squares and SP-3s. Get along now, scoot!)
Which is why I have it on my computer here at work.
Shit like this is good, kids are learning and sometimes don't even know it. Anybody use Logo to draw pictures on a computer when they were young? We were learning programming, but happy to do it, because we could draw things like Mario and, umm, houses. Although, I'm not sure why this is news -- I would assume that many companies are trying things like this, and have been, for years.
Why? It seems like most of the stuff is the worst of both worlds, neither entertaining not particularly informative.
Precisely why a young person would want to enter the field. Things are often done poorly until someone comes along to do them right!
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