The Top 10 Most Influential Educational Video Games from the 1980s

People who grew up playing videogames are influenced by them, especially when designing games of their own. Those who played through the 1980s are reaching their professional prime, and the games they played in school are worth examining. Here we’ll take a look at what I consider to be the top ten most influential educational games from the 1980s.

The Eighties were an exciting time for video games, as graphics and computing power increased to the point where games started to become visually appealing and interactive. Educational games from that decade in particular taught teachers, parents, students, and designers things that are still influencing titles today.

Thanks to the wonders of the web, the original versions of these games are often available online, and there are discs and ports to other platforms floating around as well. Playing the original versions, while nostalgic, also helps remind us what made these games important. Some things they taught us were good (learning can be fun when presented properly). Some things, not so good (skill and drill only gets you so far, even in a game). Read on for a trip down memory lane, a discussion of each game’s significance, and some locations to try out versions for free.

1. The Oregon Trail

Released: The Oregon Trail came out in 1985 for the Apple II from Brøderbund. Earlier versions were produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC).

Significance: Showed us resource management could be a fun and thoughtful element within an educational video game, with a strong dollop of historical context to boot.

Commentary: First developed in the 1970s by student teacher Don Rawitsch, the game probably stretched the boundaries of good taste in some ways, perhaps making it all the more intriguing to school children. Some of the elements bordered on the scatological (“You have dysentery!”). The hunting mini-game was popular with boys, introducing video game shoot-em-ups on school computers; those were more innocent times. But teachers in the 1980s were happy to put all those Apple II and IIe computers to good use engaging students. Even better, kids actually picked up a pedagogical point or two.

A good review, and a link to the original disc image and an Apple IIe emulator are available over at classicgaming.gamespy.com. A web version requiring merely a browser plugin is available at virtualapple.org. An online version called Westward Trail is available here.

2. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Released: The original Carmen Sandiego title also came out in 1985 for the Apple II from Brøderbund; 1985 was a good year for the company.

Significance: Showed us a boring school topic (geography) could be presented in an interesting way within the videogame medium.

Commentary: According to Wikipedia, Gary Carlston, who helped found Brøderbund, was personally committed to making geography fun and spearheaded efforts to develop the game. Indeed, almanacs were never so cool as students followed the trail of a master thief across the world. Subsequent titles focused on the United States, Europe, and even the space-time continuum. The Carmen Sandiego games were lauded for their educational content, and found their way into classrooms everywhere. For a while, The Learning Company kept up a free online version based on the TV series. Alas, those wishing to play down memory lane for free will have to check the abandoned software sites. As of this writing, the 1991 DOS version is available for download here.

3. SimCity

Released: One of the two first games released by Maxis, in 1989.

Significance: Showed us that games without a clear way to win can still be fun, educational, and time consuming.

Commentary: The first smash hit from legendary game designer Will Wright, and one of the first for the Maxis software company, SimCity was destined for greatness. Legend has it the project was turned down by all the big gaming companies, including Brøderbund, when Wright pitched it on account of the game’s objectives were ill defined. How they must rue the day now, as the Sim line of titles has sold in the multi-million copy range for years. The game spearheaded a wide variety of complex computer social simulations featuring variable manipulations for education, business, and entertainment.

Users have long been able to play Classic SimCity online. Earlier this year, the original code was released as open source so it could be loaded on the XO, better known as the “$100 Laptop,” as part of the One Laptop Per Child initiative. The open source version uses the name Micropolis, Wright’s original name for the program.

4. Reader Rabbit

Released: The first title in the Reader Rabbit series was released by The Learning Company in 1989.

Significance: Showed us that computer games could be effectively used in early education introducing toddlers to language arts.

Commentary: Reader Rabbit is a household name in educational software, and the series remains active. Reader Rabbit became one of the early educational gaming series that capitalized on name brand awareness. Many innovators in the edutainment genre followed the Reader Rabbit formula of placing educational content for young players in a fun and interactive environment. Among the more notable: titles in the JumpStart series.

The first edition of Reader Rabbit featured word games designed to introduce letters and sounds to children. Subsequent titles rapidly increased in complexity. It’s hard to find the original online, but for those interested in sampling the look and feel of the series, Riverdeep offers a trial download of the Learning to Read with Phonics version here.

5. Math Blaster

Released: The first title in the Math Blaster series was released by Davidson in 1987.

Significance: Demonstrated how basic math worksheets could be fun when delivered within a videogaming environment.

Commentary: Math Blaster is yet another household name in edutainment with versions still being released under the brand. Brian Crecente over at Kotaku noted a version for the Nintendo DS is to be ported over later this year. One item of interest is the notion of interspersing math problems within a pure gaming environment. I remember playing a version requiring the proper answering of basic equations in order to load up on ammo for the space “blasting” game. This particular type of edutainment has been criticized as the “chocolate covered broccoli” approach to educational gaming, notably by Justin Peters in Slate among others. In other words, it couches the boring, educationally valuable stuff (math worksheets, in this case) within a fun gaming environment. In that regard, many serious game designers today often try other approaches, such as integrating pedagogy directly in the game play. Finding a free online copy to play is tough, but a 2 hour free trial of a recent version is available from DemoNews.com.

6. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
Released: Software Toolworks released the first version of Mavis Beacon in 1987.

Significance: Showed us computer skills could be effectively drilled through playful software.

Commentary: I was in an electronics store in College Station in the late ’80s, near the software section. A couple of elementary teachers walked in, and one of them saw the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing box on the shelf.

“Look! It’s Mavis Beacon,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice.

The other one said, “Mavis! What are you doing now!?”

They stood and stared for a while, gushing in their praise for Ms. Beacon. After they left, I wandered over and inspected the box. On impulse, I bought it and brought it home. Someday I’ll have to write about the house I lived in while attending Texas A&M. Up to eight guys lived there at any given time; most were engineering or ag science students. We had a BBS set up on a separate phone line, and spent a lot of time on TAMU mainframes. It was a terrific introduction to educational computing, and PCs were still young back then. To show you what nerds my roommates and I were, all of us took turns on Mavis Beacon to see who could type the fastest, a competition that lasted all semester.

Alas, little did the elementary teachers from so long ago know, nor I, nor my roommates, but Mavis Beacon was a marketing nom de guerre. It turns out the picture of the smiling Mavis was that of a model, and like Betty Crocker she was a persona created to sell products. Regardless, the product was a good one, and it has helped countless people improve their typing down through the years. Version 17 of the venerable program is available for trial download here.

7. Lemonade Stand
Released: Created by Bobb Jamison from the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) in 1973; coded for the Apple II by Charlie Kellner in 1979. Copies were included with Apple computers sold throughout the Eighties.

Significance: Showed us that potentially complex and hard to understand concepts like economic theory could be simply and effectively illustrated in a video game.

Commentary: MECC was one of the great success stories of early educational computing, and Lemonade Stand is perhaps their most famous program after The Oregon Trail. A holdover from the 1970s, a version of Lemonade Stand was included with Apple II machines into the Eighties. Countless school children fired it up and were introduced to economic theory through playing the game. A web version (one among many) is available here.

The game was a “practical simulation,” combining economic theory with simple concepts kids understand (i.e., a lemonade stand). It showed that with judicious decisions, positive outcomes were possible even with variables outside the player’s control (like the weather). The concept has not died, and there are later versions like Lemonade Empire, Hot Dog Stand, and others which follow the same concept.

8. Number Munchers
Released: The DOS version was released in 1988 by MECC.

Significance: Showed basic skill and drill for math could be much more fun on a video screen than on paper.

Commentary: NumberMunchers was the first title in MECC’s muncher series, followed by WordMunchers and others. Vaguely resembling PacMan, players rushed to find correct numbers to the problem onscreen before getting “eaten” by troggles, a process which forced quick mental calculations. It continues to prove exceptionally popular, both among those remembering it from their school days to new adherents recently discovering the game. Online versions abound, but the most important one is over at numbermunchers.org. The actual game can be freely downloaded from PC Magazine here.

9. Zork
Released: 1980, Infocom’s first game.

Significance: Showed that interactive fiction was a compelling medium.

Commentary: To anyone who played it, the opening lines from Zork are immortal: “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.”
Was it educational? Indirectly. The game certainly made players read and think, exercises which parents and teachers have harangued youngsters about for years. I played an early version of this game thanks to a fun loving uncle who had access to his office’s mainframe after hours. I think the game was an eye-opener as to what could be done with narrative text and programming. It inspired legions of imitators, but was quickly made obsolete by such graphical games as Wizardry and Ultima I. Infocom’s fate was tied to the ascension of graphical computing as well, as it was bought out by Activision and faded from prominence before the end of the decade. There are still versions of all games in the Zork series floating around online, and its predecessor Adventure. Java versions of Infocom titles as of this writing are available here.

10. Windows Solitaire
Released: Developed in 1989 by Microsoft intern Wes Cherry. Included in Windows 3.0 and every Windows version since 1990.

Significance: Eased the transition to a mouse-based GUI for millions of computer users. Showed us games can have an enormous impact on business computing skills.

Commentary: Before 1990, early versions of Microsoft Windows were nothing more than fancy menu systems, presenting a list of programs to choose when starting the computer. I recall reading PC Magazine when Windows 3.0 was introduced, telling us that finally here was a version of Windows worth getting, so I did. Like many others firing up Windows 3.0 the first time, I noticed the Games folder, and quickly tried out Windows Solitaire. The brilliance behind placing this game within Windows was the fact most DOS users grew up on keyboard commands and shortcuts. Despite the proliferation of menu systems, most computers booted to the C prompt, requiring a typed command to start programs. Windows 3.0 not only used the mouse, it required the mouse for navigation. After a few rounds with Windows Solitaire, even the most diehard keyboard shortcut user who had used the same key combinations since the days of WordStar, became proficient with clicking, dragging and dropping with a mouse. In some ways, Windows Solitaire became the most successful educational video game of all time.

Windows Solitaire is still available for free in Vista. The Media Center Solitaire Power Toy for XP is available from Microsoft here.

Honorable Mention: M.U.L.E.
Released: 1983 from Ozark Softscape via Electronic Arts, originally for Atari products.

Significance: Showed developers how to do multi-player action. Inspired many future programmers.

Commentary: Lazarus Long was a character developed by science fiction author Robert Heinlein as a time travelling fellow who could not, would not die. In Time Enough for Love, readers found Long on a frontier planet, where old fashioned technology was used until colonists could become self sufficient. The book provided an interesting dichotomy between space ships bringing in supplies and colonists using farm animals to settle the new world. Among the many derivative works from Heinlein’s writings (the Starship Troopers board game and movie, for instance), came M.U.L.E., an early multi-player video game. M.U.L.E. stands for Multiple Use Labor Element, and is named after the animals used in Heinlein’s book. The game focuses on supply and demand economics, and allows players to take turns exploiting resources on a recently colonized planet (the planet’s name is Irata in the game, or Atari spelled backwards).

One of the nice things about writing a blog is feedback from readers, and with any top ten list somebody may feel an important item is left out. Keri Mogret commented to suggest M.U.L.E. should be included as an influential educational game from the 1980s, and I heartily agree, resulting in the addition here of M.U.L.E. to the original top ten.

This particular game was something I’d heard about and later read about, but never had the pleasure of playing. (Yes, I read all of Heinlein’s books, but never played the games. Sorry. I did see the Starship Troopers board game at a relative’s house, ca. 1980, and looked at it but didn’t play.)

Via emulators, M.U.L.E. can be downloaded nowadays from several sources. Here’s one good site, and here’s a great fan site. Subtrade is reportedly the best clone of M.U.L.E., and by some accounts is actually better than the original game.

Honorable Mention: Rocky’s Boots
Released: 1982 by The Learning Company for various platforms; authored by Warren Robinett and Leslie Grimm.

Significance: Showed us a graphical game engine was viable for educational gaming.

Commentary: Rocky’s Boots and its sequel, Robot Odyssey (based on the same gaming engine) were puzzle games requiring players to think their way through solutions. The object of the game involved kicking different shapes off a conveyer belt for points. The concept of using computer graphics in a game designed to make children think was somewhat revolutionary at the time, and Rocky’s Boots won several awards. Here’s a quote from an abstract for a paper in 1984:

Rocky’s Boots (RB), an educational game developed for use with Apple computers, is widely considered to be one of the most imaginative and engaging pieces of educational software currently available. RB presents an introduction to the logical concepts of AND, OR, and NOT. Players incorporate these concepts into arguments which are modeled as “machines.”

Coauthor Warren Robinett keeps a page devoted to the game here, including a disc image that can be played with an Apple II emulator.

Seven Questions to Ask Before Using a Video Game In the Classroom

Today is the first day of school for most public districts in Texas. With that in mind, I’d like to offer seven important questions teachers should ask before using any videogame in the classroom. This list is based in part on a paper I delivered to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 Convention.

1. Is the game’s cognitive load appropriate for your students? Many simple edutainment titles are aimed at younger audiences. Consequently, these titles are often inappropriate for older students, who will find them less of a challenge and potentially insulting to their intelligence. Conversely, modifications of such titles as those in the Neverwinter Nights series, or the Civilization series, might be beyond the abilities of younger audiences.
2. Is the game easily modifiable? Many educational games on the market offer no capabilities for modification, giving teachers a “what you see is what you get” approach. Some games might have a higher level of adaptability for classroom use. For instance, a foreign language teacher can run a copy of The Sims 2 on her classroom computer and simply change the operating language, offering an instant immersive language environment for her students. Ideally, however, a game can be easily modified by the teacher, so that he can insert whatever objectives are needed into the gaming environment. Such modifications are more difficult and time consuming but doable, as seen in several examples for the Neverwinter Nights engine and Second Life.
3. Does the game align with your standards (local, state, national)? Fortunately this question is increasingly being addressed by educational video game companies, as they realize that the purchasing of their titles in large quantities by schools largely hinges on this question. Look at the excellent job Tabula Digita is doing making sure their math games are aligned with state and national standards. Hopefully the company selling the product has already done the alignment for you, however your job as a teacher will be to make sure you know where the product lines up with the standards you are responsible for teaching. If nobody has done that previously, chance are good you will have to do it yourself if you need to justify using the game in your classroom to parents and administrators.
4. Can the game present useful outcomes within a short time period? Class periods are generally short. Time spent on any lesson is perforce brief. Many excellent video games with learning potential are hugely complex and take hours to complete. However, you have just minutes in your class to drive home a point or two. Therefore you will need to eschew games that take an inordinate amount of time to develop their pedagogical points. Also, setting up a game and getting students going takes additional time, whether in a lab, on laptops, or on classroom computers. Setup and shutdown times will decrease the available minutes students can spend on the game and its learning objectives.
5. Does the game train or teach? This is a critical difference classroom teachers need to fully understand. Most “serious games,” as they are commonly called, train players in something. This training may involve safety practices, industrial techniques, machinery operation, or a host of other skills. Academic games aligned to state standards will focus on testable outcomes and high stakes exams. Most teachers will not want to deviate from the standards they are required to teach, or at least have a ready explanation as to how the game is germane to their subject matter. For instance, a geometry teacher could certainly justify using a game that involves creating floor plans; a history teacher can find plenty of justification for the many Civilization mods out there; and a language arts teacher can justify the typing and reading involved in most any higher level game. Regardless, if a game actively seeks to teach academic content, its appropriateness for the classroom will naturally rise above a rival game designed more for work skill enhancement.
6. Does the game track player progress? Videogames that keep track of the progress your students make will lift that burden off your shoulders. Ideally the game will offer reporting functions on each student so you can easily track their progress, and perhaps suggest remedial actions or advanced activities if a student is behind or ahead of the norm.
7. Are the graphics and gaming quality on par with contemporary entertainment titles? It is certainly possible to buy educational games which fall far below the expectations of students used to higher quality offerings. Since studies show that nearly two-thirds of all households play videogames, it behooves us to use quality games in the classroom since our students will likely be used to high standards. It’s always good to pilot test any particular title with students you trust. If they like the game, it’s probably worth the investment to outfit a school computer lab or buy a site license. Dr. Brian Woodfield over at BYU noted how a teacher set up Virtual ChemLab on one machine in the back of her classroom, which eventually led to the school purchasing a site license. I do mini-studies with my own kids from time to time. Also, my paper on assessing higher order thinking in videogames might help pinpoint the pedagogical potential of games with which you are unfamiliar.

In conclusion, any classroom intervention is worth serious consideration beforehand. Hopefully, these seven questions will help steer you toward quality products. Educational videogames are strong tools for teaching in the classroom. Judicious selection of appropriate titles may result in many positive results.

References:
Rice, J. (2005). Evaluating the suitability of video games for k-12 instruction. Paper presented to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 International Convention, Orlando, FL.

Games Empower Learners: Gee’s Speech at GLS4

James Paul Gee over at Arizona State is renowned among educational gamers because he wrote what is widely considered to be the first scholarly book on educational applications of videogames: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003). Recently, he keynoted the 4th annual Games, Learning, and Society Conference. Michael Abbott over at Gamasutra caught up with him and detailed the meat of his speech here. Some excerpts:

Gee sees the current U.S. educational system as inadequate to the task of addressing the problems of an increasingly complex world. He stated that “21st century learning must be about understanding complex systems,” and he believes many video games do a better job at this than the antiquated sender-receiver teaching model that dominates American classrooms.

Passion communities encourage and enable people of all ages to do extraordinary things. Gee believes the ‘amateur knowledge’ that arises from this immersive involvement often surpasses ‘expert knowledge,’ and cited fantasy baseball as an example.

Other highlights:

- Passion communities give users power and control, not necessarily money.

- He cites a young lady who learned PhotoShop in order to make better clothes for her Sims characters, later for avatars in Second Life. She remains uninterested in fashion, though, preferring computers because they empower her.

- Gee cited the game Portal, which could be construed as a parody of school life, as a means of allowing players tools to construct reality in the game’s environment. RL schools should be like this, Gee mused. “Education isn’t about telling people stuff, it’s about giving them tools that enable them to see the world in a new and useful way.”

- Complex games engender involvement in whole new ways for players. Mods allow players to manipulate the environment in ways they see fit. Mods are tools allowing players to put personal play theories to the test.

Abbot sums up:

Gee clearly situates video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy with genuine power to transform students and equip them to address complex problems.

References:
Abbot, M. (2008, July 14). Analysis: Games create ‘passion communities’ for learning. Gamasutra. [Online]. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19389

Why We Shouldn’t Ban “Ender’s Game” From AP Reading Lists

I was interested to read about a recent kerfuffle erupting over Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. A parent protested the book’s status as required reading in AP English at a junior high school in Alvin, Texas (near Houston). The parent was concerned about violence and profanity in the book.

It has been a while since I’ve read it, but I don’t recall being annoyed by the level of profanity in Ender’s Game. In contrast, I recently finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. This book was overly laced with profanity. One of the lead characters is Bobby Shaftoe, a rough and ready US Marine who frequently drops the F-bomb whether planting corpses with false information intended for the Nazis or killing Japanese soldiers in the Philippines. Shaftoe comes up with a cornucopia of imaginative profanity, and spews it out page after page. I just don’t recall nearly so much profanity from the Mormon author Card in Ender’s Game.

What intrigues educational gaming advocates about Ender’s Game is the vision Card painted of training and educating with games. For instance, videogames were used effectively as battle simulators to train soldiers. Battle simulators are old news nowadays, but not in 1985. Kurt Squire and Henry Jenkins noted in 2003 the prophetic value of Card’s book for educational gaming:

In Orson Scott Card’s 1985 science fiction novel Ender’s Game, the Earth is facing a life-and-death battle with invading aliens. The best and brightest young minds are gathered together and trained through a curriculum that consists almost entirely of games—both electronic and physical. Teachers play almost no overt role in the process, shaping the children’s development primarily through the recruitment of players, the design of game rules, and the construction of contested spaces. Games become the central focus of the students’ lives: they play games in classes, in their off-hours, even as part of their private contemplation. Much of the learning occurs through participation in gaming communities, as the most gifted players pass along what they have learned to the other players.

As a parent myself, and educator to boot, I can certainly empathize with parents wishing to shield their children from inappropriate material. However, I also like to read the books my kids read. We’re all active readers. There are books that express worldviews I don’t agree with, and when my children read those we talk about the role of fiction and how we can enjoy a book or a movie or a television show while disagreeing with its worldview. This holds in videogames as well.

My oldest has rediscovered Oblivion on the Xbox, and has been leveling up a thief. He can sneak into a town and steal the shirt off a guard’s back and get away with it. But, we’ve discussed how thievery is not what we’re about in RL. I remind the kids of the time one of them walked out of the nearby country store with a pack of gum without paying. When I discovered it, we drove back to the store and paid for the gum. We are not thieves; it’s part of our morals, part of our worldview. However, leveling a thief in Oblivion, a fictional environment, is okay just as reading about a character who is a thief is also okay.

And so it goes. While I empathize with a parent wanting to monitor the fiction their child reads, I can’t agree with banning Ender’s Game from an AP reading list. The violence in the book involves killing enemy space aliens, and I don’t recall it being gratuitous or overly bloody. Battle scenes are common in many books for young people, including the Narnia series and Tolkein’s Middle Earth tales.

Finally, I was interested to find out the book is required reading for Marine privates wishing to level up to corporal. According to the Marine spokesman quoted in the news article, the book is about leadership in combat; therefore, the Marine Corps says aspiring corporals should read it. I’m sure Bobby Shaftoe would approve.

References:
Jenkins, H., & Squire, K. (2003) Harnessing the power of games in education. Insight, 3, 5-33.

Tompkins, J. (2008, June 15). Alvin ISD mother protests novel. The Facts. [Online]. Available: http://www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?ewcd=b56d920d8eb0be82

UCF’s Simulated Classroom Helps Prepare Teachers

Here’s a tidbit over at DistrictAdministration.com. Professors at University of Central Florida have designed a classroom simulator to help prospective teachers prepare for real world teaching.

The link provides only the first few paragraphs of an article from the Orlando Sentinel, which has since been taken offline. Fortunately, a UCF press release offers considerably more detail regarding the program.

College of Education Professors Lisa Dieker and Mike Hynes, in conjunction with UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training, Computer Science and student actors from the Interactive Performance Lab, developed a virtual, interactive environment that can give teachers real experience in handling a classroom. Lockheed Martin brings years of experience to the partnership including research, concepts and prototypes of models and simulations in the areas of teacher training and professional development.

Using a combination of technology, real life experience and entertainment the university has been able to create scenarios that are very realistic and have already assisted new teachers in thinking differently about their classroom. In fact, several teachers who tested out the virtual classroom continue to talk about how they need to change their teaching or to “try” again to make sure they meet the needs of these students who are not real.

A simulated classroom should provide an excellent resource for prospective teachers, and give them opportunities to experience “worst case” scenarios without the fear of failure.

References:
Kotala, Z. G. (2008, May 1). UCF and Lockheed Martin announce partnership to expand new screening and training technology. [Online]. Available: http://neighbors.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id
=0024004168851b1c0119a5470a22002594&mode=neighbors

Virtual classroom at the University of Central Florida puts teachers to the test. (2008, May 19). DistrictAdministration.com. [Online]. Available: http://www.districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?
news=yes&postid=50025

25 Videogames for Classroom Use from College@Home

Fiona King over at College@Home dropped me a note to talk about a new post on their blog discussing 25 sims and games for classroom use. The post is well thought out, and the suggestions are divided up by History, Science & Logic, Mythology, Fitness, Business & Law, and Community & Personal Skills.

The list is a nice one with some thoughtful ideas. Whyville, Quest Atlantis, and Revolution are included, which also made my top ten list of free educational games.

Upcoming Australian Conference & Healthcare Gaming/Simulation Symposium

SimTecT will be held in Melbourne, May 12-16. The conference primarily focuses on simulations, and the Australian military is a major player. There will be a strong serious games element. Speakers will include Jan Cannon-Bowers over at U. Central Florida; Clint Bowers, also from UCF; Elyssebeth Leigh over at University of Technology, Sydney; and Robert Carpenter, Deputy Director, Simulation Development, Army Simulation Wing, Land Warfare Development Centre in the Australian military.

On May 16, Elyssebeth Leigh notes the day will be devoted to Serious Games in Healthcare:

Technologies and techniques which games employ to deliver serious messages can be leveraged to achieve low cost, high impact solutions across the healthcare and other sectors. This symposium will introduce participants to opportunities and issues that serious games offer – for training, therapy and testing. It brings together experts from the US, experienced Australian practitioners, game developers, educators and healthcare professionals.

Program includes:
Interactive plenary sessions; Facilitated de-brief sessions of the plenaries; Forum – The way forward in gaming in healthcare.

FETC 2008: Virtual ChemLab

I’m fresh back from FETC 2008, and I’ve got lots to share. I’ll start with a presentation I attended by Brian Woodfield over at Brigham Young. Dr. Woodfield is project director for the Virtual ChemLab (VCL) computer simulation that BYU has been working on the past several years, and is offered to high schools and universities through Pearson Prentice Hall.

Several simulated laboratories are offered through the software, and Dr. Woodfield provided many interesting demonstrations during his lecture, including ones for a Physics Lab, Physical Science Lab, General and Organic Chemistry Labs. Improvements and additions to the offerings continue to occur with each passing year. Graphics art students at BYU work on the computer graphics, and each year new students attempt to outdo previous efforts. Coming soon will be a simulated Biology Lab, complete with microscopes and genetics.

Graphics indeed were good. Dr. Woodfield opened the presentation with photos of traditional chemistry labs, and explained how tedious and time consuming classroom experiments are to set up, and how they tend to stifle experimentation and creativity among students. Placing accurate simulated experiments within appropriate contexts, though, does allow free exploration and additional opportunities for serendipitous discovery. Plus, it allows much faster and less expensive experimentation. It’s also safer. Click here for a brief list of horrific accidents that have occurred in high school chemistry labs over the years. Dr. Woodfield demonstrated an “explosion” by mixing the wrong chemicals, and the beaker came back ready for another experiment. This was much safer than real world explosions.

Over the years, BYU has found VCL to be as useful as any other tool in the classroom. In other words, most of its effectiveness depends on the teacher or professor using it. Implementation is key, and instructors with a positive attitude will have the most success with the product (I think this is true of every educational product).

They’ve found most kids take 15 – 30 minutes to learn the interface. BYU instructors have also found giving students the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument before classes using VCL helps pinpoint those who prefer direct instruction over personal discovery, and who therefore may need more initial assistance with the program.

VCL seems to be most useful when assigned as homework. Dr. Woodfield indicated instructors have noted a 30% increase in performance on exams in classes using VCL versus those who do not. Also, students who did not use VCL invariably performed poorly on quizzes over the covered material.

Dr. Woodfield shared many interesting anecdotes about using the program. One involved a teacher in Indianapolis who wanted the program for her students. The school was unwilling to provide a site license, so she bought a single license and installed it on a computer in the back of her room. VCL became so popular, the students told their parents about it, and complained they did not get enough time on the program. The parents pitched in and paid for a site license so VCL could be installed on every computer in the school. Stories like that attest to the program’s popularity.

Worksheets that teachers have put together are available. Also, a couple of papers by Dr. Woodfield and his colleagues appeared in the Journal of Chemical Education concerning use and assessment of the program in college course. These are available for download at the main VCL site:

B.F. Woodfield, H.R. Catlin, G.L. Waddoups, M.S. Moore, R. Swan, R. Allen, and G. Bodily, “The Virtual ChemLab Project: A Realistic and Sophisticated Simulation of Inorganic Qualitative Analysis”, J. Chem. Ed. 81, 1672-1678 (2004).

B.F. Woodfield, M.B. Andrus, T. Andersen, J. Miller, B. Simons, R. Stanger, G.L. Waddoups, M.S. Moore, R. Swan, R. Allen, and G. Bodily, “The Virtual ChemLab Project: A Realistic and Sophisticated Simulation of Organic Synthesis and Organic Qualitative Analysis.” J. Chem. Ed. 82, 1728-1735 (2005).

Finally, there is a nice wiki on VCL for Sloan-C members that has more details. From all accounts, and by every indication, this looks like an excellent addition to high school and college chemistry courses. Highly recommended.

Study: Videogames Help Surgeons a Wii Bit

Researchers at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix found in an experiment that resident physicians performed better at simulated surgery following videogame play on a Nintendo Wii. The study called to mind the intriguing work by Rosser et al on videogames’ positive benefits for laproscopic surgeons.

The motion-sensitive Wiimote is credited with the benefits this time, according to an article in New Scientist by Michael Reilly. Kanav Kahol and Marshall Smith at BGSMC are developing surgery-specific software to run on the Wii that promises to offer resident physicians much cheaper training platforms than what has traditionally been available.

The study had participants using ProMIS software from Haptic.com, as well as Wii games such as Marble Mania. Games involving fine motor skills seemed more beneficial than games only requiring gross motor skills (an intuitive conclusion). Thus, Wii Tennis was not as beneficial for surgeons as Marble Mania.

Results have not yet been peer reviewed, but word of the findings has appeared in New Scientist and the Cleveland Leader. Kahol and Smith plan to present their findings at the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference that runs Jan. 29 – Feb. 1 in Long Beach, California.

References:
Cleveland Leader. (2008, January 17). Video games help surgeons fine-tune their skills. [Online.] Retrieved January 17, 2008 from: http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/4377

Reilly, M. (2008, January 19). A Wii warm-up hones surgical skills. New Scientist. [Online.] Available: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/
mg19726396.100-a-wii-warmup-hones-surgical-skills.html

GSU Train the Trainers Island Coming to SL

eSchoolNews.com reports that Georgia State University is opening up an island in Second Life for training professors to lead classes in SL. Here’s the key quote: 

“By teaching in Second Life, you’re able to give your students an experience that might be too expensive or dangerous in the real world,” said Paula Christopher, a technology project manager at Georgia State.

The university’s island is in the development stage and should be open by summer, Christopher said.