Boys, Reading, and Video Games

A great article by Thomas Spence recently, entitled, “How to Raise Boys Who Read,” has the subtitle, “Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes.”

The problem, Spence explains, has been around since at least 1992. That’s when a broad discrepancy in proficient reading scores on the NAEP between boys and girls in all categories became painfully evident.

To address the issue, Spence reports, an entire industry has sprung up trying to pique boys’ interests with “gross out” books. Scholastic, in particular, has been prolific in offering various titles featuring flatulent humor.

As with so many things on the decline (this blog has tracked numerous hobbies that have suffered in popularity), the blame is laid at the feet of video games. Here’s the relevant quote:

The appearance of the boy-girl literacy gap happens to coincide with the proliferation of video games and other electronic forms of entertainment over the last decade or two. Boys spend far more time “plugged in” than girls do. Could the reading gap have more to do with competition for boys’ attention than with their supposed inability to focus on anything other than outhouse humor?

Dr. Robert Weis, a psychology professor at Denison University, confirmed this suspicion in a randomized controlled trial of the effect of video games on academic ability. Boys with video games at home, he found, spend more time playing them than reading, and their academic performance suffers substantially. Hard to believe, isn’t it, but Science has spoken.

As with so many things, though, science rarely speaks the final word, especially in the social sciences. Interesting research questions not addressed in Spence’s short article include, do boys catch up to their female counterparts in reading proficiency later? Are boys learning critical skills by playing video games that girls are missing out on by not playing as much? Is reading still the best way to transmit knowledge for all students in the 21st Century?

Chess Helps Troubled Kids in School

An old board game is put to new uses in St. Louis, as The Wall Street Journal reports on Innovative Concept Academy.

Chess has been a part of after-school programs for at least 40 years, but mainly in the suburbs. In the last decade, it has exploded in popularity in urban areas as research showed that students who play chess do better on achievement exams, especially math.

Founded recently for troubled students by Juvenile Court Judge Jimmie Edwards, chess is a required part of the school’s curriculum.

The twice weekly chess classes are mandatory for most of the school’s 97 students and are an integral part of Mr. Edwards’s strategy to curb bad behavior and teach alternatives to violence. He knows that chess won’t solve all the behavior problems, but says it offers lessons about self-control and critical thinking.

“Most of my kids are impulsive, reactionary and they lash out without thinking through the consequences,” said Mr. Edwards, who walks the school’s halls almost daily. “Chess teaches them patience and teaches them that there are consequences to bad decisions.”

“In chess, you can lose your queen,” he added. “In life, you can lose your life.”

It’s an uplifting story of an old game put to new use.

Exploring the Renaissance Through Videogames

Shortly after Assassin’s Creed 2 came out, gamers noticed the rich historical detail included in the game’s setting. The protagonist who players guide through the game is sent back in time to Italy, AD 1499, there to prowl around buildings and streets and attack villains. The developers, self-avowed history nerds, hired consultants to ensure the buildings were rich in period detail. Here’s how The Wall Street Journal reported on their efforts:

They hired Renaissance scholars to advise on period garb, architecture, urban planning, weaponry and the like. They took tens of thousands of photographs of interiors and streets. They used Google Earth liberally to piece together the ground-up and sky-down perspectives through which the action flows. …

The game’s creative director, a Montrealer named Patrice Desilets, lived in Italy for some years, where he acquired a feel for the vivid intrigues of the Renaissance. He grew fascinated, he says, with the notion that “finally people can control time, and relive the past, through games.” The producer, Sebastien Puel, was born in the south of France, in the fortified medieval French town of Carcassonne, and grew up surrounded by history. The head writer, a Harvard graduate from Los Angeles and former screenwriter, Corey May, was driven, he says, by the challenge of “telling a story that feels real and is set among real people who existed.” …

Overall, though, Assassin’s Creed II is as close as we’ve managed to get to real time travel. The grown-ups can lap it up as a kind of virtual tourism. For the high schoolers, still the main audience, the video offers a kind of education by stealth. History matters more if your life depends on it, even as Ezio, and even if you’ve got lives to spare.

The amazing thing is developers of a highly anticipated release would even care to get most of the details right. If modifications of the game are allowed, it may find its way into history courses. It may find its way into classes regardless. Other academic efforts, such as Rome Reborn offer students only the opportunity to explore architecture. In AC2 students can fight bad guys while exploring.

Now, another major game focusing at least in part on the Italian Renaissance is due for release. This one is based on Dante’s Inferno. Yes, players will plumb the depths of hell, as envisioned by Dante, in this game from Electronic Arts. As you might imagine, hell is a bit graphic. Also, if you’ll recall, Dante described levels associated with the seven deadly sins. In the game, the level for lust is particularly graphic, replete with phallic symbols and nudity. This and other extreme graphics earn the game an M rating.

Producers are releasing a print edition of the poem illustrated by pictures from the game, hoping to encourage players to read Dante’s original work. Maybe kids who talk their parents into buying the game, despite its M rating, can actually learn something about the original work. But, I suspect parents would prefer the old-fashioned text version of the poem rather than an explicit video game.

References:
Kaylan, M. (2010, January 12). Time travel gets closer to reality. The Wall Street Journal, D7.

Is Apple’s New Tablet a Game Changer?

Lately Apple has dominated any market outside of PCs the company has chosen to enter. It wasn’t always so; I still remember the Newton and the shellacking it took in public opinion. (Even the political cartoon strip “Doonesbury” made fun of it.) But those days are all behind the company, and the iPod and iPhone dominate their segments. The markets for Apple software have become just as important, with 99 cent songs and varied-priced apps.

Next up is the Tablet, a new computer that has Apple fans salivating. Plenty of programmers have been willing to devote time to developing games for the iPhone, so it’s probable that games will continue to roll out for the Tablet, especially considering Apple’s lucrative revenue sharing system.

Apple will be interested in exploiting the educational market, for the respect dominance there lends as much as the lucre. One of my favorite reporters, Yukari Iwatani Kane, co-wrote an article this week in The Wall Street Journal about the Apple Tablet, which touched on the academic aspects of the product:

In the academic arena, Apple could face hurdles wooing universities if the tablet doesn’t meet their needs or isn’t compatible with other computing devices that students are using.

Amazon had been hoping to target the market with its 9.7-inch screen Kindle DX e-book reader, for example, but schools said the device wasn’t sufficiently interactive and lacked basics such as page numbers and color graphics.

Another hurdle facing any new technology at the university level is the need for accessibility features to be built into the product. After pressure from the Dept. of Justice, several universities agreed to stop promoting the use of the Kindle DX for students, or any other e-book reader, until features making it more accessible for the visually impaired have been implemented.

As always, it would be very nice to see good educational programs and games come out for the Apple Tablet, and not merely repackaging of classic texts or some such. Stay tuned.

References:
Gonsalves, A. (2010, January 14). Universities agree not to promote Kindle DX. InformationWeek. [Online.] Available: http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/government/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222300989

Kane, Y.I., & Smith, E. (2010, January 23). Apple sees new money in old media. The Wall Street Journal, B1.

Settlers of Catan Conquers Silicon Valley Social Set

I wrote about the learning elements embedded in one of the world’s best boardgames, Settlers of Catan, back in April. This morning, The Wall Street Journal has a front page article describing how the game has taken Silicon Valley’s social set by storm. CEOs of Internet startups play it, new employees are introduced to it in social gatherings, and competitions are common.

Although a boardgame, many new users find the online version or the Apple iPhone app useful for learning the basics, and good practice for RL matches. This is something of a switch from what we’ve seen with popular videogames that can be leveraged for learning, where players go offline to pick up tips and strategies, such as the studying of history books by avid Civilization fans.

Speculation regarding its popularity in Silicon Valley centers on the game’s similarity to starting a business. Here’s the key paragraph:

LinkedIn’s Mr. Hoffman, who estimates he has inducted nearly 40 Silicon Valley executives into the game, says tech entrepreneurs are drawn to Settlers because it “most closely approximates entrepreneurial strategy.” The title pushes players to collaborate and swap resources to get points, while the random rolls of the dice force people to constantly revamp their strategies for winning. That’s much like running a start-up, Mr. Hoffman says.

Very interesting. The game is available on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble. Might make a good gift for the budding entrepreneur on your list.

References:
Tam, P. (2009, December 17). An old-school board game goes viral among Silicon Valley’s techie crowd. The Wall Street Journal, A1. [Online.] Retrieved December 17, 2009 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126092289275692825.htm

Animating the News: How Videogame Technologies Can Alter Our Perceptions of Real Life Events

Before photography caught on in newspapers, artists rendered their conceptions of newsworthy events through woodcuts. These pictures served as a basis for shaping perceptions among consumers of the news.

Now, a Chinese company called Next Media has pioneered videogame animations to offer its readers artists’ conceptions of events through online animations. Gordon Crovitz over at The Wall Street Journal notes that millions have seen Next Media’s conception of Tiger Wood’s car wreck.

Just as in the 19th Century, when there was no camera present an artist visualized what the scene must have looked like, and presented it to the audience through the dominant medium of the day (newspapers). Now, when there is an incident not recorded by video camera, artists again are imagining what the scene must have looked like, how things transpired, and presenting it to consumers through the dominant medium of the day (the web).

As before, Crovitz notes, those on the tail end of this technological and media revolution are protesting, and are being dragged kicking and screaming into the new way of things. But technology keeps steaming along. Here’s Crovitz’s key paragraph:

These animations are the latest brainstorm of Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Media, which launched what are now the most popular Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Reflecting on how newspaper stories have more background about events than television news reports have, as he told me last week, “I thought, hey, why not make those missing images of the background into animated images?” He hired 160 software developers and engineers in Taiwan, who spent more than two years perfecting the technique. Reporters describe their interpretation of what happened to engineers and actors who serve as the models for the animation. Mr. Lai says that his team can create an animated video in 90 minutes, producing about 20 a day.

Are there issues with this technique? You bet. For one thing, what if the reporters’ and artists’ conception of events is entirely wrong? If their video is widespread enough, the wrong conception may be permanently etched into public memory. One could see how public opinion could be greatly manipulated were this powerful new media tool misused. Probably only a matter of time: Crovitz indicates that Lai is working on advancing the technology, making the animations more realistic as techniques and tools develop. He is also intent on sharing the technology with other media companies across the globe.

References:
Crovitz, G. (2009, December 14). Tiger Woods and the animation of news. The Wall Street Journal, A23. [Online.] Retrieved December 14, 2009 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703757404574592093833268688.html

At 40% of the Market, Videogame Publishers Pursue Women & Girls

Yukari Iwatani Kane over at The Wall Street Journal reports today that publishers are introducing more video games than ever this Christmas season geared toward the female market, in a nod to the ever increasing percentage of women players. The thinking goes, with each 5% increase in female players, publishers will see an additional $1 billion in sales. The number of overall female players has increased from 21% in 2001 to the current 40%, as cited in stats from Wedbush Morgan. (I previously noted the same statistic reported by Ipsos MediaCT.)

Here’s a list of games the article mentions that are either out or forthcoming:

• Charm Girls Club
• FarmVille (on FaceBook)
• Hannah Montana
• Just Dance
• Littlest Pet Shop
• Petz
• Sports Active
• StyleLab
• The Imagine line for the DS
• Wii Fit Plus
• Your Shape

Finally, Guitar Hero and Rock Band have cross-gender appeal.

References:
Kane, Y.I. (2009, October 13). Videogame firms make a play for women. The Wall Street Journal, B4.

Facebook Study Demonstrates Relationship of Media and Research

I don’t normally stray too far from the focus of this blog, which is research and media commentary about educational video games. However, one study which has focused on Facebook received a lot of publicity lately, and The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece that touches on how the media can misconstrue research and findings. Facebook and other social sites have been compared to video games before, so this is at least partially on topic.

First, a researcher will not come out and say their findings proved anything. Perhaps that is the biggest disconnect between researchers and the press. Journalists often seem to present studies in such a way to suggest they are the final word on the matter, and this is simply almost never the case. On the other hand, researchers and their institutions do make use of press releases in efforts to gin up interest in their work. So, the relationship between media and the academy is definitely a two-way street.

Aryn Karpinski, a doc student over at Ohio State, and Adam Duberstein at Ohio Dominican presented a paper on a survey of 219 students to AERA last week. The survey found those students who spent more time on Facebook had lower GPAs. Carl Bialik at The Wall Street Journal notes what happened when word of their work got out:

The study triggered frightening headlines such as, “Study finds Facebook goofing hurts grades,” “Study says Facebook can impact studies” and “Research finds the website is damaging students’ academic performance.”

However, researchers … didn’t examine the influence of Facebook on grades. Facebook may be a symptom of a big procrastination habit, not a cause. Should Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg pull the plug, chronic users of his site may just procrastinate elsewhere.

Others in the press, as often happens, blamed the researchers without first reading the research:

Coverage that implicated Facebook for the lower grades sparked a backlash to the findings, particularly in the technology press, so much so that Ms. Karpinski was expecting “media with tomatoes” when she presented her study in San Diego. Instead, she met fellow researchers who told her that “this is an interesting topic and they need to research it more.”

Bialik notes that papers presented at conferences are accepted faster than peer-reviewed journals. He wonders if Karpinski regrets the media maelstrom over the study and quotes her as noting the study can’t be “taken back,” but more could have been done before its findings were released. Camille Rutherford over at Brock University in Canada notes the study was seized by the anti-technology crowd. She said, “This is very counterproductive when we should be looking for ways to capitalize on the power of social media to enhance teaching and learning.” Amen to that. I would also say, same for video games.

Earle Holland, assistant VP of research communications at Ohio State had the final quote, stating his expectations for journalists were to get their stories “70 percent accurate.”

It was a good read. You can find Bialik’s article here.

References:
Bialik, C. (2009, April 22). Facebook users — and research — need further study. The Wall Street Journal, A11.

How the Nintendo DSi Could Be Educationally Useful

We’ve talked a lot recently about the ascendency in educational gaming of the Nintendo DS, the descendant of the once ubiquitous GameBoy Advance handheld gaming system. New research is showing positive results for appropriate DS games to increase test scores, and gaming companies are porting over titles for studying the SAT to the platform. Now Nintendo is releasing an update to the system, called the DSi. It has generated quite a stir. Here are some ways the DSi may prove useful for educational gaming.

Larger Screens
Screens for the DSi are slightly bigger than the older DS. I’ve joked about the GBA and DS being designed for young people, as folks over 20 often complain about the size of the displays. But larger screens set in thinner cases will help players see more of the action. For the sake of education, larger screens means more text on the screen, either in quantity or quality (size of font). Admittedly the increase is small (3.25 inches up from 3.0 inches), but the increase will most certainly be worth it. Especially for old(er) people.

Cameras Outside and In
The DSi will have two cameras built in: one facing out and one facing in toward the player. I see this as benefiting ARGs, where players use devices to electronically enhance surrounding reality for the sake of the game. We’ve seen increased ARG use in lessons at historical sites thanks to the potent new crop of cell phones lately, but with two cameras added to the mix on the DSi, possibilities suddenly blossom. Students armed with Nintendo’s device could easily take pictures of objects on scavenger hunts, for instance, and share them with other teams. Pictures of players from the inward pointing camera provide proof of presence, and one imagines an easier way for teachers to remotely track students roaming about a site.

Built-in Web Browsing
Web support brings the DSi into Sony PSP territory. The nice thing is the price of the DSi is expected to fall somewhere south of $200. Imagine handing a fifth grader the equivalent power of an iPhone for a fraction of the cost and with no long-term contract. Downloading games might provide developers an inexpensive means of distribution for educational titles which may not otherwise be carried in traditional gaming venues.

SD Memory Card Support
Portable memory is a key issue for educators, as it eases dissemination of lessons and collection of data. SD memory cards are the de facto standard for portable data on a lot of devices, and many laptops and desktops have SD ports built in. A backwards compatible GBA slot is eliminated in this newest model, perhaps helping to keep the case slim. But with the SD slot, might the possibilities for home-made programming help up-and-coming educational game makers, ala the R4 Revolution, aka Majicon?

MP3 Support – sort of
The music-playing capabilities of the DSi will help with audio books, and flash cards that read words back to students. It’s not true MP3 support; users will have to use the AAC format. At least, that’s the current specs. But, folks adroit at gaming and such will have few problems converting MP3s to AAC.

Alas, American players will probably have to wait until fourth quarter, 2009 to buy one. But for players, and educators, it looks to be worth the wait.

The Art of Marriage Proposals Through Gaming

We Aggies know a thing or two about proposing to our beloved, especially if she is an Aggie too. (Alas, my wife is from Louisiana, where everybody professes loyalty to LSU, whether they attended that fine school or not.) There is one tree on the A&M campus in particular, the Century Tree, that has a tradition of serving as a pop-the-question spot for thousands of couples. Here’s a YouTube video of one such marriage proposal. (If a woman is lucky enough to be or snag a member of the Corps of Cadets, as in this video, she gets quite a bit of extra pomp and ceremony throughout the entire wedding process than the average Aggie these days. The Corps has dwindled from comprising the entire student body back in the day to a couple thousand or so students now.)

There have been many other creative proposals at TAMU over the years (probably mostly by guys who weren’t in the Corps (see parenthetical above)). During my graduation ceremony, for instance, an Aggie awaited his beloved to descend from the podium, her diploma in hand, before going down on one knee. The MC had been briefed ahead of time and paused in calling out names to wish them well, and everybody in the coliseum whooped and hollered for the couple.

Another story that comes to mind dates back to when a thriving hot air balloon business existed in College Station, and Kyle Field was left unlocked and accessible most of the time. The fellow had friends buy hundreds of paper plates, and had them spell out the Marry me? question on the bleachers so she could read it as they floated over in the balloon.

So, Aggies know a thing or two about proposing to their sweethearts. But there are lots of neat stories about guys finding creative ways to pop the question. I recall one fellow hiding the ring in a box of Cracker Jacks and setting up a picnic for his girlfriend on a cliff overlooking the ocean. After the couple finished off the meal, for desert he handed over the box, and waited nervously for her to open the “toy surprise.” She reared back her arm to toss the packet over the cliff, willing to carelessly toss away what was usually a cheap trinket. He went ballistic, grabbing her arm and yelling, “Wait!” She opened it, and was surprised, but it was a close call and he almost lost an expensive diamond engagement ring.

Guys dating women who like games seem to consistently hit upon the idea of sneaking marriage proposals into the game. Several men over the years have popped the question through crossword puzzles, convincing complicit editors to run rigged games. Here’s one example.

But finally, we have a real gaming geek story. This fellow re-programmed his girlfriend’s game so a ring and wedding cake appeared upon reaching a certain score. Bernie Peng ported over a copy of Bejeweled to the Nintendo DS, and gave it as a present to his girlfriend. There is no official version of Bejeweled for the DS, you see, so this was something special for her. Ordinarily such shenanigans might be frowned upon by corporate, but PopCap Games (owner of Bejeweled and other popular casual titles) turned it into a publicity event.

There have been marriages in virtual worlds, notably in Second Life and World of Warcraft. Somehow, cheating in marriage garners more publicity. But electronic marriage is old news, since any enhancement to communication leads inevitably to more social interaction. The book, The Victorian Internet, detailed a legal marriage performed at a distance via telegraph and Morse Code. But as video games continue to gain a stronghold in the public psyche, look for more social interactions like marriage, and social research, online.