Fremont, CA (USA), August 2007 - The new millennium of the "digital world" has engendered technological advances at an unprecedented speed. This constant state of flux and seemingly unstoppable dynamism make knowledge transfer and learning key factors in the process of trying to keep pace with the latest technical developments, and an urgent need for innovative ways to nurture young minds is one of the concomitants. Gaming has emerged as an area that appears to hold great promise in bringing about some of the changes required in the learning world.
An awareness of game-based learning's potential arose in the 1970's. The 80s saw Harvard professors asking whether educational practice should be radically reconfigured in the light of five-year-olds' facility with computer games. The 1990s saw the emergence of new concepts in reference to the use of computer games.
In the past year, the new Dayton Technology Design High School has created a program focusing on video gaming. The school administration successfully launched this innovative program with about a hundred students, eighty of whom are in the "virtual game" track. This course includes concept design, construction, and possibly the students' selling of their own video games. Similar to the Dayton Technology Design High School, other institutes have begun to realize the impact of these games and have introduced game-related education as part of their coursework.
Bill Mackenty, a computer-lab teacher at Edgartown School near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the USA, feels that video games should not be viewed as a replacement for teachers but as a supplement. For example, he designed a game based on the history of the ancient Roman civilization that has generated a new form of interest among students and increased knowledge productivity drastically while providing strong support for teachers' efforts.
Video game producers are sometimes blamed for the increased lethargy of today's youth, but pilot projects have demonstrated that if used wisely, games can actually aid in stimulating physical activity. In early 2006, the US State of West Virginia started using games to fight childhood obesity. Government and school officials there struck a partnership with Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. - the US subsidiary of Japan's Konami Group - to install -œDance Dance Revolution- in all of West Virginia's 765 public schools by 2008. Almost all of its 185 middle schools already use it.
The innovative plan, the first statewide program to employ the dance video game, was intended to attack West Virginia's youth obesity problem. It has built up a solid following among youth and adults who enjoy the game's fast pace, fun music, and sweat-inducing challenges.
With examples like this, it can easily be concluded that video games, once criticized as a waste of time for kids, are becoming increasingly popular among teachers, who view them as potentially valuable tools in subject areas like physical education, social studies, and history.
With booming interest in developing new strategies for attention problems and knowledge transfer, the relationship between games and education will mature, and its partnership will boost growth of the game's market immensely in the near future.
