Look at you, Student; a pathetic creature of flesh and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my calculus course ...

I'm not entirely sure how one goes about integrating a math lesson into a first-person-shooter game, but it seems as though someone has. Naturally, of course, the reaction from some parents has been less than stellar. These luddites are ruffling my feathers. Bad.


Educational videogames are counted among my favourite memories from grade school. In fact, I defy you to find someone who grew up in my generation who does not have a deep and enduring love for Treasure Mountain/Mathstorm, Outnumbered!, Gizmos and Gadgets...heck, maybe even Reader Rabbit! These were games we played of our own volition, practically from the moment we learned how to use the school computers; games which managed to craft fun experiences with educational content. I think that it's perfectly reasonable for educational games to keep up with the times. That means they have to compete in terms of content and entertainment value with the games we buy off the shelves. I don't think they need bleeding edge graphics, but basically they should look and feel like something kids would take seriously as a video game first, and the educational experience should seek not to bludgeon the poor child, but to insinuate itself seamlessly into the normal course of gameplay. It's a bit like hiding spinach in food, I guess.


So on the matter of an educational first-person-shooter: FPS gameplay is popular, recognizable, and it's been in vogue since about 1993. FPS gameplay is relevant, and that's very important. If you make an educational FPS you're doing some novel things. One, you're allowing a skill that kids will likely have developed outside the classroom to be helpful inside the classroom. This means not only will kids understand your game from the get-go, it creates a two-way relationship: you want them to learn math, and you can offer them the chance to improve their FPS skillz at the same time. You are offering BOTH a long-term reward AND a short-term reward. I think it's a good answer to this supposed "problem" of the modern attention span. Instead of sticking to the bankrupt rhetoric of "well, kids should just suck it up and be bored at school because it's good for them!" you're saying that learning doesn't have to suck. If you've got reservations about the violent nature of shooters, check yourself: this educational shooter's main weapon is some kind of goo gun. For that matter, videogames feature avatars pointing guns at avatars. If you want something that actually teaches kids to point something at another kid and pull a trigger, how about you go on a crusade to ban super soakers, nerf guns, paintball and laser tag! I even think that shooters could use an injection of non-conventional arsenals. You don't need graphic headshots and real-time dismemberment - just give people a reward for good performance. Maybe you're playing capture the flag with guns that force your enemies to dance uncontrollably for three or five seconds? Or maybe you've got portal guns Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Devices and you have to get your opponents stuck in infinite loops or toss them off cliffs. If that's too violent for you I suppose you've been petitioning childrens' TV stations to stop showing road runner and coyote cartoons for the last thirty years, haven't you? Hey, why not something like Iain M. Banks' Lazy Guns that summon anvils or what-have-you above the target's head? In a cartoon world, that hardly stuns a guy! I think I've made my point, but essentially I think that the blithe equation of the shooter genre with gut-splattering violence is the same kind of irritating short-sightedness that makes commercial shooters so bland and samey!


I remember reading a book by Seymour Papert in which he discussed why the education system seems to be faltering, while kids spend more and more time captivated by videogames. His response (paraphrased) was more or less "Isn't it obvious? One of these things has grown and adapted to teach a child often complex concepts using multiple forms of stimuli as best as cutting-edge technology allows. One of them has not". In short, education is stuck at the book (printing press/movable type is 15th-century tech, for those keeping score), and this generation seems to demand something a little more their speed. Dare I say that rather than working so hard to ban iPhones in school that we should instead be proud to say "Trouble with calculus? There's an app for that."? Banning games like this educational shooter - which I intend to try and review at my earliest convenience - sets a terrible precedent. When you think about it, it isn't too different from some other topical issues in education: sex education and the intelligent design fiasco. In each of these cases you can see that one side is trying to supersede evidence (or in the case of educational videogames the chance to even gather evidence about their efficacy as learning tools) with ideology. Even though learning about safe sex is PROVEN to be an actual bulwark against unintended pregnancy and STIs, children should be taught abstinence-only education because it's wrong to even condone premarital sex. Even though evolution fits all the observed data, we should teach our children that there is "controversy" because some nutjobs are convinced that "5% of an eye isn't useful" = "YHWH designed the eyeball" (in case you've never heard of the light sensor and its uses, these guys are already wrong). Even though videogames offer us a way to fully harness technology to teach and engage, we can't use them to teach our children because learning isn't supposed to be fun. Or participatory. Or even vaguely remotely violent. OH REALLY?


Looking into the future, I even see a use for games not explicitly designed for educational purposes in learning. Unless you want to argue that education shouldn't keep up with current knowledge and culture, I fail to see how Dragon Age or Morrowind should not be analyzed when we look at the legacy of - say - Tolkien in high fantasy! Do we really understand our culture's concept of villainy if we don't analyse Bowser, SHODAN, and GlaDOS? The world didn't end in 1980, so why should education?


-Loud!