One of the questions that often comes up in discussions of game design related to education is "What makes a good educational game?"  I think it can be reasonably argued that there are truly very few examples of good educational games, and that is due to several reasons, some of which I will point out below.

One person that lays out the case well as to why it is difficult to create good educational games is Dr. Seymour Papert of MIT.  In the June, 1998 issue of Game Developer magazine, Dr. Papert presents his take on the state of educational gaming in an article titled "Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning."  A point that he makes is that edutainment software often ends up being a combination of the worst of both the education and entertainment worlds.  Having been both a professional game developer as well as an instructional designer, I very much agree with Dr. Paperts assertions in the article.  Here is a link to the article online.  In addtion to the original article, the link has a response to Dr. Papert written by an instructional designer.  Both pieces are worth reading.

While there are questions and concerns regarding the cost of game development (monetary, time, and technical expertise), there are ways of incorporating game design best practices into curriculum as well as developing games using rapid development tools (as opposed to using lower-level languages--comparatively speaking--such as C++).  Flash is one development option, as is its older and more powerful cousin Director.  Or one could use other development environments such as Runtime Revolution for its rapid application development capabilities.

Most people when talking about computer games usually mean something other than the trivial approach of a Jeopardy game.  Customizable Jeopardy templates are fine for drill and practice, but that does not exemplify compelling and deep gameplay of the type that promotes higher-order learning.  But before we begin to consider our design tool options, we would do well to originate some actual game ideas--apart from the underlying technology.

As is common in the game industry, we should brainstorm first and worry about execution later.  Anyone have any ideas to offer?  Consider games in the genre of the Civilization series of the Age of Empires collection.  Those games have true depth and high production values... can we build similar games primarily for the education market?  That is the $64,000 question.

- Hap Aziz

We're witnessing a convergence in the word of photography and videography, and it's an unusual one if you consider the history of the technology.  For years, digital video cameras offered the capability to shoot still pictures, while digital still cameras often allowed the photographer to capture short video clips.  For a variety of technical reasons neither cross-over solution was particularly impressive.  If you wanted to shoot good video, you used a camera built primarily for video, and if you wanted still shots, a DSLR was the typical choice.

This article at Wired.com gives a bang-up description of the technological convergence taking place, and it is fascinating reading.  The short story is that with new cameras hitting the market, such as the Canon 5D Mark II, the world of digital still and video photography is being turned on its head.  Imagine a 21 megapixel DSLR that shoots full-frame while using the amazing Canon L-series glass.  Now imagine that same camera shooting full 1080p video with a pricetag of about $2300, without the lenses.  That dual-purpose capability at that price point is simply amazing!

We are witnessing the beginning of a fundamental shift in our visual image-capturing paradigm.  And I think I've just figured out what I want for this Christmas.

- Hap Aziz

The Internet is truly an amazing repository of information.  In a previous post I mentioned Vannevar Bush's "memex" device, and it is clear that the Internet, specifically with its World Wide Web interface fills that role in grand fashion, well beyond his most optimistic imaginings, I'm sure.  Today's reminder of the power, reach, and memory of the Internet comes from an email out of the blue to my official Rasmussen address.

Many years ago, perhaps six or seven, I worked at Valencia Community College here in Orlando as their Director of Internet and Instructional Technologies.  While I was there, I created a "Rubric for Assessing Participation in Online Discussion Forums" based on the college's core competencies of Think, Value, Communicate, and Act.  Fast forward to the present.  A professor at a college in Pennsylvania looking for a rubric for students engaged in the online portion of their class came across the one I had authored.  By simply searching the web, this professor was able to locate me to ask permission to use the rubric--and I of course gave it.  (By the way, if anyone else sees the rubric and wishes to use it, you have my permission.  I only ask that I am credited with authorship and that you let me know if it proves useful to you.)

There are several interesting aspects to this episode, but one of the most interesting ideas to me is the fact that so much of what we create electronically now ends up as part of such a thorough system of record keeping, in the form of the Internet.  Just a handful of years ago, not many people would have been able to predict the far ranging consequences of the Internet in the area of "obscure record keeping."  Looking into the future, we see some tremendous opportunity for data mining search engines.  But even now, it's fun to see what "the world" knows about us.  Go ahead:  Google yourself and find out.

- Hap Aziz