Reaction for: "An Adventure Game Approach" by Jon

I wasn't quite sure what this paper was attempting to convey. It seemed like it just said "Adventure games would be a neat way to teach stuff!" and left it at that. I was looking for more meat (tofu?) in the article, but it had some interesting ideas.

First, I will certainly agree with the claim that computers are not used effectively in teaching. I remember that my high school had many computers in the building, but none of the teachers really had a sense of what they could use them for to help teach (aside from making their handouts look nicer.) The assumption seems to be that computers are useful, so they will naturally be useful in education. However, it's not that simple.

The article also proposes that using computers for only part of the learning is also not beneficial. The argument is that changing media input in the middle of a presentation would be disruptive towards learning. However, I think it could also be argued that only having one form of presentation would only cater to the people who learned well through computer presentations, which is not everyone.

So, the hypothesis of the article is that adventure games will help students learn. Personally, I feel that of any computer game, adventure games would probably have the best chance of appealing to a wide variety of students. Puzzle games may work as well, though they not be as engaging. Shoot-em-up games would only interest some people (mostly guys, presumably), and are not appropiate for learning.

However, the big question is how do you use a game to facilitate learning? Would there be an adventure a game that is a quest for the solution to an equation? A game that puts you into a time period that you are studying in a history class? I think that it is a fine line to walk between "educational but boring" and "fun but useless."


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