Educational video games

The following is a précis I wrote in response to a story about educational video games.

In his essay “Play Games, Be Better Students? (2004),” Daniel Terdiman asserts that it may be possible to use video games to improve American education. He supports this idea by providing suggestions from video game insiders and designers and evidence of the high sales of educational games in recent years. The author’s purposes are to make readers aware that many educators and game designers are actively trying to make the mainstreaming of educational games a reality and to convince any skeptics that these games may in fact be helpful. He establishes an informal relationship with his audience of skeptics, by writing a piece that is short, to the point, and easy to read.
This idea to educate with video games has its advantages and disadvantages. Teenagers already spend too much time playing video games, sitting motionless in front of television screens, in a vegetative state, thumbs blistered. Unfortunately, most students, when given the choice of an action-packed sports or military/spy game and educational game, will choose the one of the former. Most teenagers would be turned off to the idea of playing such a game before even giving it a chance, simply because it is presented as educational.
On the other hand, I believe that, if implemented properly, these games can be beneficial. While I don’t have much experience with educational games, I have played many word games online, on sites like Pogo, Yahoo!, and MSN, and I’ve expanded my vocabulary a little through playing them. I believe that games that have a message—games that teach students information they may actually retain in the form of new knowledge—can be a highly effective tool in America’s classrooms, but I think it would take a large group of game designers, parents, teachers, administrators, and lawmakers coming to a consensus agreeing on what types of games should be offered, the amount of time that should be allotted for playing these games during class time, and how these educational games should be supplemented with other material. Since such a large-scale effort is necessary, and since one of the sources in Terdiman’s piece says that she has been trying to get educational games to work for almost thirty years, I think that the established forms of education can be thoroughly effective if they are exercised properly.
Americans under the age of eighteen, for example, read far less that they used to. In an age of IPODs, chat rooms, and search engines, books are becoming a dying form of entertainment and learning. I think back on books that I have read and even the mediocre ones have taught me more and engaged my thinking more than any game I have played. Stories and lessons that used to be taught to students exclusively (and effectively) by both parents and instructors are being replaced by technological sources. Television, which is shaping children’s ideas about the world now more than ever, has become the interim parent while the real parents are busy. Internet courses, which have gained popularity over the last decade, have eliminated the need for personal instructor-student interaction. The Internet has made our lives much more convenience-oriented and it serves its purpose to make many aspects of our lives easier. But in the field of education, I don’t believe technology should take the place of books, teachers, and classrooms. These games can be used to supplement existing effective teaching practices, not to replace them.