Your Intellect Depends on Your TV

Your Intellect Depends on Your TV

Knowledge is power…

Continued…

History lessons

Of course grand strategy titles are not well known for their accessibility, so whilst an adult could certainly gain knowledge from one, perhaps school children are going to struggle to understand all its nuances. That’s fine, the same strategy genre can still aid in lessons on history. Take the Civilisation and Age of Empire series. These two games are a great deal more accessible – especially Age of Empires – and so should prove to be more entertaining and relevant to younger minds. Each title has text files full of information for each civilisation. It’s not the mostcomprehensive source of historical fact but it’s a terrific starting point to peak interest, and although less knowledge can be gained from playing the actual game elements of these titles, players can still cement knowledge gleaned from the text files by actually using the units and buildings mentioned.

So many strategy titles can teach people about history, whether it’s general knowledge about the civilisations of yore or if it’s more specific, like how Alexander the Great was able to win so many battles – Total War in fact teaches military tactics of ancient civilisations with excellent accuracy. But the educational value of RTS titles is one of the more obvious, other genres and games can teach you stuff as well.

I played Soul Reaver when I was young and picked up a buttload of words – as I’m sure you can tell from my use of the word “buttload” – which all helped improve my vocabulary. This is one of the less obvious educational traits of games. A well written game opens up a world of possibilities for educational growth, from picking up phrases and understanding them, to brand new words you’d never heard of in your school days because your friends were all idiots and your teachers assumed you were too. Games really do offer a spectacular chance to learn new words and increase your oratory skills, and although speaking them at school can make you look like a smartarse and is a good way to get you beaten up – let me tell you – when you’re older the opposite is true, making you seem educated, articulate, suave, also sometimes like a smart arse but you’re less likely to get beaten up for it. Even badly written games can help in some ways, even if it’s only as an example of how not to talk to people and what it mean to sounds patronising.

What did you learn in school today?

The text in games is also a handy educational tool; obviously it can aid with reading. Reading a book collectively with your class mates and teacher helps with reading skills certainly, but how much more fun would it be to play an RPG with the whole class and teacher?  Consider an MMO where you can learn to read whilst bravely flirting with your school crush, or beat the shit out of the school bully with your Level 80Paladin, all with an increased sense of gusto we call “internet balls”. Even watching cutscenes with the subtitles turned on can help with reading, as well as being entertaining. These example don’t just have to be played collectively, pretty much every RPG out there has text as well as voice now and so can provide a great way of teaching kids to read.

One of the current problems with these methods of education is of course the content of the games. Whilst some of the above examples are fine for the young teenager looking to improve things like general knowledge, history, or vocabulary, as an aid to learning how to read many of the titles out there are a bit too adult. However, with more communication between schools and developers, this issue can be resolved, and in a few cases is already underway.

Continues…

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