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Video Games Are the Future of Education

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Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#331

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

reaperducer wrote: post #200
speeder wrote: post #59

I own a educational game company. Long story short: it doesn't sell. At my company we identified, at least if your target is kids, two ways to sell edu games. 1. Sell them to institutions, like governments, schools, companies, whatever. Thing is, the features they look when choosing a game to buy, are ones most likely to make the game unfun, the end result is often boring stuff noone WANTS to play. 2. Sell them to th…

You have a lot of laments about "media connections" to let people know about your business. I think you're looking at this wrong. It's not about "connections." It's about doing business the old-fashioned way: advertising, and hiring a public relations agency. Advertising is self-explanatory. But for some reason a lot of tech companies don't hire PR firms. They like to cheap out and do PR in-house, or they simply neve…

> It's the PR firm's job to have the "media connections" you so desperately crave.

Any meaningful connection is going to be too expensive for someone like GP, I am afraid.

> Tech people are notoriously bad at public relations

Please avoid (false) generalizations.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#332

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

indigochill wrote: post #205
blueboo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's this simple: Making successful, novel games is very difficult. Most people/groups fail. Adding an educational component multiplies the unlikely probability of success by a very unhelpful coefficient. Adrenaline, story, polish -- this aspects now compete with an educational aspect.

It is true that making games is hard and making a profit on them even harder. I disagree, however, that adrenaline/story/polish necessarily compete with the educational aspect. I think The Learning Company soundly disproved that through the mid-90s. I happened to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from the height of the education game boom in the early/mid-90s, so I got to play the fun Math Blasters,…

The problem is that most of the games you mention are not what are considered educational games by the average parent nor institutions.

Even young generations, with casual gamer parents, can hold positions like "videogames are banned at home until our son is 8".

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#334

Post by wolfgke »

amatic wrote: post #323
wolfgke wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But honestly, humans don't learn languages by understand their grammars with the logic part of their brain. As a native German speaker, I disagree. For me, the German grammar (in particular the declination system) is what I would consider the type system of the German language. So yes, I do think a lot about German sentences in terms of types/grammar that are/is involved. EDIT: When I was a pupil at school, the onl…

Well, you did learn to understand German sentences way before school and grammar, I think that was the point. A baby can learn any language without studying its grammar, and in the early period not being able to pronounce the words.

> Well, you did learn to understand German sentences way before school and grammar, I think that was the point.

Learning the first language as a baby takes many years - and even after these years, you are still only on a "baby talk level". That is why I don't consider these "natural" approaches for learning a language to be a good idea - they are far too slow to be economical.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#335

Post by [deleted] »

speeder wrote: post #59

I own a educational game company. Long story short: it doesn't sell. At my company we identified, at least if your target is kids, two ways to sell edu games. 1. Sell them to institutions, like governments, schools, companies, whatever. Thing is, the features they look when choosing a game to buy, are ones most likely to make the game unfun, the end result is often boring stuff noone WANTS to play. 2. Sell them to th…

[deleted]

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#336

Post by raxxorrax »

isx726552 wrote: post #202
speeder wrote: post #59

I own a educational game company. Long story short: it doesn't sell. At my company we identified, at least if your target is kids, two ways to sell edu games. 1. Sell them to institutions, like governments, schools, companies, whatever. Thing is, the features they look when choosing a game to buy, are ones most likely to make the game unfun, the end result is often boring stuff noone WANTS to play. 2. Sell them to th…

> Long story short: it doesn't sell. This can often be a problem with education in general, not educational games specifically. Trying to make money in education is like trying to make money in news: you can’t. Both are vital, and both ultimately no one wants to pay for. Disclaimer: I used to work at an educational startup, which failed. No, I’m not bitter. (Well, maybe a little.)

Had a similar problem in medicine in a startup, which also failed. Although people did want to pay, you can only have large scale deployments if your are able to finance multiple studies over multiple years. By then smaller manufacturers are most certainly broke.

Want to make money there? Don't try to find cures or therapies for indications a small percent of people suffer from. Just invent another beauty cream, that's where the money is. No, I’m not bitter either, just maybe a little.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#337

Post by photonemitter »

diegoperini wrote: post #300
bananamerica wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A personal anecdote: I bought my first English dictionary to understand 1992’s Alone in the Dark. I’d probably not be talking with you guys and girls if not for videogames. I had no interest whatsoever in learning English, I just wanted to beat the games. If someone assigned me the very same game for educational purposes, I’d hate it by default.

I learned English from Guybrush Trephwood, the mighty pirate.

Same here. Early Lucasarts adventure games drove me and my younger brother to learn english as a second language from around the age of 6.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#338

Post by tchaffee »

barry-cotter wrote: post #294
tchaffee wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Large parts of Africa and almost all of Latin America are more highly educated now than 1970s Europe Source please? I have been working in Brazil for the past few years and the education level here is nowhere near 1970s Europe. Not even close. The public primary school system is so bad that any family who can afford it - even poor people - pay for private school. Sometimes only a $100 a month for the cheapest priva…

Algeria, Tunisia, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina and Indonesia all have a greater proportion of the populace in third level education than France did in 1970. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-enrollment-ratio-in...

I can see now where you are getting your idea but that's a quantitative measure only which does not consider quality of education. The reason that 1970s Europe was better educated than Brazil or Latin America today is because of the substandard education so many will get from public secondary school and that's where their education stops. Enrollment ratio in university also doesn't say much about graduation rates. What surprised me after living in Europe and that you will not find nearly as often in Latin America, is just how well educated someone is who only attended secondary school.

Your claim also included a question about why these countries are still poor. Brazil is not competing with the France of the 1970s.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#339

Post by photonemitter »

sitkack wrote: post #47

For all the shallow criticisms and outrage at the quality and mechanization of education, I share the same angst, but as KSP, Factorio and Zachtronics have shown that is there is place for educational games. With that said, we need to when and how to apply it. I would conjecture that education can't be the byproduct, it has to be the goal. And that educational and fun are difficult in the product of each. Given that…

Loved the Zachtronics games, but at a certain point they hit the issue with becoming 5+ h investments into a single problem, and cross the boundary to tediousness.

Only fully finished exapunks, which somehow didn’t scale as harshly wrt time investment.

After looking more into these a month or two back, it seems like they’re very hit or miss with people, and only manage a smaller impact in terms of people playing them.

Re: Video Games Are the Future of Education

#340

Post by tchaffee »

coryrc wrote: post #276
tchaffee wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what criteria? Which countries? When was it better and by how much? Also worth mentioning that everyone is the best armchair quarterback in the world. If you've got new perspectives that are so effective, start your own school and show the experts how wrong they are. Get rich by offering such a better product. It should be child's play to do measurably better than an abject failure.

> start your own school and show the experts how wrong they are Let parents have vouchers to attend my school and I will.

If your ideas are so effective, why can't you compete you against the many private schools already in existence?
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