A blog turning into a game

Most of the team at Ramo grew up playing classic computer games like Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and Reader Rabbit. These games were fun for us (as kids), but were educational in ways that made parents and teachers comfortable. Importantly, many of these games had educational value in the form of real-world learning, not just simple mechanical drills that would have felt too much like school. After all, where else would we learn about dysentery except in Oregon Trail? The developers of these games did a fine job building engaging products that emphasized some kind of learning to make the games meaningful beyond the simple entertainment value.

The big question is, what happened to these terrific game franchises?

The Learning Company, which was a pioneer in the edutainment space and developed titles like the ones above, got acquired by a handful of different companies, including Mattel; it is presently owned by Riverdeep. Looks like many of the original titles are still available, either in a boxed or downloadable format. The Learning Company website references nostalgic memories of Oregon Trail: “Develop solutions to help your friends and family survive the dangers of the long journey, including raging rivers, buffalo stampedes, sickness, and starvation.” Just the skills kids need to be prepared for the 21st century. Unfortunately, some of these games haven’t been updated in a few years.

What are some of your favorite memories of the classics?

When learning about the state of the education system from some of my classmates in business school who were former teachers, I was briefed on, among other things, No Child Left Behind. Briefly, the act has placed a strong emphasis on creating and meeting academic standards at the state-level in math and reading. Schools are judged based on how well their students are doing relative to those standards.

As a result, the education community has been monitoring how schools have adjusted their curriculum to mold to this new policy. Someone recently pointed me to a report released a few months ago by the Center on Education Policy (CEP). The main conclusion of the report was that schools generally are shifting their attention to math and reading, at the expense of other areas, including social studies and the arts. Specifically,

“In its earlier report, CEP found that a majority of school districts—62 percent— had increased time for English language arts (ELA) and/or math in elementary schools since school year 2001-02. Meanwhile, 44 percent had increased time for ELA and/or math at the elementary level, while simultaneously cutting time from one or more areas including science, social studies, art and music, physical education, recess, and lunch.”

In many cases, the report concludes, school districts have increased the amount of instruction time devoted to language arts and math by more than 75 minutes a week.

If the CEP’s conclusions are accurate, and at a first-order they appear to be true and validated by other similar reports, a major question is how students will learn the material that is being less emphasized in schools.