A blog turning into a game

California’s new requirement that all 8^th graders complete algebra is very ambitious given the state’s current budget crisis. The mandate, which won’t go into effect until 2011, does have a positive outcome in that politicians are finally waking up to the fact that our schools are failing to keep kids interested in math. However, is a mandate the right way to go?

In a recent San Francisco Chronicle article titled “Algebra – it’s everywhere”, Jill Tucker writes about how our current math programs may be turning kids off. In her article, she quotes Stanford Mathematics Professor Keith Devlin as stating, “”Most of us who become mathematicians do so not because of our education but in spite of it,” Devlin said. “We’re turning kids off a subject that is useful and incredibly interesting and beautiful if taught correctly.”

The Science Journal’s July 25th article titled “Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance” stated that US standardized test now show equality in math test scores between boys and girls.  Can we now put all opinions stating the contrary to rest now?   Hopefully, however we must acknowledge that we have a long way to go in terms of getting more females into traditionally male dominated careers such as engineering and science.

The first step is to help girls stay interested in math and science well into high school.  One possible opportunity to do so is with educational games focused on girls.  Educational games could help reinforce math concepts in an environment where girls can engage, discuss and explore math and science concepts with other girls who have similar interests.  Too often math and science concepts are presented in a context that favors the interests of boys more than girls.  Math games that appeal to the interest of girls could help keep them engaged and interested in math.

In general, to keep girls interested in math and science we need to focus on creating a learning environment that lets them explore and apply these concepts in a manner that is fun, safe and engaging.

There has been a significant amount of activity in the virtual world / MMOG market the past year, especially for kids. But when it comes to gaming, there are strong differences in what features and gameplay that different genders prefer. With the adult market, for example, we know that men tend to prefer MMOGs, while women prefer casual games (though this trend is changing). Yasmin Kafai at UCLA has done a substantial amount of research on gender differences in kids’ video games that is worth looking into.

Some of the research we have done, including focus groups, have raised several interesting results. For example, boys (unsurprisingly) like competition, leaderboards, and anything involving action-shooting-destruction. Guys like stories involving outer space and war. Girls care more about the underlying storyboard - the background context that the user is playing in. They also tend to enjoy customizing and dressing their avatars. Girls also tend to like racing games.

In building any product, especially gaming, picking a niche audience is vital. In addition to the technology element, there are too many creative decisions that need to be made that are impacted by who the underlying user is. Many games have built great audiences focusing on a single gender: Stardoll for girls, for example. Other sites have successfully managed to shrink the gender gap over time. Whyville, an education virtual world for kids, started out as very female-heavy, but has since shifted its audience to be more equal.

On a related note, Google announced the launch of its virtual world product, Lively, today. The product appears to be a serious challenge to the virtual world space currently dominated by Second Life. A study last year by Nottingham Trent University concluded that a significant portion of virtual world users switch genders when they register online: 70% of women and 54% of men. It will be interesting to see how this plays out with Google’s new product, which looks to be gender-neutral at first glance. Raph Koster has a good summary and discussion of the announcement on his blog.