{"id":1996,"date":"2012-01-25T09:44:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T16:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2014-09-12T11:48:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T17:48:49","slug":"choose-education-or-fun-apparently-you-cant-have-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/01\/25\/choose-education-or-fun-apparently-you-cant-have-both\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose: Education OR Fun. Apparently, you can’t have both."},"content":{"rendered":"Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>

I’ve talked about this before (Trading off between Education and Fun??? SRSLY?<\/a>, and FUN Should NOT be an \u2018F\u2019-Word<\/a>). I even wrote about this in my book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The "Serious Games Continuum"<\/p><\/div>\n

Many people in Education seem to believe that fun and education are at odds with each other.<\/p>\n

It’s discouraging that this fallacy is so tenacious.<\/p>\n

I got an offer in the mail today to answer a challenge to create an “idea for how interactive technology and game-based learning can improve teaching and learning”. I won’t name the source because it is not my intent to single them out. I have no desire to embarrass anyone. Here is the line that caught my eye:<\/p>\n

…games could be as engaging as launching birds at pigs
\nand as educational as reading a textbook…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WOW.<\/p>\n

Yes it’s true that Angry Birds<\/a> is a lot of fun. I’m not sure it should be touted as the epitome of engagement – a big part of what makes it so much fun is that it asks very little of the player – it doesn’t take long to do a round, and you don’t need to know anything (not really). On the other hand, it’s definitely worth looking at some of the things that make it so good: the audio, the interface is easy to understand, the gameplay is clean and accurate, …. We can learn from that, but there are other games I would use as examples of engaging – Portal<\/a> maybe, or Skyrim<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But that’s not my big beef. My BIG beef is the second part: as educational as reading a textbook<\/strong><\/em>. Really? REALLY?!<\/p>\n

I guess if people believe that textbooks are the epitome of “educational”, then the Ed-Fun continuum is not a surprize.<\/p>\n

We have a long, LONG way to go.<\/p>\n