MS: The perspective many people hold, both educators and parents, is that games should not be part of formal education. The American fabric of education holds that learning cannot be pleasurable. All of us have heard the saying, “No pain, no gain.” If you are having fun then there is something wrong.

It is the proclivity of all western educators and educational literature to quantify and rank. Today’s schools administer tests and assessments to measure and quantify specific knowledge and need visible artifacts. Yet, we don’t even realize the deep learning going on and the amount of assessment inherent in a game. Game designers put more feedback and assessment in one half hour of play than a whole day of schoolwork. Our challenge as educators is to first understand the kind of learning, assessment, and feedback going on in games, and then work with those responsible for creating games to develop content into meaningful processes that connect with educational curriculum.

Today’s overemphasis on tests has caused a reaction in some circles toward more meaningful learning environments that engage the learner. We have to tackle this matter head on. The antidote to today’s test intensive schools are not only games, but project-based learning approaches. We are seeing the first early wave of this movement to more engaging learning. Even within the current Bush administration, the word is that they are interested in games for education. For example, Susan Patrick, the Education Technology Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US DOE, has recently called for more attention to the role that games can play in education. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) shouldn’t just mean learning to gain higher test skills and assimilation of facts. Today’s 21st century learning skills require students to think deeply, reflect, and understand from a global perspective.

	Game designers put more feedback and assessment in one half hour of play than a whole day of schoolwork.

Marc Prensky writes that schools are becoming increasingly irrelevant to today’s younger generation who spend a good deal of time outside of school learning in multi-dimensional, simulated environments. Young people (and their parents) are looking for alternatives to traditional schooling as evidenced by the increasing numbers of home schoolers and charter schools². Mike stresses, “We need to find a way to bring educational games into the classroom!”

	I am fascinated with how kids multi-task. We use the term “multi-task” fairly regularly, but do we know if it’s seen a tremendous evolution in a single generation? A player is constantly scanning the screen and taking in visual, oral, and textual cues. Playing requires quick assessment of actions happening in different parts of the screen, e.g., calculations about how much resource is needed and how much is left, whether to spend resources to build a transport station...

Not all games are arcade format, action-packed and fast moving. Some games, like online chess, are more reflective and provide time for well thought out decisions. You can look at non-computer games like Dungeons and Dragons or Magic Cards, and see that kids are also enamored of slow moving, thoughtful games. When thinking about the design of educational games, we want to think reflection!

Looking at game anthropology, games cross boundaries. They are a great equalizer. When you are playing over the Internet, you don’t know if you are playing with someone from an urban city like Newark, a suburban community such as Montclair, or a rural town in New Jersey. When students are engaged in playing, they don’t care whether a person has a different skin color. Even gender differences are beginning to disappear as more games are designed for girls’ preferences.³