Huh, she must have never played an old-school RPG like Baldur's Gate. (So...much...text!)  In all seriousness I think she has a point in that video games aren't some "smoking gun" that will get kids to read.  However I don't think she gets the idea that video games, some by their very design, promote critical thinking, management, and problem solving.  I don't think video games can replace academics but the right games can have positive mental effects in other areas that you can't necessarily measure.

Tea and cake or death! Tea and cake or death! Little Red Cook-book! Little Red Cook-book!

Yep, never used any reading skills playing any kind of RPG. Obviously!

True, Age of Empires isn't going to teach you much about anything historical (at least very accurately, been a while but I believe each level has a little history blurb; correct me if I'm wrong). But yes, you CAN read while playing video games. It just depends on the type.

I'm not going to get far trying to read by playing something like Super Mario Bros., but reading is necessary for any kind of RPG (at least to enjoy it). How does one learn? Practice, practice, practice.

"Yes, I also loved Age of Empires in high school and played it obsessively, and sadly, it taught me nothing about ancient history. That's because a video game is... the creation of video game designers... If they want to design a victory that requires the ancient Egyptians to build a hydrogen bomb, they can do that..."

If I want to write a book, that has Ancient Egyptians nuke Atlantis, I can do that too. I can even tell people about it in a classroom. Arguing, that games can't be educational by proving, that they needn't be - someone should make an educational game about logic and give it to her.

Depends on the focus of a game. The only limit to the ability to make profitable and fun educational games is creativity.

If playing Age of Empires (or Civilization) helps a player get an even a basic understanding of warfare, history, or the role and structure of government in history and makes it interesting enough for them to do their own research and reading, then the game is indeed educational.

On the other hand, blogging is basically an expression of opinions written by authors who often have no verifiable track record of reliability, reasonability, or even mental stability. Yet too many Net denizens seem to formulate their political and social world views based on these unverifiable, unsubstantiateable opinions.

For the record, this writer has been a developer on Age of Empires projects and is likely to be a bit biased. So there.

--Verbinator

And one has to love the added jab at manga that was added at the beggining.

I mean really.  Pokemon was released way back when I'm pretty sure translations weren't as good.  Also its fudging Pokemon.   Its not going to be Shakespear.  Its going to be pokemon.  Of course the dialogue will be childish.  ITS FUDGING POKEMONZZ!

I think games can demonstrate concepts and possibly atmosphere.  However, cold hard facts are best learned through passive means like books or television (Carl Sagan's Cosmos series comes to mind).

Too often, the interactivity of educational games gets between the player and the concepts it conveys.  While games may help some people learn, public schooling should be more concerned with what works the quickest, best, and cheapest for the most students. 

If it weren't for playing RPG video games as a kid I would've never taken interest in fantasy.  If I had never taken interest in fantasy I would've never read 'The Hobbit' or 'The Lord of the Rings'.  If I had never taken an interest in fantasy I would've never taken that classics course in university where I read 'The Iliad' or 'The Odyssey'.  Video games also inspired me to write my own fantasy novels as a kid.

Video games are the sole reason I read at all.

 All I know about migrating westward I know from The Oregon Trail. If I never played Zero Wing, I wouldn't be able to understand emails from management/CEOs/VPs. If I never played Zork, I wouldn't know how to work automated customer service over the phone. (they're always looking for the right phrase to go to the next level)

My 6 year old has learned a lot in just a few months playing learning games on the Nintendo DS.

I'd like to think my love of RPG's during the playstation 1 era, when voice work was still pretty much a dream, really contributed to not only my ability to read, and my love of reading.

I was one of the only gamers in my classess throughout my elementry years, and i was also one of the few that read for enjoyment. Some schools i went through even had books with numerical values, which we would read and then take a quiz on, if we passed, we got the number of points the book was worth.  I was never anywhere but 1st place (or tied for first, one girl who came shortly after i did gave me a run for my money).  Whenever my dad watched me play Final Fantasy, he refused to believe i was actually reading the lines as quickly as i was, but i did.

Is there a scientificly sound connection?...no, but i still think there was one.

Video game manuals also throw in words such as "hirsute" and "premonition" and they're in manuals for E-rated games. You don't expect the average 10 year old to know these things, but it would get some to look for the meanings of the words. I think it's great when E for All games really talk to all audiences and not just the pre-teen set that some E-rated games are usually for.

I would challenge her to find a better way of explaining the basics of supply/demand and inflation/deflation to a teenager than the economy of WoW.

Is gaming going to get you a doctorate in brain surgery? No of course not. But they can help develop skills like problem solving, critical thinking, etc. They can also get someone interested in a subject and think about various social/moral issues.

Video games will never be a substitute for schools but they can still be a good supplement.

There's a lot that games can teach which can't be learned from books.

How to read and instinctively navigate a map. How to work as a team by setting individual and cooperative goals. How to manipulate things in 3D space to solve problems. How to manage resources to prepare for and respond to a crisis. How to interpret potential danger using limited visual and audio clues. How to recover from failure and learn from mistakes, and predict when either are imminent. How to improve reflexes and critical response thinking. How to accurately judge time and distance.

Go on. Learn those from books. I challenged those skills earlier today playing freaking Burnout, a game about carz goin smashy smashy.

I think she's also missing that games can be tailor made to exact specifications - sure I could give the ancient Egyptians a hydrogen bomb should I choose to design it that way but I can also make a game revolving around organic chemistry or specific historical events... one of the first titles I worked on got its material directly from Japanese history text books....

But looking at commercial titles already available - how many World War II shooters do we have? Games need to be entertaining first but playing something like BattleField 1942 or Vietnam can provide a catalyst to further studies and integrate into the learning process...

Oh well - it looks like it's back to the shelves with you Mavis Beacon...

(...and Typing of the Dead)

"Math Kickers featuring the Algebros? When will videogames learn; you can't learn from videogames!" - Strong Bad

岩「…Ace beats Jack」

I actually did a report and speech in high school on the educational benefits of video games. My visual was a segment of a Final Fantasy X battle recorded. If you ever want an example of video games leading to actual learning, a good rpg is always the best example I can come up with. Combining problem solving, challenges comparable to a game of chess, and often reading into a history of mythology that while fictional, still possesses as much literary merit as any fantasy novel.

I find the argument for games as education about as compelling as games promoting violence. 

Games are a fun hooby and generally harmless.  They may influence what people will read about but smart kids will read because they enjoy it.  Ultimately that's about it. 

Miss Self Important obviously hasn't played games that teach history like The Last Express, Silent Hunter III, Rome: Total War or Close Combat: a Bridge Too Far.  Clearly she hasn't picked up games that educate young children, like Backyardigans: Mission to Mars.  She hasn't bought games like Chessmaster, which give the player's brain a good workout.  There are many games which are very educational, but like everything else in this world you don't find the gems unless you do research and sort the good stuff from the bad.  She also fails to realise that most of the egregious spelling on internet message boards comes from high school students, and not from folks who have completed a basic education.

It would be really nice if the people posting over there, particularly the ones coming from here, would use a civilized tone, logical arguments, and proper spelling and grammar.

Especially considering the nature of the debate.

A number of us are, but...yeah.

I learned more about WW2 from Medal of honor, Brothers in arms, and Wolfenstein than public school ever taught me.

My wife is a first year high school teacher who is thinking about continuing her education in learning and literacy. One of her favorite fields of study is that of literacy in video games; she may go as far as to do som of her own research in the field. But I can tell you now that there is some good literature out there on this topic. Just as "Lies my teacher told me" is a revisionist history text that I feel everyone should read, everyone weighing in on this debate about video games and literacy should read James Paul Gee's "What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy". I have only recently read this book myself after my wife bought it for hersel, but I can tell you that it this fairly unknown book is a gem. It has hilarious musings from an older academic as he picks up that habit of gaming that reference trends and occurences as well as games that most avid gamers can identify and laugh at. And for those critical of games, it contains a wealth of academic work validating games as a learning medium, no not just brain-age, and could potentially sway some of them over to "our" side. He is currently working on an updated version that will include the next-gen consoles, and whereas his work does not touch on gaming additction or gender in gaming I see from recently posted stories here, that others do.

The single instance this article offers of the connection between gaming and reading. I agree with these words.

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