Video games have become a “major segment of the entertainment business and children spend hour after hour playing and talking about them.” When children play video games they are completely engaged and they keep coming back to it, like they are addicted, so why not make a video game that children can learn from and they will come back to and play over and over again? “Computers are not judgmental, do not mind countless repetition and can provide a setting where scenarios can be explored with the fear of embarrassment”-Metacognition and Strategy Instruction Seminar. Using a computer game also creates a sense of comfort instead of learning in a stressful environment. “Game playing participants demonstrated focused attention and enjoyment and expressed reluctance to leave the computer labs after the gaming session had ended” (Ke, 2008).
The first game I would like to start out talking about is a childhood favorite of mine, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego. It is an educational computer and video game. It also was a television game show. “The basic premise of the franchise lets the user or protagonists become agents of the ACME Detective Agency, who attempts to thwart and capture V.I.L.E. ringleader and former ACME agent Carmen Sandiego. The franchise initially focused on teaching geography and history, though it later branched out into mathematics, English, and other subjects.”
One of the main goals when creating the educational computer game was to get kids interested in geography, and trust me it worked. I would play that game for hours not even realizing that I was learning anything. I guess just like in my previous blog that’s where the word edutainment came in to play. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego also aimed to teach kids about different world cultures and it helped kids use deductive reasoning to track and hunt down the villians. Furthermore, some of the clues that were given to find Carmen Sandiego were taken from the World Almanac. This game has been and continues to educate and entertain children. They have come out with many various forms of this game that deal with mathematics as well as history and time. The game was invented in the late 1980's and continues to be a popular childrens game, it even is on facebook!
One of the main goals when creating the educational computer game was to get kids interested in geography, and trust me it worked. I would play that game for hours not even realizing that I was learning anything. I guess just like in my previous blog that’s where the word edutainment came in to play. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego also aimed to teach kids about different world cultures and it helped kids use deductive reasoning to track and hunt down the villians. Furthermore, some of the clues that were given to find Carmen Sandiego were taken from the World Almanac. This game has been and continues to educate and entertain children. They have come out with many various forms of this game that deal with mathematics as well as history and time. The game was invented in the late 1980's and continues to be a popular childrens game, it even is on facebook!
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