A Couple of Games From my Youth

I make no qualms about it, I was a huge gamer in my youth, probably all the way until my early 20’s. Most games have little to no educational value, yes they may help with special awareness and some hand eye coordination, but in reality, most were, well, games. Now this is not to say that all games were uneducational and useless, far from it actually. Off the top of my head I can think of a few that were excellent educational games that were quite popular.

1. TETRIS. Yes this may be the most obvious from an educational standpoint, but it’s still great. Not only was Tetris an addictive and insanely popular game (still is) it is the perfect example of providing a spacial awareness aspect to games. It was revolutionary in the way that it took simple shapes and provided an ongoing puzzle. All pieces were no more than 4 squares, which added to the challenge. There are some complex mathematics behind this game that I still don’t quite get. Other puzzle games, changed the shapes and their sizes, and that’s why they never came close to this one. The simplicity made it great

2. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. For those of us that remember this game it was a geography game. The player was a detective who had to find out where the elusive criminal Carmen Sandiego was hiding though clues and solving puzzles. When they got the answer right the game progressed and the next geography clue was given. The best part about this game was that it disguised education! Really! The player needed to know their geography in order to solve the mystery.

 

 

Posted in: Uncategorized, Week 05: Game-Based Learning