October 2007

Americans Want Schools to Teach More 21st Century Skills

With the 2008 Presidential election upon us soon, a new study found that a large number of American voters believe education in this country is lagging, especially in the area of so-called "21st century skills" such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and technology skills.

The study, sponsored by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, found that only 38% of the respondents thought American schools are keeping pace with the educational needs of the new global economy. And only 13% felt that U.S. schools are doing a better job than countries like China and India in preparing students for the demands of the modern workplace. Meanwhile, nearly 90% stated that American schools can and should be putting more emphasis on 21st century skills to help address this problem.

"Ten to fifteen years ago, America was in a back-to-basics mode, meaning focusing strictly on math, science and reading," says Geoff Garin, one of the authors of the report. "The pendulum may have swung too far in one direction. This survey represents a change in the country's attitudes."

And what accounts for this shift in attitudes among American voters? According to another of the report’s authors, Bill McInturff, Americans are feeling a "huge economic anxiety right below the surface" with relation to how well (or poorly) U.S. students are being prepared to compete with students from other countries. "By making education an issue [in the next election]," he says, “we can start a discussion about how to solve our anxiety.”

You can read more about this study and the issue of 21st century skills in general at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/.

 

Handheld Games are Helping Japanese Kids Learn in the Classroom

An increasing number of Japanese schools are relying on portable handheld game devices like the Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP to engage and teach students in the classroom.

In one Tokyo school, teachers use the DS to help students practice their math skills in weekend classes. Another school in Yawata uses the DS to help teach children English and has seen students' performance improve by 40% as a result. And in Osaka, educators have begun to use the PSP with 2nd and 4th graders. "With the game console," says a Japanese education official, "you can feel the fast speed and tempo. I think it matches today’s children."

One of the Osaka teachers currently using the PSP especially values the instant feedback on his students' performance that he gets from the game (as he monitors their game play on his own console). "This is e-learning made in Japan," he says, "traditional efforts in reading, writing and calculating coupled with the power of information technology and game machines."

And while there is substantial opposition in Japan to using games in the classroom (sound familiar?), Sony's Kenichi Fukunaga believes the educational usage of the games is only going to increase. "In every era," Fukunaga says, "parents have worried over a new medium [that] they cannot understand but [that] their children are absorbed in."

To learn more about how games are being used in Japanese schools, go to http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Gaming/1428.html.

 

Can a Video Game Reduce Violence?

Everyone's heard (too much, we think) speculation about how video games are making kids more violent. And that is indeed a controversial issue. What's not controversial, though, is that there's now a new game that's been specifically developed to reduce violence among children.

The game is called FearNot! and it was created by a team of game makers in Germany, Portugal and the U.K. The game, which is being targeted to children aged 8-12, centers around a character who is being bullied. Players of the game assume the role of friend to this child and offer him advice in an effort to help him solve his problem. This advice then influences the victimized character’s behavior and the storyline of the game.

According to one of the researchers involved in FearNot!, Rui Figueiredo, the goal of the game is to get kids to reflect on a sensitive subject, bullying, that’s often swept under the carpet. "This 3-D interactive virtual environment provides a safe haven for individual children," he explains, 'where they witness bullying scenarios without being directly involved."

FearNot! is currently being tested on more than 1,000 children across Europe to determine whether it really can reduce bullying among schoolchildren. You can go to http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/pub/lastnews/last-0-read1618-display to learn more about this exciting new project.

 

Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin ... and Will Wright?

The BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards are the English equivalent of the American Oscars and Emmys rolled into one. And the BAFTA Fellowship has - until now - been one of the highest honors available to film and television artists. We say "until now," because the BAFTA Fellowship was recently bestowed, for the first time, on a game designer - Sims creator Will Wright. While we don't necessarily think that Wright’s award will lead to a game maker winning an Oscar, we're pretty sure it's a sign of game making's increased acceptance as an art form.

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