A Computer Game Worthy of Your Attention

Genius game designer Will Wright's new computer game, Spore, is available today. Will Wrights it the inventor of SimCity and The Sims.

According to the fascinating description in Wikipedia,

[Spore] allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation.

The flexibility, customization and extensibility of Spore may make it truly worthy of the "edugaming" hype touted by many educators. Spore benefits from the efforts of a singular vision. It's many forms of gameplay may be attractive to a wide range of users.

Take a look at Spore here.

The Games Teachers Play

We are cheating our students by turning reading into a game of dodgeball.

Perhaps there are many more distractions facing children today, but great teachers continue to create environments where their students want to be and to learn. The answer to bad teaching is better teaching, not another worksheet, get tough movement or quick fix. The sad truth is that schools may be better at destroying interest in a subject than inspiring it.

Read my new article about computerized reading comprehension systems and their threat to literacy.

The Games Teachers Play in the April 2008 issue of District Administration Magazine.