Can Baldur's Gate be used to teach English and Math skills?
DrWastelandMD
Member Posts: 3
I've always been a die hard fan of the BG Franchise - it's one of the few games that I love as much as an adult as I did as a kid (maybe even more so). I've always felt that playing BG as a kid gave me a bit of a "leg-up" when it came to reading and later in life BG even made it easier for me to understand Shakespeare. Maybe if I had been paying more attention, it could have helped me with my Math skills too!
In the past few years, I've begun working as a teacher using video games - its an emerging movement called Digital Game-Based Learning (in the US). I haven't had the chance to use BG with students yet, because I have not yet had the opportunity to work with anything other than elementary age students. However, I have begun writing reviews of games from an educational viewpoint for Edu-Gaming.com - and Baldur's Gate was a top priority for me.
Check out my review and let me know your thoughts in the comments below: https://edu-gaming.com/reviews/27-rpg/315-baldur-s-gate
In the past few years, I've begun working as a teacher using video games - its an emerging movement called Digital Game-Based Learning (in the US). I haven't had the chance to use BG with students yet, because I have not yet had the opportunity to work with anything other than elementary age students. However, I have begun writing reviews of games from an educational viewpoint for Edu-Gaming.com - and Baldur's Gate was a top priority for me.
Check out my review and let me know your thoughts in the comments below: https://edu-gaming.com/reviews/27-rpg/315-baldur-s-gate
5
Comments
In the United States, especially in the so-called "Bible Belt" states of the southeast, there will be religious objections made to the occultism and paganism in D&D, that may be worse than the moral objections to drinking alcohol, violence, and prostitution that you have already anticipated. Expect many, many parents to refuse to allow their children to participate. Religious private schools will likely reject the project automatically.
I hate to be too pessimistic or negative about the idea, but I am and have been both a public school and private school teacher in the southern U.S., and I am intimately familiar with cultural attitudes here. While I doubt it would work here, it might work in some countries and in some regions and educational contexts within the U.S.
I don't know what your professional background is in the field of education. In the U.S. you have to create written lesson plans with clearly stated objectives that are part of an intricately designed written curriculum, which must be submitted to and approved by a principal. There is extreme pressure to prepare for standardized tests. You can't just spend class time on whatever you want. Teachers here often complain that they can't engage in any creative teaching, but the profession is what it is, and your choices are to conform or to be fired for incompetence and/or insubordination. And woe be unto you if your students perform poorly on any standardized test.
On the other hand, as part of a menu of choices offered to college or adult students, especially in English as a Second Language classes, the project could do very well.
As far as using video games as an educational tool in U.S. primary or secondary schools though, you will have to demonstrate and document exactly what educational objectives are being accomplished through the games, and your students will have to pass tests demonstrating their mastery of whatever objective the games were supposed to teach them.
To gain acceptance of using video games to teach at the college level, you would be expected to perform research that clearly documents a benefit to learning from the games, and you would have to submit papers about it for peer review. I hate to say it, but there are too many professors out there who take great delight in shooting down the ideas of other professors.
I'm trying to shoot straight with you here, as one professional educator to another, rather than just being unconditionally nice and supportive about it as I would normally prefer to be.
Research has shown that instant feedback, the type you can get from many tablet edu games, is amazingly effective. All children have access to tablets and tablet games at my school. Look up education and feedback, you will be inundated.
Feedback can be descriptive or simply you are right or wrong... Both are effective and powerful educational tools.
Is Balders gate an educational game? Yes. It is full of maths. It develops literacy skills through reading. It encourages strategic thinking, gives the oportunity to develop soft skills, morality and even empathy.
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Oh yes and a chance to role play.
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Would I use it in the classroom? No.
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It is immersive. A child can benefit from playing it, but they do not need me to help, aid or instruct. The taxpayer would not be getting their bang for their buck
So I encourage such play at home, then I will attempt to show them the wonders of fractions using pizza...
Every culture is Caucasian...
As a artist, you can get away with the most bs things as long as it looks awesome.
All females have massive breast, and anatomy doesn't always work the same for them.
But seriously, I agree with what was said above. For someone to be able to truly learn from something, in this case BG, they would already require some kind of interest in it.
I also understand there was a major videogame recently that actually took place in Africa. I think it was one of the Resident Evil games.
I'm afraid yours too late. I've already played morrowind sir.
Also, wasn't there a load of controversy surrounding that resident evil game?
Meanwhile I think it's a great tool to teach english. Especially since it's pretty well written and written in a more classic english style. I think games is a brilliant way of learning languages. I remember, for at least english, I learned it really fast and was far ahead in school just because I played a lot of Pokemon on the GameBoy as a kid.
The problem with bringing a game like Baldurs Gate to the table is that it caters to a very narrow audience. I don't think the general reception of a game like that, across a common class room, would be postive.
Now i'm drifting back to fond memories of things like:
Times tables
Biff, Chip and Kipper
typing everything in sand font
bronze silver and gold stars and certificates
struggling to get the nice new hymn books instead of the mangy old ones.
studying the really cool parts of history like ancient Egypt, the Tudors and the Romans
having to do everything in joined up handwriting
Pumps
Bench ball
group reading
going to library and forgetting your library card.
playing whippy at lunch.
Being a kid was fun.
I think there was a little more to it then that, I'm for from a overly sensitive man, but I see how it could be viewed as insensitive. Without going into the politics, resident evil plays with something that is a more serious issue than in the states or parts of Europe. Now I stopped playing RE at 2, but my understanding standing is that the virus was developed or started in Africa, based on that resident evil. To some people that can be viewed as the continued demonization of Africa that tends to happen in media.
Compared to say resident evil 4 which took place in Spain, but Spain doesn't have as bad of stigmas that get tossed on Africa. If media isn't demonizing the religions of Africa, its telling a half truth about its people. Now a days it isn't as bad as in the past...
http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/marchandslides.bak/8894.jpg
But the stigma is still played with today.
I'm also not saying the developers of RE were saying that or going that direction, but I do believe they knew what they were getting into and just didn't care.
We still have biff, chip and kipper.
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Now my education highlights include...
Playing PE in a vest and shorts, team games were played between vests and skins (you had to take your vest off)
Admiring the teachers ability to hit people with chalk for not paying attention.
Getting lost in the abandoned air raid shelter on the 10 acres of playground (although you weren't allowed to cross the racetrack to play in the sandpit)
Having iodine blotted on your cuts and grazes, which were many as part of the playground was grit over gravel.
Reading Tom and Jane...
Completing Scottish Primary Math books... We were never taught maths... You just did the book.
Playing the first education game The Crystal Flower on a BBC micro...
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So...
How old am I?
A bit about me and my work - I am beginning of my career in education, with a focus in DGBL. I believe in DGBL because it provides the engagement that so many lessons miss. Sure, a textbook may be able to teach specific standards and skills, but it lacks engagement, and most teachers on their own struggle to make up for that.
For those that wonder what a DGBL lesson would look like, feel free to check out my GDrive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6-kKfUASIz6X3YwOHIzVnlxRG8
I argue that DGBL should be used to support and compliment an existing curriculum in order to contextualize learning goals outside of classroom objectives. It's the difference between being told the definition to a word and hearing that word in the middle of a conversation - the most important factors become A] how engaged are players and B] how well can the teacher apply the game to their existing curriculum. Obviously, not every student will be engaged by video games, just as not every student will be engaged by watching a film or reading an article, but those students that are engaged tend to be very into it. Similarly, if the teacher has not properly integrated the game into their curriculum, or if they are using a game that is not well suited to their curriculum simply to stimulate engagement, the whole thing falls apart. I have entered classrooms that had been using video games for weeks with little to no teacher guidance, and the results are always deplorable. Digital Game-Based Learning does not advocate "free gaming time" - lessons must be carefully honed and planned in order for this tool to be effective. The point is - DGBL only works for the classroom (and students) if it works for the teacher.
http://edergbl.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/47991237/digital game based learning 2006.pdf
I would never advocate using DGBL to replace tools such as textbooks, films, books, and especially good ol' teachin', but neither would I dismiss it as being ineffective simply because it takes creativity, understanding, and willingness on the part of the teacher. In fact, I have worked with many educators that initially did not see a benefit to using DGBL, but eventually warmed up to it and began using it on their own (especially with Minecraft).
The single best argument I can make for DGBL to a teacher is this: "If I told you that your students go home and do a single activity everyday for 1-3 hours that involves math, reading, science, social studies and virtually every other academic subject, wouldn't your next question be 'How can I start using that in my classroom?' That is Digital Game-Based Learning."
Again, thanks so much for your interest and feedback, and feel free to join https://edu-gaming.com/ if you'd like to engage with gamers, educators, and parents that see potential in DGBL and eLearning.
I'd guess you're around 35
Also in your article you put the existence of bars in the game as a con. Maybe it is, but there is something I would like to mention about that. On one of my first playthroughs of Baldur's Gate (when I was very young), I made my character go into a bar and drink a lot of alcohol. He got really intoxicated. One way or another I found out that it was bad for the character to get intoxicated. So I wondered, why would anyone want to drink in a tavern if it gets them intoxicated and does nothing good for them?
To this day, I have not drunk any alcohol in my life and I don't plan on ever doing so.
I would not place BG above any other book as a teaching object. Yes, you can learn new words, new things about math maybe, other literature reated ideas, but from a teaching perspective I can only see it as a book. A book that takes a really long time to read.
Obviously we use books in education. So BG, on a theoretical level, could be used in education(good luck trying to get whatever committee that makes curriculum accept it as an American Classic though) but I don't think you would be able to do anything else with it. Anyone old enough to play BG isn't learning anything new about math from THOC0, even if it does still make their head hurt.
I see the appeal of iPad games to teach elementary school children math or vocab or whatever, but that's cause your teaching relatively simple concepts to kids that are easily captivated by a screen. The "gamification of learning" is a buzzword that's been thrown around a lot lately, but as kids get older this is harder to do. You tell a Kindergartener he got 5 points for solving 2+2 and show him a shiney graphic with cartoon confetti he'll get pretty excited and readily solve 3+3, but middle schoolers are quick enough to relize that 5 points doesn't actually mean anything and their far less likely to continue paying attention.
As kids get older the "gamification" get more complex, and that leaves less room for educational content, so there comes a point where it just isn't effective anymore.
Every new generation of technology someone comes out with a new educational product that will "revolotionize the classroom" and every generation of technology the classroom remains unrevolutionized. Some kids still misbehave, some kids still don't pay a attention, and some kids are still dumb. The school system is perpetually "broken" and the next shiny model of iPad is perpetually poised to fix it.
Education technology progresses at a slow creep just like everything else. Every generation of technology improves the classroom, but there is no magic bullet and we need to stop expecting one. I think it s possible that at its core the education system is either not broken, or if it is broken it can never be fixed. To me it's seems this is the way it always has been and probably always will be. The universe hates change.
There's no substitute for a good teacher, but there's also no agreement on which teachers are the good ones. That's the heart of the problem and I'm not sure it's a solvable one.
Sorry if this is a little rambling. I'm kinda tired.
Compare it to heroin. Heroin is worse, yes.
Compare it to marijuana. Alcohol is worse, yes.
Come on, guys, I already qualified the statement. I said "one of the most," not "the most." I included that qualification specifically not to exaggerate.
I know it's not the most addictive or toxic thing around. That's why I didn't say it was.
As for bars... I think it's worth pointing out adult themes in games when talking about e-learning. Games like Baldur's Gate might not be suitable for all ages but I don't see why it couldn't be used at University level? I expect the influence of media on society is quite a hot topic.