Games, the Future of Education?
9.18.09 | “We’re going through a rapid transition now.” E.O. Wilson says in this recent NPR story. “We’re about to leave print text books behind. For example, I envision visits to different ecosystems that the student could actually enter. Taking this path … going to that hill, with an instructor. And that could be a rain forest, it could be tundra, it could be a Jurassic forest. With all of that experience, I think wonders could be accomplished.”
[Wilson may as well be talking about Quest Atlantis. See Classroom Quest: Virtual Space Brings Academic Content to Life.]
In this interview with Will Wright, the “Steven Spielberg of Game Design,” Wilson argues modern education has been teaching children the wrong way. We need to get back to the way the human mind is programmed to learn. According to the biologist, “When children went out in Paleolithic times, they went with adults and they learned everything they needed to learn by participating in the process.”
Wilson believes virtual reality can be a steppingstone to the real world. It can motivate a child to exploration.
Listen to the full NPR story here.
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