Day: June 22, 2004

Wandering the outside aisles …

When I attend large trade shows, I try to take some time to explore what some of the smaller or startup companies have to offer. “Making it” in the educational software field is tough even if you have a great concept because it can be difficult to gain attention for your products.

Muzzy Lane Software offers a high end “simulation” (I would also classify this product as a simulation/strategy game) that allows history students to take on historical roles, make key decisions, and experience how such decisions might have influenced the course of history. The present game emphasizes WWII era European history. Running beneath the “video game” is a complex structure of rules and a proprietary engine (potentially allowing the adaptation of the technology to other scenarios or content domains.

history game image

The company web site offers a nice page with links to online information on quality education games.

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Context

Now for an old guy moment.

It is sometimes helpful to place present experiences in some type of context and understand the issues and values that shape current policy. You may be aware of the effort to generate a National Technology Plan. As a contribution to this planning effort, scholars from the Education Development Center Center for Children and Technology were asked to shape a A retrospective on 20 years of technology policy. An overview of some of their observations was reported at NECC. The report traces the evolution of present policy through various initiatives back to “A Nation At Risk.” Whatever their professional or political views, it appeared that the authors were quite careful to avoid being judgemental. However, the presenter was quite clear that reactions to the issues outlined in the document should be examined with an awareness of the value systems driving change. (My translation – we had to write as we did because we were paid to do so. We encourage you to take this document as a starting point and be as judgmental as you feel is necessary to accomplish something you feel is meaningful.)

By the way, the list of “influential position papers/reports” provided in this retrospective may be helpful to some (note to edtech graduate students outlining the intro for thesis or dissertation).

Seems to me, we are going in circles and my personal historical context places us back at the point at which we thought meeting individual needs through ILS applications that personalized drill activities was cool.

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