There is a global movement toward using games for educational purposes. Japan also experienced an educational game boom several decades ago. Math and Japanese language game cartridges were released for the Famicom. However, none of my friends bought them. Around that time, games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were popular, and I don’t think there was even a premonition that an educational game boom would occur. Furthermore, from a global perspective, Japan’s academic performance was not low, and learning outside of school was sufficiently covered by cram schools (or rather, there was not that much awareness regarding academic ability, which I don’t think is declining even now).
The reason why the educational use of games has become such a hot topic recently is not only due to technological advancements in information devices, networks, and software, but also because there is a globally increasing awareness of improving academic performance, and growing attention toward peripheral factors that lead to academic improvement, such as how to provide learning opportunities outside of school and how to encourage continuous learning.
At the global international conference on Educational Technology, “ED-MEDIA,” many educational games have received awards over the past few years, so I believe many people globally have a positive view of the educational use of games. At an ED-MEDIA conference a few years ago (I believe it was when it was held in Orlando), a teacher from South Africa received an award for a 3D game similar to Biohazard, where a party of four—a doctor, an explorer, a biologist, and one other person (I forgot who)—explore a jungle. I believe the learning objective was to acquire knowledge about emergency response in a medical context. In the game, you encounter wild animals, get attacked, get injured, get bitten by snakes, or contract infectious diseases. The idea is to think about how to respond to each of those troubles.
Recently, there has been an increase in research presentations that review theories to serve as references for designing classes that use games for education or for creating educational games. In Japan, learning software for the Nintendo DS is popular. When it comes to learning games in Japan, I feel that many are designed for individual use rather than for group activities via a network. In Japan, using games in schools is often considered taboo as an educational tool, and it is difficult, but I would like to find a trigger to advance research by viewing them as one effective learning environment.
I think it is a bit difficult to create something with strong entertainment elements like a game solely at a university, but collaborating with game vendors would have a significant impact, and the influence on both academia and industry would be substantial.
Creating a boom, riding a boom, or taking advantage of a boom to produce results requires a certain trigger and investment. The use of games, information devices, and software in education has been receiving more intense public attention in recent years. Those of us who research Educational Technology might feel that the situation has not changed much, but what is clearly different from before is that the public’s eyes are now turned toward us. I believe there is a great deal that we researchers in Educational Technology can do. The rest is creating that trigger. This is difficult. However, I think it is one of the things required of future researchers.
