If I had young children, say 10 years to 18 years of age, I supplement their formal schooling with a few hours of playing EQII each day. There are a number of very good reasons for doing so. 1. EQII teaches how to be an effective member of a team. Unlike the case in regular classes, if a player doesn't quickly learn how to be a good team player, he or she will quickly get excluded from team play. This, in turn, will limit the student's ability to progress in the game which will impress, on the student, the value of being a good team player. 2. The student will learn to work within a 4-dimensional space. Although EQII is on a two-dimensional platform, it works in a three-dimensional pseudospace with length, breadth, and depth. Added to that is time which is critical in making accurate decisions about when to commit, or refrain, from an action. 3. The student will learn effective decision making. EQII requires continuous decision-making as the student plays the game. The effectiveness, of any decision, is generally quickly shown which helps the student become fluent in effective decision making. 4. The student will learn a college-level vocabulary. Unlike many computer games, EQII requires a college-level vocabulary to understand the requirements of many quests and the game's storyline. Student's will soon learn how to look up words, they are unfamiliar with, in order to understand game scripts better. 5. Students will learn the value of higher-math skills. To be a truly effective player many decisions will have to be made about armor, skills, adornments, and other things that require a good deal of math. Students will have to be able to work with, and comprehend, values of numbers not generally used by the general public. They will have to become familiar with fractions and decimals and the order of mathematical operations. 6. Students will learn how to navigate in 4-dimensional space. Flying requires the student to always be aware of their place in four-dimensional space so as not to crash land, or overshoot, or undershoot, their desired landing space. They will have to navigate obstacles that are both fixed and moving. They will also learn how to judge the quickest route from one point to another. I have set out 6 reasons for my student to play EQII. There are many more and I am wondering how many players know what they are. We don't always think of games as great learning tools but they can be some of the finest teaching tools available. My two biological sons are making 6-figure salaries because I encouraged them to play computer games, after their school work was done, and there were no social activities planned. The key, of course, is moderation. It is "a" tool--not the whole enchilada. However, it is a multi-faceted tool and if I was given only one tool to work with, it would be EQII. So please feel free to chime in with reasons you would give for students using EQII as a learning tool. You may well have thought of ones I haven't considered so please give it a go.
I fully admit using FreeRealms then EQ2 (it's been a while) to get my elementary school son to want to learn to read. Kid just would NOT even try to read for himself. "Too hard" "Too boring" etc etc. Stuck him in front of the game, and helped him with a few quests, then told him he'd have to learn to read so he could do them himself because I wasn't going to sit there helping him do the quests the whole time. This was in the days before the blue points of interest and all. Didn't take him long to decide reading wasn't nearly as boring as he thought. We did supplement with Star Wars comic books, but a parent has to do what a parent has to do =) We of course had a lot of stuff turned off (all kinds of game chat save guild chat), with rules and such since he was so young, but it was a good experience.
My son improved his vocabulary and reading skills playing games and watching subtitled anime. I remember back in the day, my brother improved his reading with comic books. Wonder what it will be in the future?
tablets that can run games but have a kernel level learning program that makes kids do studying/learning to get gameplay time for games on the tablet.
From my personal experience from starting EQ2 in 2005 and still playing today, there are some things I can see working and others I can't based upon so many different types of people and mentality. This of course too factors in a much larger age scale ( I would guess maybe ages 8-90 in my experience). Here is were I could agree depending on so many factors but from experiences (especially more-so today) it seems players have a mindset of focusing more on themselves and most of the time get away with it ( I am even guilty of this myself at times ). When they don't get away with it, it does ironically teach them another lesson of "get back up and try again" though others take that as stubbornness. So I can see this reasoning working if teamwork was taught outside of the game and EQ2 used as a tool/example of what was taught. I would guess this would be your teaching method rather than having them log on and saying "Today's lesson is about teamwork! Log-in and do a team activity." I could see working for easy to medium scripting base encounters. Again though tons of factoring from your above reasoning. I have lead tons upon tons of groups and raids where some people are just unteachable from simple jousting or clearing/canceling a detriment within 15 seconds. In a raid leader's position, this is a bit different that being a teacher in a way. A raid leader must get the individual(s) to understand on the spot in a timely manner while holding everyone back. As a teacher (well depending on teacher and methods I would guess, I know nothing of teaching school wise) you move through the lesson to where most understand and help those not so understanding at a later time catch up. This just varies upon luck, IMO. You find people with common sense and you find those who aren't critical thinkers at all (or even just thinkers for that matter). I have seen so many not so bright decisions made in EQ2 in my 13 years of playing. However, again, so many determining factors with this though. I think this varies upon situation as well. On one hand you have trolls who want to correct any spelling error right away when they have the chance. On the other hand you have those that consistently misspell and have terrible grammar. I think this is one of those things that is a mixed type of teaching. It still strongly has to be taught outside of this tool but there are words out there that so many people learn everywhere (work, school, homes, etc.) that they eventually learn by googling. In general, I think this would be the best reasoning. Math is one of my best skills and with this game, it helps me teach people and help micromanage people in so many unbelievable ways. When I helped my co-leader out with some of her stats on her warden, we went though reforging things (in or out) like ability mod, dps mod, haste, multi-attack, reuse, recovery, casting speed, and ae-auto. One giant puzzle of stats figured out for her in the matter of 5 minutes (all hitting minimal caps) and she wonders how I did it. I explained it to her but she thought I was teaching trig or something. A lot of this comes down to what was said above in various sections. It comes down to who you are, knowing or at least figuring out what you are doing in environments. Most areas don't require any critical thinking but there are some that are. Sometimes this can be more frustrating than fun or even a lesson. IMO, there are a few aspects of EQ2 that could be used as a demonstrative tool but first would have to be taught. However, in summary of everything above it comes down to who can learn and comprehend certain aspects and how each person applies what they learn from the world or any given scenario.
Playing EQ/EQ2 taught me to type quickly. When I first started, I had to use a macro to say hello to my guild!
I used to let my son and nephew play EQ, DAoC, and CoH. I let my daughter play other games she found more entertaining. I never let them play online alone and I constantly watched the chat. Not to censor so much as to be ready to explain and help them learn to deal with reality. They learned stuff. It was good.
