RPGs Were Always Going To Beat Brain Training

The BBC report on further evidence that Brain Training software is of very limited value is here. This may sound like bad news for encouraging the use of games in homes, schools and libraries. It is to some extent, because the headlines may be remembered and held up as evidence against any use of games in learning.

However, in the long term it allows us to set aside the notion that ‘brain training’ methodologies deliver the skills, motivations and employability kids, (and adult learners), can gain from carefully designed roleplaying games.

Astronauts spend 20 months learning about spaceflight

We were recently involved in equipping a school with some DS packs and games. ‘Brain  training’ games didn’t feature at all. The teaching/ gaming materials and evaluations hooked into Nintendogs, Zelda: Spirit Tracks and specific learning outcomes linked to work also being taught in class.

It’s also pretty clear that those training policemen, soldiers, business leaders and astronauts, amongst others, have no problem with using roleplaying and similar active learning methods to prepare their staff for the most demanding assignments. In fact, they often insist on them and many billions of pounds are spent annually on the roleplaying carried out while training police specialists, completing military manoeuvres, ‘upgrading’ corporate executives and preparing astronauts for spaceflight.