Children, teenagers and young adults spend hours on end playing video games. While it's important to have fun in our lives, wouldn't it be great if some of that time was spent doing something of lasting value, something that provided some kind of educational benefit. If you agree, then we have good news, because many game designers are already including a considerable amounts of imaginative educational content in their games.
We don't mean to say that popular video games are becoming like the classroom, because they are not. However, video games have come a long way over the past two decades, and today, many of the most popular games sold contain a variety of educational content. The GRADE™ rating system is a tool for parents and others who would like to know which games have that little something extra that can benefit their children or themselves.
The GRADE™ rating system also serves other purposes, to encourage game designers to include more of educational content in their future games, and to encourage publishers to place our ratings on their packaging so that anyone interested can tell at a glance which games are rich in educational content.
Don't expect electronic games to start looking and feeling educational, because that wouldn't work. It would get in the way of the game, it wouldn't be fun, and it would defeat the purpose. After all, how many people read the encyclopedia for fun? Instead, we are taking advantage of the tendency of the mind to notice and remember things, including an educational element placed somewhere in a game, and especially when that game is played for 50 to 100 hours. We call it Disguised Education™, because nobody is saying, "look at this and memorize it." It's just there to be observed and tucked away in the brain for future reference.
The example we often use is based upon the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.™ In case you aren't aware of the fact, they are ingeniously named after four famous Renaissance artists. When my youngest nephew was about nine years old, I would amaze my friends by having him name on demand four great Renaissance artists, (a feat that few of my adult friends could perform). All I had to do was whisper to my nephew, "the ninja turtles," and he would rattle off their names. Did anyone ask my nephew to memorize the names? Of course not. That would be work. Instead, he learned the names effortlessly, as a tidbit of Disguised EducationTM simply because he played the game and liked the characters.
GRADE will provide ratings on this web site discussing the educational content of popular video games. We will break down that information into useful categories and provide quick reference letter grades for people in a hurry and additional detail for those who want to know more. While this web site is useful to persons of every age, it is intended first as a tool for parents. Feel free to contact us with your comments. P.S. Can you name four great Renaissance artists? I can, and I didn't memorize them.
Leonardo (Leonardo da Vinci)
Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni)
Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi)
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)