Learning with Adventure Programs

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Keith Campbell

A COUPLE OF BOOKS The educational potential Adventure games is a subject on which I have touched before. Now a book, Learning With Adventure Programs (Melbourne House), has been written especially for teachers. It sets out how an Adventure game, not written with education in mind, can be used in the classroom to help develop many different skills. The author, Rosetta McLeod, Principal Teacher of English at Linkfield Academy, Aberdeen takes three games, The Hobbit, Valhalla and Snowball, and describes how she devised work units for them, under the general headings of reading, writing, talking and listening. Map-making, note-taking and the development creative writing skills are among the many topics introduced in the work units, as well as research projects into the subjects, eg Norse gods, the future of mankind, etc. For each game covered, a detailed work unit is provided. The theme of an Adventure game as the focus for a learning scheme for children of all ages comes over as a very exciting and interesting approach to study. There is also a chapter on the Quill, in which senior pupils had the task of planning their own Adventure games (so this is where they're all coming from, is it?!) This is a book that can be well recommended to teachers in search of innovative uses for their schools' computers.

Personal Computer News

Harriet Arnold

'Learning with Adventure Programs' by Rosetta McLeod, published by Melbourne House at £5.95 (paperback, 86 pages). The micro seems to be a particular victim of the Puritan work ethic. It can't be good unless it's being useful. This book indicates how non-expert parents or teachers can ensure children have some ulterior purpose to their game-playing besides just having fun. Three adventures - The Hobbit, Valhalla, and Snowball - are covered before a chapter on writing your own. A fifth chapter deals with The Quill. The author, an English teacher, first used The Hobbit with a class of low-ability third year pupils and discovered - surprise, surprise - that they showed unusual initiative and enthusiasm. In fact, they even wanted to take the book home with them. (Unheard of.) No advice is offered on setting up etc, but the author managed and so, presumably, can you. Especially if you don't mind taking advice from your 'low ability' pupils who may know more about computers than you. Each chapter covers the learning skills required and developed, as well as how learning objectives worked out in the classroom. A nice touch is the reproduction of pupils' reports on the adventures and snippets of their written work.