The State of Educational Geography Apps and Games

I was pointed by USA Today to a website  called Common Sense Media. It indexes and reviews educational materials for a variety of platforms including apps, games, books, TV shows and more. I keyed in a search for geography and up came six pages of results, some 100 products. I especially enjoyed the summaries from reviewers:

• "Great educational content; slightly dry gameplay."
• "Find-the-country geography app with detailed statistics."
• "Stunning interactive geography and animal science game."
• "Great way to learn states and capitals by region."
• "Advanced quiz questions target true geography buffs."

These comments suggest to me just what I feared: most of the digital offerings are of the "learn the locations of counties and the capitols of states" variety. Why are these types of resources? They are what developers think parents and educators want. And, they may well be correct on that.

The website gives each product a suggested age target (best for age 10, for example), a star rating (how good, aka fun/engaging is it) and an intriguing measure of "learning potential of a title in terms of whether it's BEST, GOOD, or FAIR for learning -- or not for learning." The criteria for that score:

Dimension	Sample Criteria
Engagement	Is it engaging, fun, absorbing?
Learning approach	Is the learning central and not secondary to the experience? Is it relevant and transferable to real life? Does it build concepts and deep understanding? Do kids get exposure to a diversity of people and situations?
Feedback	Do kids get feedback about their performance? Does their experience (e.g., game play) adjust based on what and how they do?
Support and extensions	Are there opportunities and resources to support, strengthen, and extend learning? Is the title accessible to a variety of audiences?

I think that's a pretty good list for evaluating potential for learning. Sadly, few offerings get the top rating, Best for Learning, symbolized by three books. The grading system is in beta (it launched in April, press release), so only a small fraction of the content is rated. Which of my results rate Best for Learning?

• HowStuffWorks for iPad rates three books, but it's certainly not geography specific or even geography focused.
• National Geographic Challenge has the highest rating in potential for learning among the real geography offerings, but gets just two books, not three. The review may indicate why: "Game show/board game is a blast -- but questions are tough!" Digging deeper you find: "Learning social studies facts is wild fun with this competitive game show." Oh boy, another game to learn facts! Hooray!

This is just one website, one with a limited number of learning products, but I fear it reflects the state of geography apps in 2012. Most seem to attack the need to learn the facts about and locations of the countries and cities of the world. I continue to look forward to the next generation of geography games that teach the underlying principles and skills of geography. I point those interested in this opportunity the shiny new volume of national geography standards, the second edition of Geography for Life.

Siemens Wall-sized Airport Touch EduGames

Last week I was passing through the C terminal of Ronald Reagan Airport in DC. I was stopped in my tracks by a full sized wall display of a city map. Two children maybe 4 and 8 were routing electric cars into a parking lot to charge. They did this by dragging a route the car should travel to one of the open spaces. The cars then started to flash to show they were charging. The goal, best I could tell, was to get as many cars charged up and out of the lot before time ran out. The kids were having a blast and the adults enjoyed the graphics and challenges the kids had finding a safe route to an empty space.

A second game, involved a high rise office building. I actually got to read the directions for a brief moment while Mom explained them to the youngsters. The goal was to lower carbon emissions by lowering the temperature in rooms that were too warm, raising the temperature in rooms that were too cool and turning off lights when rooms had no occupants. Warm rooms got red, cold ones blue. And, you had to be careful not to turn the lights out while someone was still working in an office. If you did, they'd pipe up, "I'm still in here!" You made these changes by touching the rooms that needed adjustment. A thermometer-type display on the left kept track of the building's current emissions, rising and falling as changes were made. I got a kick out of the younger child needing a boost to touch rooms on the upper floors. She seemed to enjoy that part, too!

The game/advertisement was put together by Siemens. Its logo was up on top, but barely visible. Well done! Can we maybe build the game I want to see at the airport? The one where you spin and adjust the carry-on bags to fit the most into the overhead bin? It think that'd be a great "touch style" game for the kids and Mom and Dad!