Quote: Aldrich

In his book, Learning by Doing, Clark Aldrich recalled a conversation he had about what games can help us learn:

At a vineyard outside of Redmond, Washington, I talked to Xbox^® game designer Howard Phillips about the educational potential of console platforms. I was all excited about the complex systems that could be taught. "That's all true," he acknowledged. "But the biggest opportunity is to teach all of the introductory buzz words and rules of an area."
   "Why?" I asked. "That seems like low value content."
   "Don't look at it that way. People do great on their own learning the big concepts. Once someone gets into a discipline, then the real challenges and issues keep them engaged. But what keeps someone out of a discipline is the simple stuff. If we can get someone past that hurdle in a fun and engaging way, then he can learn the more complicated material" (p. 37).