I am a Computer Science Major with an East Asian Studies Minor that likes to play video games and is interested in new technology. I'm especially excited in using games to help students learn difficult subjects such as language, math, etc.. I remember when I was a kid all the games that I used to play in school and how much I enjoyed them. I remember the characters in those games better than most of my teachers up until the 8th grade.
I'm afraid that the drive to create educational video games is not as strong or they are not as accepted in the school system as they used to be during my elementary school days. I have two little sisters going through elementary and middle school at the moment and the most they've used technology for is word processing and making graphs with excel. That, in my mind, is depressing. I would like to make a game that would be welcomed to educators, parents and students. The misconception that video games are a waste of time and have no place in a child's learning environment is absurd. Video games are not just about violence and corruption, there is much that can be learned using the learning methods in video games.
One thing that I would like to share are some Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) talks. If you haven't heard of the TED talks before I highly suggest watching as many as you can because most of them are mind-blowingly insightful.
Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves
Jonathan Drori on what we think we know
Johnny Lee demos wii remote hacks-not really relevent but still cool.
My game design is in this google doc:
Leah's Game Concept
