Inside Scoop page 1

FED2 IN THE CLASSROOM - GIVING DIRECTIONS ON DIRECTIONS

by Jezz

As an investigative reporter for the Star, I couldn't help but be intrigued when I heard one of our players had used Fed as a teaching aid in a lesson for fifth graders, recently. Wasting no time, I secured an interview with the lady in question, Lilli, who kindly agreed to tear herself away from hauling commodities around Sol long enough to answer a few questions. It turns out that Lilli's class just weren't quite getting the concept of compass points and how they are used in everyday life. So Lilli fired up Fed2 on her laptop and showed them the map of Earth.

My immediate concern for the education of these children was based on whether they might pick up any of Zand's spelling, but Lilli assured me that comms were turned off at all times.

I asked Lilli what the initial reaction from the children was when she showed them the game. She replied, "They were surprised that I play games when I go home... so first they asked me about my home life... then they got into the game."

I tried to imagine my 7th grade Latin teacher, Mrs Waldrum, having any sort of home life, and failed miserably. Obviously, when I was at school, all teachers were kept in metal crates and only let out to torture us with conjugation and ruler-rapped knuckles.

Lilli went on to tell me that her students all face extra challenges with their school work as they have been diagnosed with various conditions such as ADD, ADHD, ODD and Autism. As she put it... "People have labeled these kids unteachable because they have a disability. But they certainly are teachable when you find the tools they are interested in and computers and games are one of the tools I use a lot... they are the future leaders of America or wherever their paths take them."

I'm sure that the concept of a text based game was new to most of them, but Lilli went on to say that the children liked the way that the text moved when they moved in a different direction. They could correlate the moving text with the Fedterm mapping feature. "They enjoyed seeing the movement of the text and seeing that they can actually go into the planets and explore." Very soon they had the concept of the compass points and mapping down pat. I asked if she had considered using Fed for other teaching purposes, such as showing how the way a person writes will influence readers' opinions of them and Lilli said that she had plans to use Fed2 in a number of teaching situations.

"I am going to use Fed for language arts too," she told me. "I hope that it will help them use their imaginations and they will be able to write stories."

I've always thought of that as one of the advantages that a text based game has over the more popular graphics based environments out there. The lack of pictures encourages the mind to create an image of the place being explored, whereas a graphic often falls short of what the mind can achieve without it. It's the difference between reading a good book or seeing someone else's interpretation of that book on film. People who have read the book rarely find that the movie meets their expectations.

Now, here comes the really scary part...

Lilli said, "I will use others' grammar and descriptions as part of a lesson plan as well."

Ha! None of you thought you were going to be graded when you started writing that planet, did you? Maybe you could use this knowledge as a reason to take another look at some of the descriptions you've written and never look at anymore. Maybe you'll be able to stand back and examine what that description conveys to the reader about your planet.

Our intrepid teacher also told me that, when she is ready for a planet of her own, she will let the students write it. I, for one, will be very interested to see what they come up with, given that the only limits to writing a planet is the imagination of the writer.

One thing is certain. Their directions will make sense since they all got As for compass points and mapping!

Do I want a class of fifth graders careening around Fed Dataspace? Well... no. It's not the right game for children of that age, in my opinion. However, that doesn't mean that they aren't perfectly capable of designing a good planet, under the direct supervision of a responsible adult.

Finally, a message to Lilli's fifth grade students if they are reading...

Your maps were so good, your teacher was using them to find her way around. Keep up the good work and never forget that your imagination is the most powerful and precious tool you will ever own. Most of the things you learn in school merely teach you how to exercise it, sharpen it, build upon it and express it. You all have one. Use it often. Use it well.

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