Or even more interesting, I should say. Alex pointed me to Bow Street Runner, an historically accurate game being developed by Britain’s Channel 4. It’s a murder mystery that takes place in the seedier neighborhoods of Georgian London, and the production values are fantastic. You poke around at things, talk to people, and little by little the facts are uncovered.
Makes me wish for programs of similar quality to be developed here for education. Imagine doing problem-based learning in this format as a way to teach history and reasoning at the same time. The Jasper Woodbury videodiscs pointed the way years ago. Today’s kids would want something a bit edgier and more interactive. Who’d be up to the task? Discovery Learning? The History Channel? Has to be someone with deepish pockets.
Maybe we’ll be returning soon to a time like the post-Sputnik years when federal dollars were spent developing creative new curriculum and not just on testing the bejesus out of kids. One can hope.