An all girl school in Tokyo, Joshi Gakuen, is getting the opportunity to be educated by Nintendo DS's. Nintendo is providing the young girls with DS's as well as educational software and "games". The seventh grade girls use the system instead of textbooks, using the stylus to type in English words. An automated voice let's the students know if they got the answer correct.



The educational software isn't limited to enhancing English comprehension and verbal skills but also offers many puzzle games and brain teasers. Despite the enthusiasm showed by the students, who look forward to learning, there are some who feel that this type of education is simply distracting the students from getting a real education. However, the school's Vice Principal is very supportive of this idea, "There was no opposition from the parents. It wasn't that difficult a decision for us. We thought it was a great idea."

I would love to be able to go to school and use my DS to learn in class. This would prevent me from getting bored, like I always do. This would have especially helped me when I was younger or when I took Japanese in high school. This would have been an really fun way to learn hiragana, katakana and even kanji. In fact if there is ever a game that teaches you Japanese, like a My Word Coach, I would get it in a heart beat. How bout you, do you think there's a future in using DS's to teach? Or is it just a gimmick?

Image from npr.org

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Scarecrow_Zero

Once again Nintendo is there to help the human race, yes, i do think that it could be a good teaching mechanism, spacially that people that get bored very easy (like myself),

Aegis

I think this is a good idea but it shouldn't be given to every student. I know a few students who would abuse this and just sit in school and play games. This shouldn't be widely used, if it is, it would be a disater.

JoeSFO

I think, for some applications, the DS could work moderately well. Language learning for example, because the DS has a built-in microphone so that one can practice their pronunciation. There are language learning programs for PC's that work like that. The limitation of the DS with an application like that is that the DS does not excel at speech. I really can't remember any DS games that have any speech in them, though I notice in your article that there's mention of an automated voice in this game, which is surprising.

As a replacement for textbooks, that's a bit of a holy grail that everyone is looking to come up with right now. I read a lot (or try to anyway), so I've bought (still buying, actually) and experimented with a lot of ebook devices in my day, everything from Palm devices to Sony readers to pen-top computers to other things. Nothing out there currently is good enough to replace good old fashioned books. The screens can hurt the eyes, they can be too bulky, the batteries might not last long enough, etc. There are all sorts of challenges. There is new tech coming down the pipe, like e-Ink which is company with a super thin low-power LED sheet technology that's more paper-like than todays large bulky backlit LCD devices. There're also devices that use reflexive LCD screens (an idea they got from studying the way light reflects off butterfly wings, generating their color) to do away with backlighting, conserving power and improving the ability to read the screens in full sunlight. I still haven't seen anything paradigm-shifting in the marketplace yet. Actually, Amazon is now pushing their Kindle device. I haven't tried that out yet. Anyway, back to the DS, I've tried the DS as an ebook reader just for the hell of it. It's more something neat you can show people than it is actually practical. Even among non-dedicated bookreading devices, the resolution of the DS screen is really not great and is no match for other non-dedicated bookreading devices (e.g., the iPod Touch or iPhone) for displaying truetype text.

Cryptoman

I think it'd be a great idea. One can learn loads from playing just regular games (I now have quite a bit of WW2 knowledge and I know some german words from playing Company of Heroes). Personally though, I'd say a jailbroken ipod touch or iphone would work better. A bit more expensive, but you can get ebooks put on it. I have the Bible on mine :P

WestIsBetter

The DS probably speaks better English than whatever human teacher they would've gotten. Srsly, have you heard about japanese English classes? Supposedly they don't even teach English, just some crazy-ass backwards loopy language that happens to use the Roman alphabet.

sedativestorm

I think it will be a distraction. When I was in high school, the graphic calculators with the game snake, or whatever they downloaded, was the main distraction. People
would be sitting in class playing all day during math class.

I agree with Aegis, it should be a reward or something for the students that behave well. There was something similar to this story, only it was some college that gave everyone an ipod to use as a learning mechanism. I don't know if it was successful or not though.

All in all, I believe the DS is a good training mechanism, but not in school, maybe as a homework assignment.

Navie

There is alot of innovative software out for the DS, currently I've been playing around with My French Coach and thus far I have to say it's quite intuitive and impressive. Whether or not it will help me master the language remains to be seen.

klasco

no

information (a proper hardcore text) such as that is expensive and hard to make no right minded would put such information in a non-book format because of cyber theft reasons and a book does suddenly lose data however such software could be incorporated with the book itself like what happens right now anyway

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