Computer games, culture and curriculum

The computer screen glows gold, black and blue as the outline of a domed eastern palace fills out in a desert landscape. To the sound of swirling oriental music, the game's title, Prince of Persia, fills half the screen with dark and ornate Arabic lettering. 'By Jordan Mechner' appears underneath. In an instant the image is gone, but the music remains, its insistent downbeat promising more. As for a silent movie, a framed caption announces: The titles fade. Blackness. The screen now reveals a tower room in the palace-the Sultan's daughter's prison and refuge. Torches flicker on bare stone walls, Persian carpets and cushions are flung across the flagstone floor; the darkness outside the arched window is broken only by twinkling stars. The princess paces the room, wringing her hands. As the music rises to a sinister crescendo, JaHar forces his way into the room, flings his arms into the air, and delivers his ultimatum. The princess gasps and falls back. The screen flashes. As if by magic, an hourglass appears before her, the sands already running through it. Jaffar turns on his heel and strides off screen, leaving the princess bewildered and desolate. A second caption fills the screen: Marry laHar ... or die within the hour. All the princess's hopes rest on the brave youth she loves. Little does she know he is already a prisoner in laHar's dungeons ... (Mechner 1992) In more ways than one, it is a familiar scene. Computer and Nintendo/Sega games now feature in the home life of many students, in Australia and in most other Western countries. By 1993, in the UK, over 70 per cent of homes were equipped to play computer games, with games representing more than 95 per cent of software sold for home computers (Buckingham 1993a). Australian figures are comparable. Computer games represent only one aspect of the technology that saturates the lives of young people today as they 'tune in' to electronic media of many kinds. Indeed, one study found that adolescents were engaged with media for 110 per cent of their day-a statistic that makes more sense once it is understood that young people are engaged with several forms at once-perhaps listening to the radio while playing a computer game, or glancing at the TV in another corner of the room (Bates 1994). This is an experience of the world very different from that offered by most schools; a culture and identity significantly at odds with many of the assumptions made about contemporary curriculum.