Plato Learning is bringing its brand of educational software aimed at elementary and middle school-aged kids to the PSP in North America this April.
Plato's previous educational efforts have been PC or web-based, but Achieve Now will bring 57 games designed to increase math, reading, and language skills to the PSP. The more than 2000 hours of content are geared to mesh with the educational requirements and goals of all 50 states.
"Plato Learning is thrilled to be the first educational technology provider in North America to offer our educational software on such a hugely popular handheld entertainment system," said Plato CEO Mike Morache.
Combining learning with play is a time-honored technique of getting kids to actually pay attention. Many of you reading this wouldn't know much about geography were it not for Carmen Sandiego, and I personally know the flags of the world from playing a memory game called Match Two with my dad.
In that respect, putting educational software on the PSP makes great sense, but it's only half the equation. It's not enough to put the education in the game, you have to put the game in the hands of the child. Are the schools going to provide PSPs to the students, or is this an educational benefit only available to those families that can afford to get a PSP for their kid?
Plato Learning's press release cites data from the Federation of American Scientists which states that "more than 80% of school-aged kids have a videogame console at home, and a majority has two or more. In addition, just over half of those kids who own a video game console also have a handheld game system."
An NES in a closet counts as a videogame console, and a GameBoy Color counts as a handheld game system. Neither is going to run Achieve Now.
It would be great to see Sony donating PSPs to schools across the country. It would be fantastic to see Plato's software show up on the PlayStation Store online, to make it as easy as possible for parents to get it. It seems unlikely that either is a priority for Sony.
My intention is not to diminish Plato's laudable efforts, or suggest that I think it's a bad idea to put "edutainment" on a PSP -- quite the contrary. I believe that combining learning with gaming is a sure-fire way to maintain students' interest and improve valuable learning skills, but without appropriate followthrough, it's little more than a band-aid.
