John Madden in Maria Dixon's classroom?

A typical student evening might consist of a little TV-watching while having dinner before sitting down to ponder the eternal question, "Should I do homework or play some video games?"  But if that student happens to be in Dr. Maria Dixon's management communications course, he might be able to do both at the same time.

Yes, video games have made it to the classroom -- and not just "edutainment" titles designed for learning, but games that people usually play for fun.  In Dr. Dixon's case, she's turned the hard-hitting action and play-calling strategy of Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 2008 into lessons in management communications.

Specifically, the students play the "franchise" mode in Madden 2008.  Dr. Dixon shifts the focus away from the X's and O's of football towards the business decisions involved in running an NFL team.  The students end up playing the role of Jerry Jones more than the role of Tony Romo.

Most administrative office activities are simulated in the franchise mode, a far cry from the day when the franchise mode consisted only of trading players and signing free agents.

"It allows us to control all of the business decisions made by an NFL team's front office, from public relations to player personnel,” said Dr. Dixon.  “The online feature allows us to interact with the EA server and have the press respond to our daily efforts.  This is key because it allows students a real-time response to their communication strategies that is not pre-determined by the instructor."

Dr. Dixon first taught using Madden football during the summer of 2004 when she was at the University of Nebraska.  “I had a class full of football players and was looking for a way to teach the theoretical concepts so that they would make sense in the students’ world view,” she said.

The idea worked well in part because of the immediacy of feedback provided by video games.  Students could see whether or not their strategies were effective in bringing more fans to the games, increasing profit margins, and winning the support of the press.

“It is an instant way to make the theory applicable,” Dr. Dixon explained. “It’s like an interactive show and tell.”

Of course, video games aren’t suited for teaching concepts in every class, and not every video game is ideally suited for teaching university-level courses. For every game such as Civilization IV that has a level of historical accuracy embedded within it, there are games such as Halo that simply focus on killing aliens.

“Some courses are just naturally made for video games – engineering, history, communication, business, critical studies,” she said. “ But I am often concerned as a critical scholar of the values that serve as underlying guides for the most popular games, such as Hitman, Grand Theft Auto, etc.  While I believe that with a little work any game can be made educational, most of them are strictly for entertainment.”

Back to February 2008 newsletter