Play and games alike can be very motivating to children. Yet today, the categories 'education' and 'games' - computer games, that is - can still seem poles apart conceptually. Indeed, to many parents, games are the great enemy of homework. So how can the two be reconciled?

Futurelab's Contagious Creativity conference, held in Bristol on June 12-13 2002, pinpointed two key issues that need to be clarified before real progress can be made in bringing the two sides closer.

The first is whether the contemporary idea of 'fun' needs redefining in the learning context to include satisfaction gained directly from working. The second concerns doubts among educational psychologists about how easily knowledge gained from entertaining, engaging or motivating experiences may be transferred into other settings where it might usefully be applied.

In a debate titled 'It's fun, but do they learn anything?' Guy Claxton, Visiting Professor of Psychology and Education at Bristol University - the academic host-institution to Futurelab - said there was not much evidence that such transfers take place and called for research funding to study the issue.

Melanie Quin, of ECSITE-UK, the science and discovery centres network, pointed out that children often react to exhibits with "yawn - it's a science lesson". She added: "If you show your Archimedes screw, one of the things you are trying to do is transfer an enthusiasm about things".

Claxton confessed to feeling "a bit Victor Meldrewish" at the vision of "all-singing, all-dancing technologies", free from the taint of "edutainment", as the answer to motivational woes in teaching. "You don't go to the gym for a playout; you go for a workout", he said.

This endorsement of creative effort as a road to enjoyment and educational reward was underlined by others, such as local primary head Keith Johnson. He has used computers to link his school with children in Hiroshima, fostering historical insight via personal exchanges of traditional paper cranes.

For him, the danger is of "the teacher being the entertainment console", so that he or she must stand up for five hours on end and react with the slick immediacy of a computer. He believed a key part of the fun was in learning itself, in being able to "do something"; and play was a vital part of this.

Beyond theoretical reservations, there were immediate and practical ones, too. For instance, Johnson worries about cost, about "future-proofing" expensive hardware, about whether to choose simple, affordable software or go for more costly, elaborate applications.

He had spent £23,000 on equipment that might last three years, of which £15,000 was reimbursed by the government. So he had no money left over for software. The only choice then was to rely on simpler programs, focused on children's creativity. (Here, broadband should open up new vistas, especially if new applications can be rented through a schools portal.)

On the games industry side, despite cautious interest in education software, developers harbour doubts about whether schools will provide a market to match burgeoning revenues from pure entertainment. Ironically, their reservations mirror those of front-line teachers: will schools be able to afford copies of software that might cost millions to develop?

Peter Radley, leading light in the Broadband Stakeholder Group and former Alcatel UK Chairman, sought a middle-ground, asking whether interactive games platforms could be adapted to deliver classes in, say, spoken French. One developer said privately that the interest of games companies had not yet gone far beyond "repurposing" older titles. They hope to establish new revenue streams from finished development work, at a low marginal cost.

Yet these difficulties may reflect the birth pangs, not the future. A recent report argues that the big educational publishers have been tardy to invest in content and services on the web. Once the potential market is in place, they could well adopt techniques derived from games software, encouraging games developers themselves to venture into the territory.

And if Futurelab succeeds, the 21st century could be the epoch when learning and play unite in a new creative synthesis enabled by new technologies. The hope is that it will do far more than just put a layer of interactive icing on old-style teaching, but rather foster the emergence of new strategies for learning.


Hugo Davenport can be contacted at hugo1@btclick.com

Contagious Creativity conference overview