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=Engineering play: A cultural history of children’s software=

Mizuko, I. (2009). Engineering play: A cultural history of children’s software. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.  

There are mainly 3 categories of games: (a) edutainment - pursue equity in learning; (b) entertainment - entertainment industry; (c) authoring - constructivist approach and hacker sub culture, tool for children to build virtual worlds. Educational games in 1980/1990s did not reflect educational concerns and not researched extensively. Fifth Dimension is a role playing game to determine how participants use the software, emphasizing the context. This led to a new generation of games built on learning science principles. Video game industry seeks to reinsert complex problem solving into games. Ito (2009) describes how educational games drifted away from the educational values. Late 1970's idea of computer software for education was just a beginning. Apple II introduced in 1977 to demonstrate computing power for educators, using it as a tool for creating interactive, child-driven, entertaining, and open-ended learning experiences. In 1980/90 educators began to embrace new technology as alternatives to classroom computing, this was the beginning of new consumer software for elementary age children. Currently, there are many education based games, but research in this area is minimal.