The Games for Learning Institute wants to grow a new geek crop

Microsoft's partnering with a number of New York colleges and schools to work math- and science-friendly video games into middle-school classrooms. Wait, you say -- don't middle-school kids already have enough love for videogames?

Sure they do. It's love for science, math and computer science that begins to ebb among the middle-school crowd. That's the bridge the Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) hopes to build -- compiling data about how effectively games work as learning tools for the early-teen set and developing titles that re-engage their interest just as they're beginning to study more complex math and science concepts.

G4LI's roots stretch back to 2004, when the coming deficit in college computer-science graduates was becoming painfully obvious. John Nordlinger, program manager for the initiative within Microsoft External Research, says that after talking to a number of educators, Microsoft Research put out an RFC (request for comment) asking universities to outline projects addressing the education gap.

"'We told everybody, 'The more partners, the better the proposal,'" Nordlinger told BetaNews.

The most compelling entry, from New York University, involves seven other colleges and universities and includes multiple departments within NYU, such as its grad-level Interactive Telecommunications Program. Those academic partners contributed $1.5 million to launch the three-year pilot project, and Microsoft matched that.

The other side of the partnership are the middle schools; 19 will be trying out the prototypes eventually developed. (Nordlinger notes with some amusement that since the project was unveiled, other middle schools have gotten in touch asking to be part of the program -- as have 60 colleagues inside Microsoft.) First, though, there's interdisciplinary research to be done into what approaches work, and then a great deal of thinking as to how that translates into real and entertaining games.

You don't normally think of middle-school kids as terrific test subjects; they simply don't think the same as adults, which makes it harder to know what's working and what collected data really means. Part of the interdisciplinary nature of the research -- which, according to various participants, would have ironically made it less appealing to traditional funding sources such as the NSF -- includes having cognitive and developmental psychologists in the mix from the very beginning.

"We took that very seriously," said Nordlinger. "This is like nothing we've ever done before."

In other words, this really isn't Halo. "A first-person shooter -- I'm not sure how that [format] would even fit in with the reflective nature of math concepts," says Nordlinger, though he says some FPS games may have good aspects to them. He cites the venerable Math Blaster, the Brain Age puzzle and logic titles, and the Nintendo DS title Professor Layton and the Curious Village as examples of games that might be relevant to anyone thinking about a project like G4LI. Girl appeal matters too, so social aspects of games like EverQuest, The Sims, or Second Life may come into play.

Nordlinger shrugs off the inevitable questions about Microsoft's motivation: "Sure, we have a games division," but the company's long-term motivation has much more to do with the entire industry's long-term future. "We're really concerned about the pipeline of future employees," he says, since kids who lose interest in math, science and computer science will pursue other interests in college, leading to a dearth of qualified employees as technology becomes more ubiquitous.

That's sensible corporate reasoning, though Nordlinger's own inspiration is a bit more human: "Teachers are unsung heroes. It's nice to do something for them."

So with a new crop of kids each year, how do you stop a project like this after three -- and how do you know if the enthusiastic 13-year-old takes his enthusiasm all the way to college and beyond? There's currently no plan for longitudinal results; Nordlinger says that with the current timeframe, "reporting hasn't come up but we have the right people to do that on the humanities side."

And he does believe that, with so much interest in the project, G4LI could be sustainable well past the three-year mark: "We may have a snowball here, and I hope we do."