Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego
General idea of the game
In the game, player is an agent of Acme Detective Agency. The players job is to solve different crime cases. When trying to solve the crime cases you need to travel to different countries. The player always have to solve somekind of a puzzle if he wishes to travel to the right city. The player gets usually about 5 or 6 different city options and based on the hints he's been given, he has to decide to which one to go. The player gets different kind of hints about the person and he can use a criminal database to find a matching criminal. The player gets the hints from the different cities he visits.
When entering a new country the game shows some basic information about that country or tells about the famous sights in the country or in the city.
This game is the old version version of 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego'. There are many different versions of this game nowadays, some are pretty new. This one is one of the oldest, made in 1990.
Producers
Broderbund Software is the producer of the version of 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego' that has been published in 1990. Nowadays the publisher of the new versions is 'The Learning Company'.
Target group
Target group age range is 8-12. Naturally, the game is made for english children. Because the game is in english, it can't be used in that age very effectively by someone who doesn't speak english as his monther tongue.
The said age range is 8-12 but in my opinion this can be played by older children also. The puzzles and hints may be a bit easy for older ones, but I don't think that many people have too much knowledge about geography. And in the age of around 14 most Finnish kids can speak and understand english pretty well. And in that age, the game is still playable for them at least when the language is giving them the extra trouble. I'll return to language matter again a bit later.
When looking the other end of the age range, I would say that for some 8-year-old children the game might be a bit too difficult. Ofcourse it's always individual.
Language
The game is available only in english. That makes using it too hard for small children who can't speak english.
Subject area
The subject area is geography. You learn the map while you are flying around and you get some basic information about countries and cities when visiting them. The game also develops power of deduction at least to some extent because it contains puzzles.
If you don't speak english as your mother tongue, the game will also help you learn english. But the problem is that the game is aimed for a quite young people. So like I've said, young, non-english speaking children can't really play the game at all. In the age of around 14 people usually can understand english well enough to play the game but if the player has problems with english he probably won't learn geography as effectively. And if you are too old, the game can easily get boring.
Possible price
The version I am using as an example is so old that it isn't sold anymore. But there are new versions of the game that can be bought like any other game. The price in USA is around 10-20$. From Finland I only found some Xbox versions that costed about 45 euros.
Following Reeves
Evaluating this game based on Reeves' fourteen pedagogical dimensions seemed to be surprisingly hard task because the dimensions aren't made for this kind of educational software. The example programs that Reeves have are very different than the program I have. I'll try to treat the parts that seems to fit to this game. I go through the dimensions in the same order but I don't handle all of them.
The pedagogical philosophy of this game is heavily leaning towards constructivist. The game tells student some facts about different countries and cities but to follow the criminals, the player need to have enough knowledge of different countries and he has to be able to conclude where the criminal went.
Goal orientation in the game is quite sharply-focused. The game is practically all about learning facts of different countries and cities. Ofcourse there's also the puzzles that doesn't teach any particular subject.
I'd stay that the experiential value is pretty well in between abstract and concrete. The things in the game are learned normally but you need to use the learned things to proceed forward. But in my opinion there's no realistic way to learn geography by experiencing. Learning by experiencing would cost quite a bit, take some time and be impossible in some parts.
The 7th dimension is about programs flexibility. This game is clearly in the other end. The game is totally teacher-proof, meaning that teachers can't modify it in any way. I think that this game is usually played in home, not in school so that would make it even more teacher-proof.
The value of errors would be quite well in between of 'Errorless learning' and 'Learning from experience'. Maybe a bit more towards the latter. The player makes usually a wrong decision when trying to decide where the criminal went. When player makes a wrong decision he travels to a wrong country. When he finds out that the country was wrong, he needs to take a new guess and travel to some other place. This costs a lot of time and because there is a time limit for solving the cases, the mission may fail.
The motivation to use an educational program can come from outside, like wanting a good grade, or using the software can be the motivation itself. Some educational software are used only in schools and they often are such that children don't really enjoy using them, so they won't use the software in their free time. This type of motivation would be called extrinsic. But in this case, the program is a game that is usually played at home. There's no one who forces the kid to use the program, he just uses it because he wants to. This kind of motivation is called intrinsic. Ofcourse it may be that some parents force their kids to play 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego' or some other eduactional games when the kids doesn't want to. In this case the motivation would be extrinsic, but I think that kids actually enjoy playing the game. At least I played it just for my own entertainment when I was younger.
For the accommodation of individual differences part, first thing to come in mind is the language. But like said before, the game is made for english speaking children and making the game support only english can't really be counted as a fault. In my opinion, there's only two things that really makes difference between individuals. The first one is the level of thinking and that depends heavily on age. Motoric skills shouldn't be a problem to anyone, but maybe someone who's been using a lot of computers feels more comfortable than someone who has never used one. The second one is that those who don't like mental challenges and don't have the patience to solve problems, this game isn't very motivating. There's really no other way to play the game, so if you don't like the way it is played, you probably won't play it.
Learner can't control the game in any way. He can't choose what section he studies or in this case, plays. There is no way he can study the sights of all the countries at a time, but after all, this is a game. I doubt that many child would even want to study some certain area. This is a game they like to play, they don't want to study. Making different subgames where you could learn different things wouldn't work so well. It hard to come up with a good idea for an educational game, so making several subgames would require lot of work. And if one of the subgames would be more interesting than others, the other things would stay unlearned.
Cooperative learning depends on the player. The game can be played alone, like it usually is but you can always play it with your friend.
I can't really say anything about the cultural sensivity of this game because I don't know different cultures that well. But with my current knowledge I can't find any cultural issues.
Conclusion
Like said many times already, 'Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego' is a great software for learning geography for english children and for a bit older non-english youngsters. The people who doesn't speak english as their mother tongue get the bonus of learning it in the same time, but it may reduce the effectiveness of learning geography.
Pekka Nykyri