Next Generation has a brief interview with Joel Ehrlic, a former high school teacher who now operates a company that brings history-oriented media--including video games such as Ensemble's Age of Empires--into the classroom to get kids more interested in certain subject matter. While the game might not be teaching the fine political and social details of major events, it can be used to get students interested and give them a basic grounding which can then by filled in by more traditional means.

"Games act as an impetus, a catalyst, to get the kids and the teachers excited. Kids don't care about The Mexican-American War until they get to play the part of Santa Ana. Then they get it.

"We do the same thing with The History Channel, A&E, all the major movie studios and the TV networks. Rather than learn from a textbook, people can learn from Spielberg or HBO. You have a much better chance with kids by involving them with TV, film or videogames."

Publisher Microsoft actually pays for the privelege of having its game exposed to high school students around the country, which raises some questions--in the case of regular textbooks, of course, it works the other way around. However, Ehrlic claims that "there's no commercial or message," unlike traditional advertising. So what do you think? Is this the sort of thing worth having in schools? Mine sure didn't, but it would have been nice to be told to exterminate the Vikings for homework.