In a new partnership announcement EA Sports, the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), and Discovery Education are teaming up to provide a national educational program for students in grades 5 – 9. EA Sports is a sports video game developer that is responsible for series such as PGA Tour, NHL, FIFA, NBA Live, and most notably Madden NFL. The Madden NFL video game series uses the likenesses of NFL teams and players. Thus, in order to use authentic NFL teams and players, EA Sports has an exclusive licensing deal with the NFLPA. Discovery Education fits into the partnership because it is the leading provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms.
The proposed national educational program by the partnership is centered on a new video game designed by EA Sports titled EA SPORTS Madden NFL: Football by the Numbers. EA Sports’ video game aims to use the excitement that kids get from playing Madden NFL to promote an excitement for math and science.
In addition to the game, the program will include a “virtual field trip” to EA’s Tiburon studio to meet the development team as well as a local school community night featuring an NFL player. By using video games in classrooms, teachers hope to capitalize on the data that suggests digital games improve students’ mastery of curricular content and skills. Providing learning opportunities with the help of video games also helps motivate students to attend class and pay more attention.
Both Electronic Arts (EA) and Discovery Education are very enthusiastic about the opportunity to help foster excitement about math and science in classrooms across the country.
According to the press release, Anthony Stevenson, VP of Marketing for EA, mentioned, “this is an amazing new program to reach kids and engage them in math and science, and we’re excited to be a part of it.” Bill Goodwyn, President and CEO of Discovery Education, also commented that his company is, “thrilled to collaborate with EA and the NFLPA to use game and play to reach students at a time when research shows their interest in math and science fades.” Mr. Goodwyn believes that the game, “engages students in the critical math and science subjects through interactive, dynamic content, and it also shows students the real-world relevance of the classroom subjects.”
It will be interesting to see how well the program can be fully immersed into teaching schedules and lesson plans. Teachers from across the country educating and using the video game will have to figure out ways to incorporate the video game throughout the academic year in order to make the game worthwhile. EA Sports and Discovery Education need to be able to assist and come up with strategies to make the transition to using the game as seamlessly as possible.
The process will not be as easy as dropping off a few copies of the game at each school and expecting the students to learn on their own. However, there is huge potential for using video games as educational tools, particularly for students in grades 5 – 9.
