Mr. Atari Wants To Bring The Video Arcade Into The Classroom (TCTV)

with Nolan Bushnell, founder of
Atari, Chuck E. Cheese
and now Speed to Learn.
Tell us what Speed to Learn is.
What are you trying to do there?


Speed to Learn is aimed
at changing the
way kids learn, both in and out of school.
And we believe that we
can speed their process
of learning the core
curriculum up to three
times faster.
And we will prove that
in the next few years.


You're bringing game mechanics to learning?


We're bringing game mechanics and some
things about game exercise.
Also about a certain
way of dealing with recursive adaptation.
And all those things
together really make a very efficient package.


Are you creating video games for students?


Yes.


Are you bringing the arcade into the classroom?
Yes.


How?


Well, we have a,
a game system which
teaches while you're playing
a game like Dance Dance Revolution.
Think Dance Dance Revolution meets step aerobics meets drilling practice.


So instead of learning how to
dance, you could be learning
math skills, you can learn.


Math skills, you can
learn you know, language vocabulary,
you can learn a whole bunch
of things and your retention
goes up massively when you do it that way.


It's it's kind of like
you're on a treadmill or some
kind of, some kind of system where you're actually moving around?


Yeah, I mean, what
you have to do is you have to get your heart rate up.
Once you get your heart rate
up, there's a whole bunch of
wonderful things happen in
terms of retention as well
as mental capacity.


So are you building one platform that can support many games?
Or is each of these
going to be the equivalent of, say,
Pong versus Pac Man
versus...

Well, it's all
on a basic PC platform.
All of these other things
just plug into a USB port.
So it's one platform, but
the games will be slightly different based
on the physical plan.


But you're not sitting down at a screen, you're standing up and being active.


Absolutely.


Are you using any kind of motion capture like Kinect?


Yes.


What else?


I'll have to kill you if I told you.


OK thanks, Nolan, can't wait to see it.

Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E Cheese, wants to bring the video arcade into the classroom. His latest startup is called Speed To Learn, and very little is known about it. But he was just on a panel I moderated at the Venture Capital in Education Summit in New York City, where he revealed a little more of his game plan. I caught him on video after the panel (watch above).

Essentially, Speed To Learn, which doesn’t even have a website yet, is a new education startup which wants to bring video games into the classroom. Like, real, arcade-style video games. “Think Dance Dance Revolution meets step aerobics” meets education software. On the panel he talked about treadmills with screens attached where kids learn in a very active way. I joked that he was trying to make up for creating a generation of kids who sat in front of the TV playing video games.

But Speed To Learn is about making learning fun by bringing game mechanics to the classroom. Kids learn better when they are active and have better retention. “You have to get the heart rate up,” says Bushnell. The game system will include adaptive learning algorithms so that it helps students learn better over time. Bushnell’s goal is to help students learn three times faster, an arbitrary number that he pulled out of the air, but it’s good to have stretch goals.

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