A FIRM is working to make educational computer software as exciting as the latest Christmas games.

Ian Maber, studio director of computer company Immersive Education, said much educational software was too dull and failed to enthuse children.

He said: "Children go home to their computers and consoles, where whole worlds are invigorating, spectacular and graphically astonishing.

"They can control cars, spaceships, armies and aliens and can fulfil their dreams and stimulate their senses. Where has the fun in education gone? Where is the use of the technology?"

Immersive Education was set up after the world's largest chip maker, Intel, gave Oxford University £200,000 for a pilot scheme to research whether computers help children to learn.

Dr Lincoln Wallen, an Oxford University computing don, drew in games company Elixir and software company MathEngine, based at the Oxford Innovation Centre, which agreed to set up Immersive Education as a joint venture to produce pioneering educational software using the technology of the games industry.

In the first project, Rochester Castle, pupils join a battle, storming the castle using catapults which they have to drag up hill and load.

Because of MathEngine's "real-time" maths and physics software, the armaments behave exactly as they would in real life.

The second history program, a medieval village where pupils can move around encountering a different scene each time, is breathtaking in its realism.

Mr Maber said: "Each character has his or her own artificial intelligence, with voice-activated software so that the pupils can ask the blacksmith about his work, for instance. But a fellow pupil on another computer would find that the blacksmith was out chatting, because it's a virtual village with its own life."

Oxford Archaeological Unit helped to create the village, which uses real pots from the Ashmolean Museum and images from the Bodleian Library.

Dr Chris Davies, an English specialist from the university's department of educational studies, said: "I was as sceptical as anyone, but I have been convinced by pupils' reactions to the Shakespeare project."

Story date: Wednesday 22 December

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