Trials to assess the use of computer games in four UK schools are proving successful, but have highlighted the technical barriers of school computing.

The year-long Teaching with Games project started in September, and is run by education innovation charity Futurelab, in collaboration with games giant Electronic Arts (EA).

Futurelab managing director Annika Small says the project has taught the organisation a huge amount about putting its concepts into practice.

‘Computers in schools are not as up to date as we would like to think they are, they tend more towards rubber-band than top-spec,’ she said.

‘We turned up on the first day of the project with a stack of CDRoms ready to go, only to find that the school’s computers have no CDRom drives.’

Small says the project has demonstrated how children who have been under-achieving are engaging with the system and moving into new roles as class experts.

But she believes if the true potential of the innovative technology is to be realised, the UK has to take a long, hard look at its education system. Small says the biggest problem is that technology is overtaking the education system’s ability to adapt.

‘We are operating in a very different world to 150 years ago, when the current education system was devised,’ she said.

‘Just a few weeks ago, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority was up in arms about young people using mobile phones to cheat during examinations.

‘Just as with computer games, young people find their cheats and use persistence to find the right way to get to the next level. Those are skills we need in the 21st century. Instead, we are trying to force outdated practices onto young learners.

‘If you look at a classroom, it has hardly changed at all in the past 150 years. It is still 30-odd desks facing a teacher. The timetable structure hasn’t changed and neither have the subjects,’ said Small.

Unless processes are reformed, schools will move on unaided. Small says teachers are starting to make independent use of concepts such as blogs to share information.

‘They are using these technologies to share good practice and build their own online communities, though whether that links sufficiently into a top-down approach is questionable,’ she said.

‘There is a real problem of synchronisation. We have very few initiatives to help teachers understand technology and think about its place in education, which is a real worry at this point. In any other profession you would just expect it, but teachers get very little.’

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Futurelab projects

Fizzee: Similar to a Tamagochi toy, a Fizzee stays alive if the child does things that help maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Racing Academy: A massive multi-player online car racing game that involves building a virtual race car from thousands of car parts, allowing children to learn about teamwork, physics and maths.

Space Missions: Run in collaboration with the National Space Centre in Leicester, the project uses videoconferencing to set groups of children a 90-minute challenge to save astronauts stranded in space.