Prodigy Slander won't be tolerated....well, maybe

 Happy Summer, educators. In Florida, anyway! While embarking on my Reddit Challenge, I came across a post on r/edtech about the learning game Prodigy, which has role-playing elements that I've used in my own math instruction. I figured I'd post my initial reactions to this article and talk about how EdTech in the classroom, and more specifically, game-based learning, has been more divisive than we think. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20260516165144/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/homework-video-games-ed-tech/687198/

    The author of this Atlantic article, Will Oremus, begins and ends the piece with observations of his son playing the Prodigy learning platform that many classrooms are adopting and integrating into their curricula. From my personal experience in a niche example in 1 school district out of the nation's 18,000ish, Prodigy is used more in elementary contexts (K-5) and then tapers off at the middle and high school levels. The author's critiques of Prodigy and other game-based learning platforms like GimKit, Blooket, and (not mentioned) Quizizz are legitimate in that students are more focused on the games' mechanics (i.e., in the case of Prodigy- avatar customization, upgrades, cosmetics) than the actual assigned academic content and corresponding questions. The author concludes the article with an anecdote in which his son didn't realize the questions weren't related to what he learned in school after much gameplay. That's tough. Reminds me of when I see students spamming their keyboards on GimKit's game mode- Don't Look Down- a platforming mini game within the platform where they must answer questions to gain energy to make it to the highest platform... same mechanic really as Mario vs. Donkey Kong vibes. The overshadowing of the game mechanic is also reminiscent of the game show dynamic that Wayground (FKA Quizizz) presents. I do a small-group review game on coordinate planes, for example, and kids are spamming their answers because they're rewarded for answering faster, and they'd rather take a 25% guess and take that risk than take the time to be accurate. Quality over quantity. 

I get the author's qualms... I really do. I'm still not mad at Prodigy, though. It's no Minecraft EDU or ClassDojo world, but there are legitimate MMORPG elements within the game that encourage a community of students to collaborate towards a goal. Is there accountability for learned subject matter like Math and Language arts? No. Can there be accountability and moderation by an instructor in Prodigy? For sure. I've used the game as a GBL (game-based learning) module for weekly assignments in my class. They must answer x amount of questions correctly for the credit within Prodigy- there's a whole teacher dashboard and everything. Can we change much about the mechanics of the game itself and the turn-based Pokémon gameplay that kids want to engage in more than the integrated math/ELA/science questions? Not necessarily, but it can be scaffolded and micromanaged more than the examples in this article, where students play endlessly at home. I'm happy the author included a quote from Blooket co-founder Ben Stewart, who says, "In our mind, if you're using Blooket for an hour in a class, something has gone wrong." I'd agree that the same applies to any of these game-based learning platforms. Use it appropriately in the context of your classroom and individual students' needs, not as the main content delivery tool.