The Trail as a Teaching Tool

One of the most intriguing aspects of The Oregon Trail game is its use as an educational tool. After all, the game’s lasting impact comes not from its manufacturing, but from its dissemination into the American educational marketplace and impact on the minds of young children. Hence a critical review not only of the game itself, but of the impact that integration of technology in teaching methods has had on America’s educational system, is essential to a full understanding of the impact of The Oregon Trail.

The Oregon Trail, which was developed by Don Rawitsch for MECC (Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium), first surfaced in 1979 for the Apple II computer. Rawitsch, a former student teacher, first released the game on MECC’s educational Diskette Elementary Volume 6—Social Studies (1). Clearly, the game was created with educational goals in mind. Just how it affected the generation of students who played it and those who continue to play it today is a more complicated issue.

Though each evolving verion of The Oregon Trail contains more advanced technology, its educational goals have remained the same in almost two decades since the game's inception (All images courtesy of amazon.com, Copyright 1995-2005).

Goals
The advent of The Oregon Trail signified much more than the simple configuration of a software program. Games like The Oregon Trail indicated the growing trend toward technologically-supplemented teaching at the lowest level. No longer was interaction with computer or graphic-work reserved for those in the sciences or software development fields; indeed, many students who remember playing computer games like The Oregon Trail elementary school in the late 1980s did so before the thought of owning a family PC was anywhere near standard. By serving as many students’ introduction to the technological realm, then, games like The Oregon Trail hold an immensely important place in their potential to convey technology as an educational, entertaining medium.

How well did The Oregon Trail live up to this purpose?
As one reviewer put it, “most of kids my age played this game in a U.S. history class because their teacher couldn’t think of a better half-assed lesson plan" (2). Other reviewers are more optimistic. In its awarding The Oregon Trail with the “Best Educational CD” award, a Macworld reviewer notes that “the disc not only teaches history and geography, it causes you to seriously consider the consequences of your actions” (3). In order to further explore the educational effects of the game, it might be helpful to examine some of the main purposes of the game, how it attempted to educate children, and its result on the students in countries across the nation.

	"It was kind of sexy for school teachers to use the game for teaching and entertainment in the classroom." -Mike, graduate
More Memories of the Trail