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Tim Rylands, a teacher at Chew Magna Primary School in Bristol, UK, has begun using Myst in the classroom as a teaching aid with great success.
He uses a laptop, an electronic whiteboard, and a projector to help teach literacy and numeracy in his classes. Concepts like metaphor and simile are explained using the game’s story, visuals, and audio to engage students. The class works together to solve the game’s numerable puzzles as they progress. Rylands will pause the game at key moments to ask for questions and decisions of his students.
“Children are swamped by the high quality visual images all the time. My job is to give them the visual literacy skills to explain to them what it is they are watching. It is powerful because you can choose the pace at which you move and you can choose the path through. They are not linear games,” Rylands commented. “Myst games are peaceful and mind expanding rather than mind-numbing.”
Recently, Rylands won the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency’s annual award for best use of technology in class. Since the use of this game, Chew Magna’s literacy rates have increased dramatically.
Myst is the top selling PC game ever. Myst 5 will be published in September by Ubisoft.