Know-It-All

Kaylor DeHaas

Many students have wondered if there is a better way to study. Can there
be an easier way to learn this class material? Or how am I going to
remember all of this information for the test? For those who have been
attending high school or who are diligently working their way through college
have most likely been faced with these programs. I too have wondered if
there was an easier way, going even further I wondered if it is possible to
learn through the media, perhaps through something as entertaining as a
video game. This research project will be devoted in seeing if it they are
alternative ways of studying though the media outlet of video games.
Before we delve into this, I would just like to point out that educational
video games are nothing new; there have been many different types of
educational video games released over the years. From Donkey Kong Jr.
Math to the dozens of leap frog games, these interesting additions to the
video game industry keep coming out. Can a person learn from them? Yes,
but typically its only basic skills like math, reading comprehension, and
maybe a few other base principals. This research project is not meant to
look into those types of educational video games, but to look for ones that
could help someone learn a foreign language, or understand how to do
college math problems, and maybe even master chemistry. One man
thought this was possible, his name was Howard Phillips.
Howard Phillips held one of the most interesting titles known to mankind,
The Game master. During the time of 1988, Nintendo was a big name in
the video game industry. The Nintendo entertainment system had become a
huge success, to help promote it and the many games that were released for
it; they released the magazine subscription called Nintendo Power. The
game magazine offered exclusive looks into new games, comics, and the
best part of all, tips and tricks on many different Nintendo titles. Howard
Phillips got into this industry after testing many different video games before
they were released to the public. Eventually they made him the face of
Nintendos public affairs as the Game master. His job was to be there for the
public events as well as providing the tips to players; he gained a good
chunk of his fame from being in Nintendo Powers comic strip, Howard and
Nester. The comic centered on Howard and a fictional character Nester and
their adventures in video games and during the course of their travels.

During the comics, Howard would give the reader during the duration of the
comic. Eventually Howard left to Nintendo; he went on to work for Lucas
films, THQ, and eventually Microsoft. Then in 2012 Howard wanted to create
a game that could help people study and learn in a creative way. The game
was called Know it All.
The concept that Howard was proposing for Know-it-all was that he had
found medical research that stated that human beings use two different
parts of the brain to learn (See concept on Picture page). The first part of the
brain required effort to recall something, the second part required no
conscious effort. His proposal was to help people learn using the second part
of the brain, the one that could recall information instantaneously. He felt
that he could help people learn information the way that people just are able
to recall movements and gameplay in a video game. The idea was that you
could become gradually learn and become better, again like when playing a
video game. If you play a game you typically get good at it after a period of
time, learning should be the same way; you shouldnt fail (Howard Phillips
Kickstarter video https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/264529/video-164156h264_base.mp4). Howards game was designed like a puzzle game. You
could basically pick or add what you were trying to learn and then play the
game. Earlier clips of the prototype game showed that you would take tiles
with pictures and try to get matching pairs in the combinations that gave you
the most points. With each one you matched correctly, the game would
repeat the answer associated with the picture (for more information check
out this video at: https://ksrvideo.imgix.net/projects/264529/video-164156h264_base.mp4). Howard had really done his research on the human brain
for this, he found sources that talked about how there different ways people
can learn without the brain are tiring, and a way that was not traditional but
could possibly be effective. Ive called it Know-It-All, and it intends to deliver
faster memory development and decreased rates of forgetting by using
distraction to target the implicit memory system with fun, not tiring, brain
exercise. Users will be able to play longer, and that increased rehearsal
time will result in increased memory and retention (Howard Phillips
https://www.good.is/articles/six-things-education-can-learn-fromneuroscience). From his studies, Howard had found that it was possible for
the brain to learn with distraction and through practice and repetition. This
concept was supposed to help you learn and be able to do it in a way that
was simple and was enjoyable.
After doing some extensive research, it appears that what Howard was
doing was one of the more unique ideas on how to use video games for

educational purposes. I will list what some other researchers came up with
when it comes with using games for education. One study from an article
called, Practising Arithmetic Using Educational Video Games with an
Interpersonal Computer, By Vagner Beserra1*, Miguel Nussbaum1 , Ricardo
Zeni2 , Werner Rodriguez3 and Gabriel Wurman, which is located in Journal
of Educational Technology & Society, July 2014, Vol. 17 Issue 3 , talks about video
game education. However the education is geared towards children and
talks about making the game interactive for children to have an enjoyable
learning experience. They did a study and found that an educational video
game can actually help a child focus on what they are learning, The results
show that children controlling their own input devices in a situation with
shared screens are more active and therefore demonstrate less boredom and
fewer disruptive attitudes (Infante, Weitz, Reyes, Nussbaum, Gmez, &
Radovic, 2010, page 2). The idea was interesting, but it wasnt geared
toward an older audience. Another study talked about how educational
video games can be effective due to them providing a type of reward
system. This article talked more about how the brain produces dopamine
whenever it succeeds or does something challenging. . The article is titled
Video Games Play That Can Do Some Serious Good by Eichenbaum, Adam,
Daphne Bavelier, and C. Shawn Green. "Video Games: Play That Can Do
Serious Good." American Journal Of Play 7.1 (2014): 50-72. ERIC. Web
Research shows that our brains release in abundance neurochemicals
related to reward processingfor example, dopaminewhen individuals play
video games (Pg. 4 of Video Games Play that Can Do Some Serious Good).
In the same article, it also talked about how action video games helped
develop some key skills like vision, cognitive flexibility and executive
functioning. While these studies are interesting, none of them really use the
concept of learning that Howard had. They had concepts to help people
learn, but it wasnt always for high school or College students or didnt
actually focus on an educational video game itself, but in how play video
games improves certain skills.
Going back to Howards game, he needed funding in order to get the rest of
the game developed, things like coding needed to be finished. He went to a
public funding website called Kickstarter.com in order to raise the funds
necessary to make the game a completed product. Kickstarter is a crowd
funding website where someone posts and idea that they would like to be
made into reality and they promise rewards and special deals for those who
fund the project. The project has a certain time frame in which the project
can be funded, if the Kickstarter reaches the goal within the time limit, then

it can go into development and eventually rewards will be distributed to the

people who funded it, or backers. Howard set a goal to reach fifty
thousand dollars to be reached by October 24th, 2012. Funding for Know-ItAll began on September 24th 2012 so the project had only thirty days to be
funded.
While Howard had the game on Kickstarter, certain people were able to try
the Beta and it received some notable reviews. One was from Dr. John D.
Bransford who is a Professor of the learning Sciences-University of
Washington and Co-Chair of the National Academy of Science Committee
said this about the game (found titles for this man listed with his comment
on www.kickstarter.com), "Howard Phillips is one of the most creative,
knowledgeable, scholarly and community minded people we know. His Know-ItAll game is extremely exciting: at first it looks like mere flashcard technology - but we've
come to see that Know-It-All is much more than that. Keep up the brilliant work
Howard (taken from the Kickstarter website at
(https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358562997/gamemaster-howards-know-it-all)!
Other people who had access to the game gave it positive reviews as well. The concept
seemed really sound and Howard had even promised rewards to the backers such as
copies of the game and getting your name in the game Etc. Howard also offered printed
copies of a six page comic made about his life by famous internet comic writer Matthew
Taranto. These prizes were dependent on how much money you pledged to the
Kickstarter.
Know-It-All never saw release. When October 24th, 2012 came around, the campaign
had fallen short of reaching its goal, only around 477 people had pledged money to the
project and they had only accumulated seventeen thousand eight hundred and ninetytwo dollars. This could have been for multiple reasons, maybe people had a lack of
interest, the time limit only being for thirty days in order to fund the project, or maybe
there just wasnt enough information on it for people to even know about it. Howard
then made an official comment on the matter and stated that although they had tried to
reach out on as many social websites as possible, said that some people didnt really
support it. In some cases we received very warm welcomes while in others, outlets
responded only to the familiar or the already popular. This reflects the nature of any
effort to bring forth new ideas and change (Howard Phillips on www.kickstarter.com)

Also Howard went on to say that for those people who only fund Kickstarter for the hope
of rewards and not for new exciting ideas, that he is not catering to those people.
Howard continues on by saying that they are going to move forward and continue to
work on Know-It-All and that they will continue to try to make the game. However this
was posted back in 2012 and it has been about four years since this has happened.
Since that time, no real news has come up about the project.
In conclusion, educational video games, are possible, the questions are people willing
to give them a chance? Are we willing to actually take the time to make them? I know
some people will say that video games are a waste of time, and yes they can be, but if
utilized for educational purposes then they could help the people who have difficulty
studying in the traditional manner. What I am proposing is that there can be other ways
to study, fun ways, the question is, are you going to look for them?

Works Cited:

https://www.good.is/articles/six-things-education-can-learn-from-neuroscience
https://ksrvideo.imgix.net/projects/264529/video-164156-h264_base.mp4
Works Cited
Eichenbaum, Adam, Daphne Bavelier, and C. Shawn Green. "Video Games: Play That
Can Do Serious Good." American Journal Of Play 7.1 (2014): 50-72. ERIC. Web.
3 July 2016.
Works Cited
Vagner, Beserra, et al. "Practising Arithmetic Using Educational Video Games with an
Interpersonal Computer." Journal of Educational Technology & Society 2014:
343. JSTOR Journals. Web. 3 July 2016.
Comics by Matthew Taranto:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358562997/gamemaster-howards-know-itall/posts/317527
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1358562997/gamemaster-howards-know-itall/description

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Picture Page:
Kickstarter idea pic:

Original comic: