Write about reality...

A slight diversion from my normal subject here...at first anyway!
This week a new game called FarCry3 was launched.  Being a keen game player of open world games where you can run around pretty much anywhere and choose your actions, I was looking forward to it and I happily read the first reviews that popped up online.  After reading a couple I had a disquieting feeling that the reviewers hadn't actually played the game, at least not as customers would.  Normally reviews mention the controls, the quality of graphics, differences between the game running on different game consoles but nope, nothing about that.  My guess is that these reviews were rushed out based on video's of gameplay, perfect experiences if you like that the game company gave to the reviewers.

Now lets switch to a completely different subject, Academies.  I work for some Academies, I know a fair bit about them and early ones seemed a genuine attempt to quickly raise standards by stripping away the past and giving genuine freedom to innovate, but now, like the reviews of the game, I am not so sure I am seeing the true experience when I read about them.  Academies are being created where a school might have failed, with almost the same management, teachers and students, no real extra funding and no big building project or equipment to inspire. Schools are being given  a new lease of life but under the watchful eye of Mr Gove.  The stories about academies in the media seem to assume they will automatically be successful because they are academies, but emerging academic research, which takes time to assess and publish its findings unlike spin doctors, is starting to question if that is the case.

So on one hand we have a game where everyone is writing about it, but there is little detail about the end user experience and it seems that the people posting positive comments are basing it on ideal circumstances.  On the other hand we have Academies.  I for one am grateful the type of shenanigans we see in the games industry are not replicated in experiments on the education of today's young people...