The catalogue ceased publication only a year later and Davidson, resigned, decided to sell her products to a publisher. Her earliest titles included Speed Reader, Word Attack, and Math Blaster!, all of which were initially published through a mail-order catalogue distributed by Apple. And it was loud enough that everyone in the room knew that Johnny had made a boo-boo.”Īs a result, Davidson soon began developing her own educational software. “Here you had this powerful tool for teaching and all you were giving a kid was negative feedback every time they hit the wrong key. They were dull and if a kid missed something they would make this horrible ‘beep,’ ” Davidson says with disdain. A college professor with a doctorate in American literature from the University of Maryland under her belt, Davidson soon learned that the software then available on the market failed to meet her expectations, on a variety of levels: In 1978, after starting her own after-school tutoring program in Palos Verdes, California, Davidson purchased an Apple II computer and sought out educational software in the hopes that such titles could help teach her pupils basic math and reading skills. All visual sources are from MobyGames unless otherwise cited.įew people have ever been as poised to launch an influential new line of educational software as Jan Davidson.
Today, we’re headed into space for the final article in our ‘fundamentals’ series of influential 1980s edutainment: a feature on Math Blaster!, released by Davidson and Associates in 1983, and the subsequent trend of arcade-inspired educational software.
Welcome back to That’s Edutainment,which looks at educational video games of the past and considers whether they hold up today, focusing on their development and on the relationship between education and entertainment. Previous entries can be found here.
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