Post by EF

↘ 1996: Gamifying the language learning experience   EF history story 27/60   60 stories for 60 years      The internet was dial-up, CD-ROMs were cutting edge, and almost nobody had heard of online education. It was into this world that 23-year-old Bill Fisher walked into EF headquarters to pitch a new idea to Bertil Hult.    A computer science graduate from Brown University and student at the Stockholm School of Economics, he had designed a software program to teach himself Swedish, and realized how learning could be improved. By mixing education with entertainment you could make it more fun and effective.     At the time, EF was proudly low-tech. The office had only two Apple Macintosh computers — nicknamed “Big Mac” and “Little Mac”. But Bertil listened attentively and encouraged Bill to develop a business plan and stay in contact.     Encouraged and excited, Bill began working with Philip Hult, his college friend. Both tech nuts, they were bursting with new ideas. “Philip is definitely the visionary,” said Bill. “I’m more of a doer”. The next year, they launched EF Multimedia, with the ambition to build a publishing house of CD-ROMs.    They met with Enio Ohmaye (an education technologist at Apple’s Classroom of Tomorrow), who later joined EF. They also were among the first to use QuickTime VR which Bill then used to create “Escape from Planet Arizona”, a live-action game that helps young adults learn English. Working on a shoestring shooting budget, Bill paid his aunt to scout locations and hired eight actors to play the townspeople with whom the player communicates to rebuild their alien spaceship. Bill drove the cast andcrew around and put them up in his parents’ and grandparents’ houses. “We gave ourselves 9 months to ship something,” Bill said. “Although we had no idea what shipping something meant.”  The game was well received and was even sold with every purchase of Macintosh Performa computers in Japan for half a year. Importantly, it kicked off research and development, which led to platforms like EF Englishtown and later Efekta Education. (Amended from the original version published in “Our Story” in 2014 to celebrate EF’s 50th anniversary)      #WeAreEF #EF60