Educational Games

There is always a divide between learning and home-life. Learning happens at school, then the children return home. There's a seemingly strict divide. The activities of learning are different from the activites of home-life. At this present moment, fun and happiness is associated with home-life (going out with friends, playing on the computer).

To an academic, learning is an exciting and fulfilling activity. Research, teaching and writing papers is fun. However, to the average K12 child, learning is something one has to do by law, not a fun activity, not an experience to prepare your life skills, not something that one needs to totally engage in.

Educational games are something (if done correctly) can cross the divide between learning and fun. They can bridge the gap. It allows education and the concept of learning become fun. Consider these scenarios:

• What if - a brand new shoot-em-up game was released, like the famous Gears of War, or Call of Duty, but to get through the door to the next level you had to answer a series of mathematical equations in a certain time?
• What if - a football game was released, where the player acted as manager for the team and had to make difficult financial decisions when buying and selling players?
• What if - a real time strategy sci-fi game was released where the players were given intricate and complex problems to overcome in order to win the game.

Effectively the players would be associating learning with fun. The strive for success that is embedded within us would help children learn more maths so they could get through the doors of the shoot-em-up game quickly. As far as the children are aware, they're not learning, they're playing.

Educational games still have a long way to come before they become mainstream, but there are some great examples out there. Word games come in all forms now, games which teach the students problem solving skills and maths games are just the basics, but have come a long way.

Look at these examples:

• http://www.miniclip.com/games/alphattack/en/
• http://www.miniclip.com/games/word-vine/en/