The benefits of video and online games for kids

Is there anything kids enjoy more than an interactive learning session where they experience strategic competition via a selection of epistemic games? Well actually, no, if your kids are playing the right kinds of video games. For years video games have been at least partially blamed for the decrease in basic reading and comprehension skills exhibited by U.S. students.

But recent studies are offering some good news for gamers. Epistemic games—games that encourage innovative thinking—are helping children construct new ideas to problem-solve, create and succeed in the digital age, according to Mind Shift.

Benefits of Gaming.

Games that are designed around an epistemic frame can actually benefit your child in several ways:

1. Problem solving.
2. Critical thinking.
3. Motivation to succeed.
4. Increased sense of curiosity.
5. Developing and testing a hypothesis.
6. Increased creativity.
7. Willingness to collaborate.

According to a report by Scholastic, reading for pleasure has declined among children in the past 20 years. Web-based games that require information from books in order for the player to advance may help reverse that trend. The Scholastic report suggests that kids more readily accept the idea of interacting with books and the Internet at the same time. Perhaps because both technologies are common in their lives, young learners have fewer preconceptions about how and if the two can work together.

Choose the Right Games.

Not all video or online games will help kids learn, and it may be a challenge to wean children from their favorite hero-based action games and interest them in epistemic games. While parents need to educate themselves on what their kids are playing, according to Allan Gershenfeld, a publisher of epistemic games, just choosing the right games isn’t always enough. Children can become addicted to learning games the same way they do with other types of games.

Gershenfeld encourages parents to regulate their kids’ playing time, but not necessarily with strict time limits. Recognizing when children are “in the flow” of learning is the key, he advises. You would not pull your child from the last few minutes of a sports game just when he was about to win. Forcing him to stop playing a video game just when he is about to make a new discovery is just as pointless.

Put the power of discovery in the palm of your kids' hands with a game that engages and teaches at the same time. With an iPad or any of T-Mobile's Android tablets, you'll have access to thousands of epistemic games that you can feel good about letting your children play. Here are just a few:

1. Kodu Game Lab is a free program where kids can design their own games.
2. Scratch is a free program designed for kids age 6 and older. It teaches children about programming, game design and digital animation.
3. Mangahigh.com offers free math games suitable for kids in middle school and high school.
4. Quest Atlantis from the University of Indiana is a free, quest-based 3D game in which players must perform educational tasks.
5. Sodaconstructor is an interactive game that teaches concepts like friction, gravity and speed. Kids use anthropomorphic models to build items that can walk, climb and jiggle.

Taken from: Guest Post (article, By Audrey Garrett), Google (images).