Educsite

Computer games are indisputably motivational by nature, however, they haven't truly infiltrated education to any extent. Although games are unlikely to be seen as the be all and end all of education in the near future I do see some very important applications for computer games within education that could be developed right now. Firstly, there are many off the shelf games that can be used as catalysts for social debate and social impact, which is always a difficult aspect of education to approach in schools and at home (e.g. use of 'Spore' to stimulate discussion about belief systems etc see http://www.gamesforchange.org/main/newentry/learning_from_spore1/) . Games for change(http://www.gamesforchange.org/) is an excellent organisation set up for this purpose if you wish to delve further.

Another important use for games may well be the expansion of our cognitive capacity through mind games. Recent research indicates that with training we can increase our working memory capacity which in turn can increase our fluid intelligence (the part of our IQ that is responsible for problem solving etc). The type of training used for this is fairly repetitive and boring and requires mental work, however by incorporating such training into computer games for kids then IQs and Working Memory can be expanded to cope with more traditional school work and may even be useful for helping diaffected kids. Thanks to Derek Wenmoth's blog (http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/) I recently read the 2020 Forecast (http://www.futureofed.org/) which talks about increasing ones self through such brain training and gives some excellent links to other articles etc.