Video games as a form of education?

    When video games were first invented, the people that popularized it took it solely for the purpose of entertainment. Back in the good old days, it was considered to be a good stress reliever as well as a good way to socialize with others. Video games were first introduced in bars with the game Pong jumping right into the minds of the general public. As the game started making rounds around the country, people fled to bars to test their skills in a game of Pong. The game became so popular that the arcade revolution was born. Soon, following the arcade period, consoles came into play and is still existent to this day. There have been many different consoles developed by numerous gaming companies throughout the entire world.
    Fast forward to the present day. Video games are literally everywhere. From one's console, to a portable Play Station, or even a Nintendo DS, to even the ever so ingenious smartphones that we use today. As the industry progressed and grew at a rapid rate, video game developers started to think more specifically about individual audiences that they wanted to target in order to create games that were suitable for the specific age group. In fact, one group of the public has attempted to integrate video games as a form of method to supplement their tasks: teachers. Yes, teachers. No you're not reading it wrong. Teachers have attempted to integrate video games as a form of supplement to their teaching in order to allow their students to have a better understanding of the concepts.
    They find that students tend to learn better from getting exposed to something that they hold particular interest in. Using video games as a form of educating would most definitely draw most of the kids to want to learn about math or history per say. In using technology to teach kids, it also gives them early exposure to an important tool that they are almost certainly going to be using in the future, as well as ultimately building up their knowledge of concepts in the classroom.
    Although this theory has been proposed, it has not yet been fully adapted by all of the schools in the country as it is still a project in the making. Many teachers however have attempted to incorporate video games in their teachings. There also actually have been no studies to prove that video games can benefit children in the form of education. However, in my opinion I believe that video games would definitely benefit children in many different ways such as having different games for different concepts in order to maximize the amount of knowledge that the kids are exposed to. Also, if the video game is set up to be visually appealing, that would also play a big factor in encouraging children to want to learn. So yes, I believe that this could be a crucial tool for children of the future as they are lucky enough to be exposed to such advanced technology, which would hopefully in turn make them more intelligent. 

Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-video-games-are-the-future-of-education/