Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Video Games good for children?

How often it happens you want to buy a game for your child and do not know what to buy? So, here's Hasbro website to find Games, know them, get the promotions and offers. The big Click is actually playing the games with the Demos and Commercials. All you got to do is, Log in to Hasbro and get children click for the Demos and play a game. You can make your a choice out of the many and even see the commercials!

Games make great learning tools. Sometimes, it's share and learn with the games. In one Fordham University study, 122 students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades were asked to think out loud for 20 minutes while playing a game they had never seen before. Researchers studied the children's statements to see if playing the game improved cognitive and perceptual skills.While older children seemed more interested in just playing the game, younger children showed more interest in setting up a series of short-term goals needed to help them learn the game."The younger kids are focusing more on their planning and problem solving while they are actually playing the game, while adolescents are focusing less on their planning and strategizing and more on the here and now," said Fordham psychologist Fran Blumberg, who conducted the research last year and plans to submit it for publication. "They're thinking less strategically than the younger kids."

One study even looked at whether playing "World of Warcraft," the world's biggest multiplayer online game, can improve scientific thinking. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison looked at a random sample of 2,000 chat room posts about "World of Warcraft" to see what the players were discussing. The game is set in a fantasy world where players hunt, gather and battle to move their characters to higher levels. Players who work together succeed faster. The research found the game encouraged scientific thinking, like using systems and models for understanding situations and using math and testing to investigate problems. The vast majority of the discussion participants, 86 percent, shared knowledge to solve problems and more than half, 58 percent, used systematic and evaluative processes, researchers found.

Well, next time your child asks for a game to play on X Box or Playstation, get aware of the games and what to choose. Here's on Games and tips on follow to choose games for children. You can find more game links on For Kids page. Enjoy.

- ilaxi patel
Editor, http://www.kidsfreesouls.com/
Newspaper for Kids with resources for parents and teachers

1 comment:

Rickety said...

I made sure each of my five children had their own PC when they were growing up. I would play World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs with them. The result? Two have graduated with B.S. degrees in Computer Science. Two others are studying for Computer Engineering degrees. The fifth is not yet in college.

When they played computer games they naturally wanted to know how to program themselves. Because they had access to the internet they were able to teach themselves coding.

Good post, very interesting.