Educational games research

Educational Games

What is an educational game?

An educational game is a game that is specifically made for the purpose of education or has incidental or secondary educational value, all types of games can be used in an educational environment. These games are designed to help people learn about certain subjects, to teach them a specific subject and to teach them a skill, whether it will be learning about a historical event or culture, driving safely on the road or helping them understand maths; it could even be about learning a new language, spelling the list goes on. Game types can include video games, card games and board games. Educational games have become more mainstream lately as the government, teachers and parents have realised the psychological need and advantages that gaming has on learning. Games are interactive play that teaches us many different things like rules, goals, problem solving, interaction and they are all usually represented as a story. Educational games can help you to easily learn about a subject whilst also enjoying it by providing involvement, excitement, adrenaline, motivation, emotion and many more all in a game itself whilst you learn.

Educational games are used on all platforms, Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Wii, Nintendo Ds etc.

Examples of educational games:

‘Valiant of hearts’ (teaches you the history of the Great War) most used on PC but may have changed since it became free on Xbox.

‘Typing of the dead’ (teaches you to quickly spell words) Used on PC only.

‘Minecraft’ (Teaches you about creativity and building) Most used on PC.

‘World of goo’ (Teaches you about problem solving) Most used on PC but may have changed since it released on Android and IOS.

‘Brain age’ (teaches all subjects) most used on Nintendo DS.

The group that uses educational games the most is school kids or just people in education in general as learning is made a lot easier with the use of games as kids/teenagers tend to enjoy them more.

The most popular educational game in 2014 was probably ‘The Lego movie videogame’ as it was very high up in the most sold games list and Lego games tend to have puzzles and make you think so they are good for testing the brain and getting kids to think more. As for this year I couldn’t say what would be the most popular game as there are so many.