Too Much Awesome

If I were pressed to defend the educational value of video games, I probably couldn’t do much other than say they can teach reading, math, problem solving, community interaction, cause and effect, and hand-eye coordination skills, so really I’d have an uphill battle talking about their benefits (wink). However, there are a handful of very [...]

All of you hardcore gamers out there, allow me to make a hefty statement:  No one is good at Punch-Out!!  Oh sure, some of you are good at memorizing patterns but no one is actually GOOD at Punch-Out!! I played the original Punch-Out!! on the Virtual Console to get myself pumped for the Wii-make, and [...]

Third-party developers are having a very hard time making games for the Nintendo Wii that turn a profit. However, this didn’t stop Sega from giving us MadWorld, an M-rated title that places you in control of Jack Cayman, a contestant in a reality show that’s entire point is to kill everyone else. Standard, silly, and [...]

Toys are usually the first things that children have that are really their own.  So it should not come as a surprise that these first possessions leave an important mark on child psychology.  As such, parents should not think of toys simply as things that distract and entertain their children, but also as things that [...]

It is often difficult to tell if a child is being challenged enough by educational games. Here are some more suggestions about finding that balance between a little challenge and a Herculean task. Electronic toys were mentioned earlier. Another trick to employ if the child is a game player is to change the options of [...]

Last week the discussion about learning was focused by the metaphor of children’s minds as sponges.  However, there is an art to intellectually challenging a child.  In other words, kids don’t learn on autopilot.  Mentally reviewing the names of colors or the alphabet’s letters can be tiresome.  An added ingredient of challenge or spontaneity is [...]