The Benefits of Gaming

Many people feel that gaming is an all around bad thing for children to do. They feel that playing video games is merely wasting time; time that could be used to study and do school work. However gaming is just as important to a child's growth and education process as the school work. I am not by any means saying that children should sit at home and play Halo or Madden 2011 all night. However there are games that can relate into what the children learn, and teach them in a way that they enjoy. Games such as Oregon Trail, and even other games like Call of Duty have elements in them which teach children as they play. Oregon trail connects directly with learning. This is a game that teaches the gamer what the families, and groups of people who moved west during the 1800's had to go through. We can learn just from playing this game, that westward expansion was expensive, dangerous, and not by any means easy. By merely playing this game one time, so much can be learned about this time period. For this reason i feel that "gaming" is not all bad. With the right games, the right message, and the right purpose, games can lead to scores of improvement in the class room.