With the introduction of the internet back in the 1990’s, parents and educators were first apprehensive about the easy connectivity and access to uncensored sources of graphics data that kids could get online.
Over time, children were being given access to violence, and other disturbing matters including the most common online bullying and leading to the most obscure but very real online pedophile use of the internet. These negative trends started a new initiative of online child safety and security vetting.
At the same time that children and families were being introduced to the bad side of the internet, the good side was developing in parallel, and amazing online schools, education, social media, and games were being developed that enabled children to interact online. These activities provided both a secure framework as well as an educational one.
One of the most influential of these online activities for kids is the use of games to develop and enhance cognitive skills as well as language and logical thinking.
Today it is common to find many language and numbers teaching games that mesh with 3rd character and online gaming societies as well as videos and podcasts that all work in unison to increase a child’s knowledge base.
There are different levels of the best learning and educational games for kids, and they vary from straightforward educational apps designed to entice and engage the child in solving a problem or learning a subject. On the other end of the scale are complex logic games designed to make the child think in both two and four dimensions, as well as learn navigational and observational skills.
Age Groups
Educational games differ for age groups, and they start off with the most basic types that aim to train the toddler aged up to 3 years old the basics of a touchscreen, using shapes and colors as well as nice cartoon actions to generate interest. There are also automated online books that attract the child by telling a story with animated artistry. These books and early games provide the toddler with the most basic resources, the ability to navigate between screens understand the concepts of a touch screen and enjoy and learn while doing so.
For the four to eight-year-old age group, the educational games become more complex and expect the child to be adept at using a smartphone or tablet. These apps concentrate on delivering a high definition graphic expression. Mathematical formulae and language packs are designed to be interactive, and games to teach kids to think in abstract terms. The more successful games come in a competitive form, and some games will take on role-playing as a method of engaging and retaining the child’s interest.
Above eight-year old’s take us back to the more black and white structure of education. While more complex games will help develop a child’s logic thought process, others will be basic competitions and in some cases an excerpt to read and then answer in game form. Sort of a find the clue based on the story, where the story is a field trip in zoology, geography or physics (etc.).
Social Networks
One of the advantages of a social network is the gaming communities that grew up within them. While there is another game defined networks, these are games that create their own community, and their popularity remains intact from one generation to the next so long as the game code is updated and upgraded regularly. The benefits of a social networked educational game are twofold, it develops social skills that are usually lost when a child plays against a computer and not a real person, and the competitiveness is against another human with a crowd of peers watching on. These games create a proactive application to the game, where children try to learn more than just the playing rules, but also try to learn the code to add snippets of their own design.
Snippets
Snippets are bits of code designed to create a resource within a game. The game that allows snippeting is usually a construction or action game. These games are highly educational in that they encourage the player to delve deeper into the game’s development. Creating new snippets of codes for finding ways to make playing easier for the user and harder for the competition. As such, thee interactives games help develop logical and constructed though processes as well as encourage youngsters to learn different coding languages.
Back to the Basics
What makes for the best educational and learning games for kids? How can we define them? After reading this review, you might think that this question should have come at the start. However, it actually comes all way through the process. An educational game is a game that engages a user to learn. Learning is not confined to mathematics or languages; learning can be a process that defines how we think, how we tackle problems and handle issues. Education is not just about the knowledge base but how we increase our abilities to manage, manipulate and increase our knowledge base.
Conclusions
The most basic games are sometimes the best games for training emerging neural paths. When you give your kid a smartphone or pad, make sure that you start them off with the basics, and let them evolve in the direction that they find most engaging. Having stated this, it is important to limit game use and provide your child with adequate outdoor and indoor physical activities. While online education games can be addictive, they can also take the child away from natural social interactions. This is true for educational games as well as social networking, setting daily time limits and making sure that at least 35% of the child’s online time is with educational games is a must.
