New report series launched by M2 Research titled, “Kids and Games: What Boys and Girls are Playing Today,” found that kids are spending more time on electronic games (on consoles, computers, and mobile devices). More than ever before! Today, 91% of boys and 93% of girls age 8-11 play online games. Those are very significant numbers!

As we have known for a long time, this trend is not going to change in near future. So, it is up to us, the parents and educators, to leverage the interest in these games for learning without disrupting the “fun” or “educational” elements. Correctly designed fun educational games can obviously help kids understand the subject better. Moreover, they can enhance multi-tasking, task-switching, decision-making and perceptual processing skills. Now you know why we take the game-design process so seriously at MathZee.

Many parents ask us if education through online means can be truly effective. Online education is still a fairly new phenomenon. So, such questions are understandable. And considering our bias in this matter , instead of answering the questions ourselves, we decided to get the answers from a US Department of Education report called, “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning – A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies.” The report can be found here .

We wanted to highlight a few quotes from the report:

“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction.”

“The providing of simple multiple-choice quizzes did not appear to enhance online learning. The incorporation of simulations produced positive effects in two out of three studies. Individualizing online learning by dynamically generating learning content based on the student’s responses was found to be effective in the two studies investigating this topic.”

Online education started off as online versions of the traditional instruction material. However, the real promise of online education, according to experts, is in providing individualized learning experiences that focus on “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.