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.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 1.5 million K-12 students were homeschooled in 2007. That is a 36% increase in just last 4 years! This is clearly a growing trend, and it is important to understand the reasons behind it.

According to the same report, 88% of those parents homeschooled their children for concerns about the school environment and 73% had dissatisfaction with academic instruction at schools. Naturally, many of these parents feel that they can do a better job. Perhaps they are right. According to reports, homeschooled kids score higher than their schooled peers on standardized tests. By the eighth grade, homeschooled kids are four years ahead of their schooled peers. The increasing violence in schools is also influencing many parents’ decision.

But how do they overcome homeschooling’s lack-of-socialization problem? Because the parents have made a conscious decision to homeschool their kids, they are usually more actively involved in their kids’ lives. They organize social events for other homeschoolers. They also take kids to parks and playgrounds with other homeschoolers, and share play dates.

We believe that although traditional schooling and homeschooling have their own benefits, homeschooling has certainly grown and matured enough for parents to consider it as a real alternative.

Note: The following is a post sent to us by a mother who has been trying MathZee games with her daughter. We put customers’ posts on our blog without any modification. Any opinion here is not necessarily ours. If you also want to send us a blog post, please send it by email to admin@mathzee.com .

Nothing is more permanent than change. I am certain many of you would agree. When I was in school, computers did not exist and research for homework was done the good old fashioned way — by going to the library. Most children today (at least the ones who are from well-to-do families) spend a significant portion of their time in front of computers and know how to operate the Blackberries and iPhones of the world by the time they are 5. Today’s generation has never seen life without all these gadgets. Entertainment through computers and smart phones is very natural to them. I think we are doing a disservice to these children by not utilizing this new media, that they are so familiar with, for education. Why not channel this interest into something fruitful? When education becomes fun, the child does not see studying as a forced task. Learning math through online games is a great way for a child to enhance her math skills while having fun. That’s why I am keen to see how my daughter will use Mathzee, and learn on her own.

I recently heard on radio that to keep students’s interest, a school teacher in a public school performs a song and dance routine while teaching math. What a brave feat! I doubt that I can dance or sing well enough (yet to keep my daughters interest in math. So, for now, I’ll just go with the easier solution — MathZee.

Note: The following is a post sent to us by an aunt. We put customers’ posts on our blog without any modification. Any opinion here is not necessarily ours. If you also want to send us a blog post, please send it by email to admin@mathzee.com .

As an aunt with six niece and nephews in the age range of 3-12 years, I now see the importance of education through the “oh so” magnificent computer! I started learning to work on the computer in my early 20’s. Today’s generation is clearly so far ahead. My niece and nephews at age 4 already know what I learned at such a later stage. Talk about a generation gap! Whenever I call my sisters in New York and I hear no screaming and yelling in the background, I know where the kids are. My sisters consider the time when the kids are huddled around the computers, playing games or discovering new stuff on the internet, quality learning time. “That is the only time I actually see them wanting to learn anything on their own, ever!” That makes me wonder how much happier my sisters would be if they could send their kids to a place where they could verify that the kids were truly learning something concrete. This way, the mischief makers would think they are just playing on the computer, but they would also be getting supplimentary education on what is taught at school.

This is why I am excited about Mathzee. I don’t know about you, but I find most of the online educational math game sites confusing, not easy on the eyes and, well, just random. Let’s face it; many of us were scared of math when we were kids. Who knows, if we had something like MathZee growing up, numbers could be my friends!