Gaming has been a part of technology from the inception and now it’s starting to fall hand in hand with education as The Department of Education begins to recognize the benefits of educational gaming.

“Around 67 percent of U.S. households are home to people who play video games. Many of those gamers are students, who can spend almost as many hours playing video games as they do attending school,” reports Robin Burke of TechTimes.

“So it only makes sense that the U.S. Department of Education considers video games an educational opportunity of such priority that the agency plans to host the first Games for Learning Summit in New York City this month.”

Game developers and publishers have been included in the summit with the anticipation that they will be able to create educational games designed to capture every aspect of learning. Teachers, parents and students will also be in attendance as they work together to tap into yet another technological tool to help students get ahead of the game.

"I think the education community is ready to really use technology in innovative ways," said Richard Culatta, the director of educational technology at the U.S. Department of Education, according to the TechTimes article.

"But I think we are largely dependent on the people who are building these tools and solutions to provide apps that meet educational needs."

With publishers and developers in attendance, they can witness the strengths and weaknesses of educational gaming. Interactive gaming has had the ability to appeal directly to children of all ages K-12. If this appeal is matched with educational content, gaming could have a strong positive effect on children’s learning abilities and the retention of information.

"Now there is an opportunity to see games as solving real educational problems," said Erik Martin, the lead for Games for Learning, according to TechTimes.

"Video games can really provide formative, quality assessment about how a kid tackles a problem and how they fail and overcome the challenges around a certain context a game provides them."

Educational gaming can fill and expose gaps in learning making it a two-way tool, a dynamic method that could aid in the educational development of students across the nation in K-12 and beyond.

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Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor.