I love to learn – don’t you?

Maybe I have a filtered view, but I believe most folks love to learn. And thanks to YouTube, domain expert sites like StackOverflow and community participation over social networks, how we learn has dramatically changed as the Internet moved mainstream. I see a striking difference from how I learned way back when to how my kids learn. My daughter is a surprisingly good make-up artist after watching and imitating way too many YouTube videos on how to do make-up. I’ve recently jumped into the deep end of learning how to develop iPhone and iPad applications. In the process, I devour site after site of “been there done that” or “I’m really good at this and want to share” programming lessons from iOS gurus. YouTube has been a unique experience. Several times I have been instructed through a video made by a kid whose voice hasn’t changed yet. My current favorite sites for iPhone/iPad development include:
Ray Wenderlich’s site

stackoverflow

Moms With Apps

Along with the mobile app reviews of apps for kids by Common Sense Media, Moms With Apps is also a great site for kids iPad/iPhone educational applications.

Both my daughter and I anticipate and enjoy learning  – whether they be make-up artistry in the case of my daughter or mobile interactive programming in my case.

Why does school have to be an Old Ball and Chain>

Unfortunately, my children’s engagement at school is similar to what mine was only with a 50 lbs. heavier backpack.  Like I was, for the most part they are bored.
The challenge I faced when I was growing up was boredom and changing schools about every two years.  Other than not moving – and in my children’s'- case very inappropriate dancing at a young age – not much has changed in school life.  The key aspect of changing the  behavior of learning from an act of boredom to one of anticipation has yet to be achieved.  Of course, challenges bring opportunities.

Don’t worry – be optimistic

Yet – I am optimistic.  One privilege I have had in the past years is getting a closer look at passionate people who come from all sorts of backgrounds figuring out how to best take the hairball of technology advances that are spread before us and turn them into aspects that will serve as a behavioral change in how our children learn.

One man’s vision to reinvent education

I found the recent Ted Talk by Salman Khan to be inspiring.

Stuff that got me excited included:

“You are HERE” map of acquired skills

Mr. Khan walks us through  a view of data gathered from learners who used their content to determine what skill a learner is comfortable with and what skills a learner needs help.  If we think of our kids as being CEOs of their education, these views are as important as balance sheets, Profit and Loss Statements and trend analyses are to a business.

Data driven results are nothing new of course.  It was a cornerstone of NCLB (No Child Left Behind).  What IS totally different is the business-like implementation.  Through this kind of analysis, a community of learners and teachers can instantly assess where a child is excelling – and more importantly – where intervention will strengthen a learner’s skills.

Who better than an ex-hedge-fund manager – which Mr. Khan amusingly notes in the talk – to work out a meaningful implementation of a child’s learning data and its post analytical views into the data?

Approachable and Interesting Videos that Don’t Rat Hole

I went to Mr. Kahn’s site and was impressed with not only the volume of content available given the small amount of people working on it, but how the content was presented.  I was struck with the “just the [approachable] facts” without rat holing into specific examples that have no real interest to the learner.  I’ve had this happen in math.  The teacher used baseball statistics as part of our exercises.  The boys loved it.  Us girls?  well…sure there were a few…but there were far boys motivated by baseball stats than girls.

A behavioral change

What a great idea Mr. Kahn proposes in the TED Talk. Use the videos for homework and use class time for a faces-faces discussion of what was covered. This seems to be similar to how I am currently learning iPhone/iPad programming. I prowl Apple’s website for developers as well as any tutorials and videos. I then thrash around to find a conversation where I can bring up stuff I don’t know. Except in school there should be less thrashing since there is a teacher and classmates instead of strangers.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The platform Mr. Kahn has implemented includes a reward system that acknowledges the accomplishments of a learner. After all, it is far better to reward accomplishments than to label my kid as a “C student.” With that said, next post I’ll get into how we could improve on the reward system.

That’s NOT all…

Mr. Kahn’s platform of student progression and approachable content should definitely evolve and its efficacy tested. I’d adopt my games to fit in within their carefully placed content modules. I don’t see it as just a school platform, but rather a lifelong learning platform

Next post I’ll discuss aspects of that I feel are either missing or could be improved in all.

It is much easier to be optimistic knowing folks like Mr. Kahn are out there changing the behavior of how our children learn and providing a scalable platform so that great learning is not just available to a privileged few.

        

It’s been a little less than three months since I started creating a reading game for the iPhone. I had enough done to show the game to what I thought would be a harsh critic, Eleanor. Eleanor is my four year old great-niece. She will be starting Kindergarten next Fall.

Earlier that day, I sat next to Eleanor while she worked extremely hard to read a Disney Princess book with her mom.  She struggled to pronounce a few words and then sat back in what appeared to be exhaustion. I was reminded once again how difficult it is to learn to read.

If creativity expressed through technology can get people to walk the stairs as seen in this video:

Piano stairs – TheFunTheory.com – Rolighetsteorin.se

Then how hard can it be to plant a seed that grows into a lifelong love of reading shaped by creativity and technology?.

My hope is the game I am creating will give our earliest readers (mostly pre-K and Kindergarten children) a chance to have a happy and positive experience engaged with words and sentences.  Ultimately, I hope to ship many interactive experiences for our children that weave into a positive learning experience.

The available devices have never been better to realize this dream.  Touch enabled Smart Phones have many attributes that make it a positive and approachable “learn to read” device.

Interacting on the iPhone is a 1:1 experience on a fairly small screen.  This means adults can’t look over Eleanor’s shoulder.  This is in stark contrast to the reading practice I witnessed earlier that day.  I can only imagine the stress Eleanor was under as she struggled to impress her mom and great-aunt.  I’m betting if Eleanor were to practice reading on an iPhone, there would be no performance anxiety and she would be in control.

Another major advantage is the iPhone reading software can provide audio help.  No longer does the child have to ask his parent…”…what does THIS say?”  No one has to know she asked for help.

The software is always available to interact with. It doesn’t get tired or grumpy or busy.  In fact, the developer HOPES the child spends as much time as possible with the interactive experience they provide.

The parent isn’t buying a specialized device that the child has to carry around, which also means the parent must remember to bring it and make sure it is charged.  If a parent has a Smart Phone, the chances are highly likely that wherever they go the Smart Phone is available.

The experience relies on touch, gestures, an accelerometer and/or a camera.  These are far more intuitive input and output devices for our earliest readers  than a keyboard and mouse.  I don’t have the experience yet to say for sure, but given what I have learned about children and keyboards, I am betting we can engage children earlier than we can with a Qwerty keyboard and mouse. There is nothing wrong with a keyboard and mouse.  I am using a keyboard to type this post.  In fact, I can’t imagine typing this post on an iPhone.  Keyboards and mice are excellent input peripherals when we need to be productive.   However, in Eleanor’s case the motivation is to engage here with text.  To get her to consume the content, not create it.  I want to show her that words and reading  are powerful tools that will help her throughout her life.  It’s hard to beat the positive interactive experience touch provides when we need to break down the mountain of intimidation that learning to read can grow into.

The game has two modes.   Based on what I learned from ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo, I feel it is important to strengthen children’s ability to pick out sight words while also providing a mode in which children interact with sentences.  My goal is the player/reader is getting familiar with the meaning of a sentence through interaction with concepts of the sentence.  Too often I see children’s educational games where the interactivity is somewhat gratuitous.  Kids tap on something and it moves or it boings.  But it has nothing to do with becoming less intimidated with what is written on the page.  In fact, many times these experiences require parent intervention.  Don’t get me wrong, parents interacting with their children as they learn to read, parents who read alot and discuss what they are reading is the best way for children to excel in reading.  However, there are times such as ordering food at a restaurant or going someplace in a car where the child would actually benefit from a 1:1 experience if there was true learning involved rather than only engagement which is what more traditional entertainment is about.

Eleanor chooses Ed’s Word Challenge.  She surprises her mom and me with how well she did.  She has a basic understanding of sounding out words.  The words are shown to her in a way that compliments her basic word sounding ability.  The game is designed to emphasize positive feedback over competition – which I see as better for older kids or kids that have more domain expertise.  There should be no sense of failure or panic – but rather a feeling of forward progress with enough challenge to make the interactivity enticing  Every time she gets the word right the game pauses and acknowledges this major achievement adding the “win” to the ability to get to the next reputation level.  Like me, Eleanor would much rather be ranked an Extreme Frogger than a Tadpole.

I was relieved when Eleanor asked her mom if they had this game at home.  I also got some great feedback from her mom on how I could improve the design.  While I hope many kids enjoy these simple reading games, I know some won’t.  But what is important is the opportunity to plant a seed of a lifelong love of reading in a kid.

        

I’m very excited to see the growth in great educational games on the iPhone and the iPad.  Both show signs of starting an interactive digital learning evolution.

Two sites I highly recommend for their knowledgable reviews and community are:

Common Sense Media http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-lists/great-ipad-apps-kids

moms with Apps: http://momswithapps.com/

The iPhone – carried around everywhere by the parent – lends itself to tactile learning experiences using touch and the accelerometer that aren’t possible on PCs that use the point and click mouse interface.  The iPad – with its larger screen – provides a truly interactive experience.  Like a story book, parents can share the device with their child – reading together and delighting in the cause and effect surprises afforded by interactive digital media.  For children, their gesture / touch interface are far more intuitive and less intimidating than a mouse and keyboard.

The other great thing about these devices is the tools provided for developers to create their games.  Twenty years ago I was a PC programmer.  And not a very good one at that.  It was extremely difficult to find communities to ask questions to.  Heck, we didn’t even have a debugger.  The programming language I used was mostly Pascal and C with a little of Assembler thrown in.

Now I sit happily ensconced in the XCode environment with very powerful and not to difficult to use art tools such as Photoshop (art) and Audition (audio) to name two.  We get to program in Objective C – which for C coders is probably less attractive than it is for a craftsperson like myself.  We can quickly swoop in and fix bugs using the sophisticated debugging and instrumentation tools Apple provides.  And what really makes it special is the community of fellow iOS developers who share their knowledge.  I was on stack overflow.com the other day about to ask a question.  I held my breadth, and hit the button to post.  However, before posting stack overflow.com came up with a list of question/answers – one of which was exactly what i was looking for.   This domain specific search capability that “just happens” dramatically accelerates how quickly we can pick up a new subject – like iPhone programming.  Finally,  it possible for craftsmen (i.e.: non-CS geeks) to dream, design, implement and publish interactive educational masterpieces.

Like with what happened to music recording when the individual could become the publisher – there is a lot of crap.  But you know what?  There is a lot of great educational apps coming out for the iPhone and particularly the iPad.

        

In my previous post, I talked about Borderlands – a great FPS (First Person Shooter) game.  

Games like Borderlands are created using a 3D game engine.  I’ve been able to get over the sadness that came with the cancellation of my favorite TV show – 24 – through the (virtual) blast I’ve had playing First and Third Person Shooters. Now – instead of asking – what would Jack Baur DO? I find myself playing his part…

Similar to Flashcards, First and third Person Shooters are such a skill-and-drill concept.  Except they have the potential to immerse the player (I mean of course learner) with an experience in which their growing knowledge is engaged in foreword progress in the game.  And what is really great about foreword progress in a game is its immediate reward system – which leads to a growing self-confidence as achievements are received and levels are reached.

So, certainly things that need to be memorized through drill are candidates for First and Third Person Shooters– right? 

Exactly.  That brings me to a BIG SHOUT OUT to Big Brainz’s  Timez Attack.  If you have kids who are learning their multiplication tables – this is a game that is worth checking out.  It is basically a 3D Third Person Shooter where your child shoots the answers to multiplication questions that appear on a monster’s chest.  Instead of aiming a weapon, the weapon are the numbers on your PC (or Mac’s) keyboard. 

I first heard of this game when our youngest daughter was in third grade.  She had this most amazing teacher that diligently searched for the best learning software.

 One day our daughter was excitedly  jumping up and down.  Her arms were flailing above her head as she begged us to install Timez Attack.  She had played Timez Attack at school.  What a hoot!  My daughter is playing a Third Person Shooter during school hours….

Before I go on –> Another HUGE SHOUT OUT to the many teachers that have been such positive guides to our children!!!
 
For our daughter, playing Timez Attack was a much better time than grinding through multiplication flashcards.

I don’t see – or even advocate – a game to displace another activity.  Rather – I truly believe that game companies can create awesome games using 3D engines that teachers recommend as just one additional option.

This interactive/direct feedback/rewards system  way to learn seems to me to be a great way to reinforce what is being learned through Flashcards and other methods.  AND self-confidence is being built because of the immediate gratification that comes with conquering a software game.

As we prepare Flashcards for multiplication results or vocabulary words maybe we should ask… Would our kids benefit from first and third person shooters where the skill involved is the entry of important facts?  I say yes.

        

Why Games Should be Added to our School’s Curriculum

Long after work ends…after I’ve walked our dogs…after I’ve said good night to our children…I sit down and play a game on my PC that is my latest “must play.”  This time around it is a game called  Borderlands.    I’m not very good at this game.  I’ve been playing for at least two weeks and am not close to completion.  In comparison, my co-workers finished the game in one night.  OK, ok – I estimate that each of them have spent an accumulated 20,000 hours (no I’m NOT kidding) playing these type of games.  Me?  Well let’s just say I’m a late (my daughters might say VERY late) bloomer.

Borderlands is a really fun, well done, intense FPS (First Person Shooter).  While I could play with three of my friends, I prefer single player mode.  Besides, I don’t know any middle aged women that would play with me.  Bejeweled, maybe.  A First Person Shooter – nah….

If you are not familiar with FPSs, they are very popular with boys.  So popular that several of our senators have decided nothing good can come from playing these type of games.  In case you’d like to get a better feeling for FPSs, here is a link to the Wikipedia article on FPSs.

Since I started playing Borderlands, I’ve discovered, explored and have become familiar with new territories.  I’ve gone on missions and won achievements.   I’m always on the watch for bad guys, Skags, and Zombies. I’ve figured out how best to manage my inventory of weapons, shields, and healing supplies so that I have at least some chance of winning the next Boss Challenge.  When I finally conquer the Boss, I am excited to share this victory with my family.  Their feedback is a tad disappointing.  My youngest daughter notes that I should grow up.  I guess as a parent I can understand why they think the large amount of time I spend playing Borderlands is wasted.  But then again, this is coming from a kid that won’t miss an episode of Glee.

 What they (and many others) are missing is what a great learning experience I am having.  I’m discovering.  I’m exploring.  I’m learning new skills.  I’m completing tasks.  I’m winning achievements.  I’m organizing my resources.  The feedback is instantaneous.  My new found skills are recognized through leveling.  Yes, I am proud to get to the next level, no matter how funny my co-workers think my accomplishments are since pretty much any teen ager would do better than me in this game.

 My business partners have played these games all their lives.  Tom has been programming games since he was 5.  I find these guys share some common traits.  They are very creative.  They can take a hard challenge – like Living Ink and engaging reading comprehension mechanics for early readers that is our focus in ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo, – and solve them.  They can context switch very quickly.   I believe these traits – creativity, problems solving, context switching – are 21st century skills we all need to fine tune - have been heightened in these guys by playing such intense games.

Sure, the content in Borderlands is not appropriate for younger gamers.  That is why it is rated M (Mature – for 17 and older).  Like any form of entertainment or education, playing has to be monitored to some degree.  But with all that said, I’m impressed with the learning opportunities these games provide.

        

How many of us take an escalator to the next floor when we had the equal opportunity to take the stairs?  The way things are today – the answer is obvious and unfortunate – the escalator.

Do the Hearty Thing – Choose the Stairs

BUT what if we had folks like those at  TheFunTheory rethink the experience of walking up stairs as shown in this video….

Hey You – Pick up Your Trash

In this example, these incredibly creative folks rethink collecting trash…

Open Your World – Learn to Read

Our passion is to rethink reading practice through games like ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo. We see it as a dastardly sneaky way to entice children into the hard work of reading, because it’s just so darn fun. It gradually expands what it asks kids to read, and it always makes it easy to get help. It’s another pathway into reading that’s outside the book. And it might be just what your son needs to get over his aversion to sentences, build confidence, and become a better reader..

        

Move over GPA, Allow for Experience Points

While I won’t go so far as shouting “WE SHOULD ABOLISH THE GPA AND GO WITH EXPERIENCE POINTS” we should at least consider how to intertwine the two into a lifelong love of learning.

Feel the Power of Leveling Up

Most video and computer games reward the player with Experience Points when they complete in-game activities. As the player gains Experience Points, they start unlocking new levels. New levels present a tad more difficult challenges for the player to overcome. The player rises to the challenge, feeling the power that comes from conquering whatever challenge the game puts in front of them.

ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo use Star Challenges

Not all games refer to an increase in skill as Experience Points. For example, in ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo your child earn stars for doing an activity asked of them within the Star Challenge text they read. Eventually they earn enough stars to unlock playsets. While some star challenges can be earned with little to no reading, the skill focused on during Star Challenges is reading comprehension. A very important skill for our children to have! As your child unlocks new levels, the star challenges get more difficult mostly in advancing the reading level. ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo include three reading levels that were defined by our reading specialist, Dr. Diana Sharp.

You Have 5,000 Reading Experience Points and a B in Reading

If we must have our report cards that separate the A’s from the C’s, we should also consider supplementing our formal learning with popular informal learning activities – like gaining Experience Points. Just one of the many things game designers naturally do that we should consider embracing in other skills besides shooting zombies and harvesting plants.

        

I had the honor of sharing a passionate conversation about the environments kids learn best in with Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. I highly recommend the book if you haven’t read it already.

I was introduced to John through Dr. John Bransford(UW). John (Bransford) is the renown learning scientist who led my team’s collaboration while we were in Microsoft Research. My co-founders and I enjoyed several years with John (Bransford) and team absorbing John’s work on How People Learn and coming up with new game mechanics injected with his team’s 30+ years of research in cognitive psychology. Magical things indeed happen when exceptionally gifted game designers are free to come up with Living Ink to create a new kind of drawing game that is REALLY FUN (which makes learning authentic for our kids) and is fine tuned based on John’s research to give practice in really important, really hard work-life skills – in ItzaBitza’s case – creativity and reading comprehension.

OK – from now on – when I refer to John – I will mean Dr. John Medina.

John’s thoughts on the ultimate learning environment is much more like a video game than a classroom. John is an amazing story teller, and he didn’t disappoint. His point is the ultimate learning happens when the experience engages sight, sound, smell – everything, immerses our kids, and is non-linear. This is pretty much what video games do – except for the smell – although I have seen USB smell attachments but I’m not going to go there right now. It is definitely what we strove for in ItzaBitza – where a kid helps his Sketchy character by drawing what Sketchy needs in their environment.

John starts his story by asking if I have ever been to the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, NV. I haven’t but now that I’ve heard this story …family – pack those bags (WHY three bags of makeup I will most likely ask my oldest daughter?) – we’re going to Vegas!

The learning goal: learn about approximately 100 predators. At the beginning, kids are given a little gadget that can shoot an infrared beam that they can point on an animal to learn more.

The kids start their adventure in the shark reef – a non-linear environment with many directions in which a kid can go. Kids pick a direction and off they go. They start in a Cambodian Jungle. As they walk around, steam starts SHHHHHHSSHHHHING at the kids. At first there is the sense of surprise, followed by curiosity, followed by exploration. Many kids go back several times to cause and react to the SHHHHHHHSSSHHHHHHING steam.

Fish and snakes are cleverly placed behind acrylic Plexiglas. Kids can get right up to a snake and put their beam on it. They won’t hear a TV broadcast version on snakes – because John points out – the kids will zone out after ten seconds. The audio tells the kid about THAT snake. “See that snake. Look at its tail. It’s got a bite in it because of a rat. They had a tussle and that’s why he has a bite…” John noted he has seen kids just staring at snake for 15 minutes trying to find the bite mark! According to John, what happens is a video game experience. The kids are beginning to engage and get drawn in deeper – which is the magic of real learning in John’s view.

Eventually the adventurers descend into a beach. Finally at the end, they are standing very close to the third largest shark tank in the world. Spending three hours at the exhibit, John saw the kids going nuts. Information was repeated, but in different environments. And then John exclaimed: “I have just seen the best classroom in America” Places to go and things to do in the order the kids wants to, multi-sensory engagement, immersive environment.

THIS is what many great video games do. This is true with ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo with one slight difference. While kids are curiously exploring, they are getting a heavy dosage of practice in creative thinking and reading comprehension.

        

                                       

Ah…what a great time to discuss cookies!

The following story is true.  It would mortify my daughter if she knew I posted it.  My daughter doesn’t read this blog – something about a new South Park episode (hmmmm…) so until she does, please don’t tell her I told you this story.

Shopping – This Season’s Sporting Event

My daughter and I were out shopping – her favorite sport – and I got her two cookies.  One was peanut butter, the other chocolate chip.  Unlike me, she is able to control herself and the cookies were not eaten by the time we get home.  On reflection, I don’t know where this self-control comes from.  I guess her dad.

My daughter puts both cookies on the kitchen table and stares at them.

After what seemed like a long time to me (which means it was more than two seconds), I ask her why she is staring at the cookies.

C is for Cookie!

She says she only wants one cookie, but wants some peanut butter AND chocolate chip.  Oohhh…..I kept looking at her…until…finally….I unfortunately tell her she COULD have half of each.  Once I told her this, she looked very relieved.  And I felt that I let my own parents down.  My parents did a more "you can figure it out for yourself."  And I am GLAD they did.

Go Ask Alice

My grandfather used to quote me lines from "Alice in Wonderland."  Here was one of my favorites:

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don’t know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn’t matter." – Lewis Carroll

I am fascinated by the choices we have in life and work.  We typically say "good luck."  And some people seem to have better luck than others.  My opinion is their better luck has a lot to do with coming up with creative solutions and following that path.  Not the right or wrong path.  There are a few of those, but most of the paths are good, better, best.

Video Games Bring out the Explorer

This is what I love about REAL video games that let kids explore, try stuff out.  Find things, solve challenges.  And this is what our game designer (Duncan) did in ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo.  I got a mail message from a concerned parent that their kid was having difficulty figuring out a quest.  I emailed him back and said a little frustration is good.  Because he WILL figure it out.  And when he does, the feeling of success and power that brings to him will be worth it.  The parent mailed back and said (to my relief!)  this is exactly what happened.  I see as being a bit frustrated at times a very positive thing.  And good games – like ItzaBitza – have the ability to do this.  Just not too frustrated that you can’t figure something out – ever.

        

Guest post from Ian Lurie

My name is Ian, and I let my kids play video games. There, I said it.

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s playing the first video games on the planet: Pong, Space Invaders and that silly 2-dimensional arial dogfight game on the Atari 2600. In the 1990s I spent spare time playing R-Type and Street Fighter as therapy during law school. I am, in short, a lifetime video games geek.

I didn’t just drag my kids in front of a console and leave them alone, though. I thought long and carefully before letting them try video games. Here’s some of my thought process:

1. All of their friends play. When I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch some TV shows because my parents didn’t want me exposed to violence. So I got exposed to violence on the playground, instead, when 30 playmates proceeded to pummel me because I was so lame. My kids will be able to beat all their loser friends at Viva Pinata, dammit.

2. It makes them smarter. Yes, you heard me. Don’t blame video games if your kid turns out to be a moron. Drawing games like ItzaBitza provide your kids a new way to improve their reading skills, stimulate creativity and teach your kids basic computer skills, all while they’re having fun. Tricky.

3. I’m not a complete moron. I’m not going to park my kid in front of the computer for 4 hours a day and let them play Conan Online with who-knows-which pedophiles. I manage their time and the games they play.

4. Video games keep kids out of trouble. “No cigarettes for me. I have to go beat Johnny in Mario Kart.” Ok, so no kid would actually say that but you get the idea.

5. We play together. GASP. I actually do stuff. With my kids. On the computer. While I do sometimes do the ‘in yer face’ dance after beating my son in Lego Star Wars, it’s mostly a positive experience for everyone.

6. Plus, it means I spend time with them when they’d otherwise be zoned out in front of the TV.

7. It teaches them patience, learning skills and a bit of philosophy. When my 6-year-old daughter looked at me after getting beaten badly in yet another Viva Pinata race and said, “That’s OK, daddy, I was a little faster this time!” I knew I was on to something.

8. It teaches them to play together. My 8-year-old son learns to help his sister out a bit. My daughter learns that her brother isn’t purely devoted to farting in her direction at dinnertime.

9. Computers aren’t a fad. Somewhere, someday, my kids will be working on a job where their ability to move stuff around on a screen is (or should be) taken for granted. They’ll be able to handle it.

10. Games are fun. God forbid our kids should actually have fun. But somewhere between the shortsighted standardized tests and ‘no child left behind’ I want to make sure they find a few sources of joy in their lives. Games are cool!

11. Geek is the new cool. Speaking of cool, somewhere in the last 15 years I went from being a geek loser to a cool geek. Wow. My kids deserve a shot at all the hot dates in high school. Well. My daughter doesn’t actually, because I’ll murder anyone who lays a hand on her. But you get the idea.

12. Life emulates video games. The interface in a 777 resembles a video game. Not the other way around. If you think that’s a coincidence, you ain’t paying attention.

13. It’s better than television.. Have you seen some of the crud on TV these days? It sucks out your kids’ brains. Video games require that kids take action and respond to what they’re seeing.

14. It keeps them busy. Those of you who aren’t parents, feel free to frown and pass judgment. Parents, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes a video game is preferable to locking your kids in a small cage. If you use the cage, the government people will come. Use a video game, and you’re good.

15. Games teach kids to separate media from reality. It’s no longer enough to cut kids off from media. They’re deluged with it. You have to raise children who can differentiate between Mass Effect and reality. And I’m depressed that I have to explain that.

16. Games stimulate creativity. Video games get kids thinking: If someone could make a computer do that, what else can they do? They’ll carry that with them the rest of their lives.

17. Games teach them problem-solving. My son figured out a Lego Star Wars puzzle that even I couldn’t get my head around. After I was done being annoyed, I was dang impressed.

18. Games have become a social experience. See number 1. Kids don’t sit alone in rooms playing games any more (at least, they don’t if their parents don’t let them). They play with their friends. And games like Rock Band take it to another level with all sorts of cool cooperative play.

Of course, it’s like a lot of other treats: Too much chocolate makes your little darling a lunatic. Too much video games do the same thing. Exercise restraint and intelligence, and watch how your kids respond. Don’t let them play online unsupervised, and don’t let them play games marked ‘M’ or games you know will scare them silly.

games + kids + you = OK