Conclusion: Are children's educational games a lost cause or a bright future?
Educational games are not just the same as our everyday entertainment games, they are that and more; They are a entertainment/educational product that our children actually want to learn from, some would say they capture the attention of children and keep it much longer than that of reading an educational book or watching an educational movie. That being said, this raises some serious questions and concerns about the actual effect it is having on them. Is it guiding children away from books? the same books that thought us as children? Are games more of a distraction than a learning tool? With the research found in this report I tend to think the opposite, From the first game to the last game reported, page 1 through 5 all brought their own special technique to teach children in some form or another a fundamental life skill for eg. "Logo" with it's programming, "Lemonade Stand" with its business/mathematical agenda, "Sim City" with its problem solving skills or even "Portal" with teaching physics; All of which would teach specific skills for jobs later pursued by the children who got the chance of playing one of these truly positive educational assets over the last four decades.
Technology nowadays is getting more and more advance that User Interfaces (UI) is getting even more blurred; with the likes of the the Wii's wireless point-and-click controller and nun-chuck starting the "Blurred" race, followed fast by Sony's Playstation eyetoy and the Microsoft's Xbox kinect bringing full body control (being your own body). As the technology grows so does our chance of getting more physically involved with these educational games like the Oculus Rift which brings us into a virtual reality where we can put ourselves inside games like "Portal", further enhancing the learning experience for the user. That being said, the Oculus Rift is still at an early stage and seems to be causing some nausea to a small minority of those users. This however is just a small problem slightly obscuring the use of this product from being used without any side effects on children. I did find one interesting article about the potential use of the Oculus Rift teaching special needs children which you can find "here".
All in all I can see a bright future for educational games being used as a learning tool. They are much more beneficial to education than they are non-beneficial. From the very first educational game to the latest ones recently released and the technology growing evermore advanced, the future of teaching may be left in the hands of educational game developers, hired specifically to cater the needs of school curriculum's around the world. The technology is here... The tools are ready... The developers are ready... are you ready??