Do video games have potential as an educational tool?

People already design video games for education. Eventually, once human beings find a way to have direct access to the internet, the entire premise of education will change. Instead of teaching people what to think, we will have to teach them how to think. Design a video game that does that well and you’ll be a wealthy individual.

Yes, in some ways. There are some very educational game out there. For example this game. The gameplay involves answering science related questions. You get to learn some things about science and have fun at the same time.

Kerbal Space Program
It is a space programme simulator with accurate newtonian physics, where you design, launch and control your own rockets, space stations and lunar landers/rovers.

There should be a place for video games in education. I will have to look into the Kerbal Space Program mentioned above. It seems like a good idea.

There are a lot of other good ideas. I have seen historical simulation games that try to reproduce the conditions of a historical situation. That is a good way of learning history. If you were in charge of the Confederate troops at Gettysburg, could you have done better than Lee? If you were a Roman emperor, could you have prevented or at least forestalled a collapse?

I once saw a game where you could build Rube Goldberg devices out of a bunch of components. Now imagine that you are given information regarding angles and velocities so that you could use trigonometry to toast your bread or whatever other task you choose.

I can also imagine video games (maybe they already exist) where you can interact with them using a computer program. Set up radar to track incoming missiles that will allow you to automatically fire at them. I can imagine games that require knowledge of calculus or that allow you to do statistical sampling to arrive at the best strategy. There was a case where scientists were asked to submit programs to find the best strategy for The Prisoner’s Dilemma problem. Imagine giving the same problem to a class as a way of learning about game theory.

@ragingloli heh that’s the exact game that came to mind for me as well. I learned so much from that game. There was a point where I couldn’t land on mun(the moon) because I had limited fuel so I either burnt it all too quick or waited too long to use it , which always resulted in me exploding on impact. I eventually looked up the physics equations to figure out the exact point I should start firing retro thrusters based on the amount of fuel I had. After I worked it all out on paper I nailed the landing in one try.

Video games have quite a bit of educational potential, but the trick is designing it to have the right combination of education and “game-ness”. Then again, good design is one of the harder parts of making a video game in the first place; turning an idea into code is relatively easy and marketing is almost trivial by comparison.

@El_Cadejo Simple Rockets for Android is similar. But given the limitations of touchscreens and my own dexterity, I would up just shooting for maximum impact velocity.

Yes it proves potential as educational tool if used properly and source of gaining knowledge.