I can’t believe I missed the video below as it practically happened in my own backyard. However, you have to watch this video of 5th grader Cordell Steiner giving a TEDx presentation at the University of St. Thomas about the benefits of video games in the classroom to further students learning. First of all, how impressive that he stood up in front of the audience and gave such a presentation.

You can tell that Cordell is very enthusiastic about education through failure as it is just as instructive as classroom success. He makes some really good points in the video and it is refreshing hearing a kids perspective on how video games (or Apps) can really help every student learn to their full potential.

I think with technology changing it is only right that education and how students are taught will change as well. My son started kindergarten this year and everyone in the school has iPads. I have been fortunate to help out in the classroom on a couple of occasions and watch how the kids use the iPads first hand. Most of the Educational Applications they use could probably be considered games as they try to encourage students by keeping a tally of right and wrong answers. Also, from what I could tell most of the Apps would change automatically change the difficulty as the child answered more and more correct. There were other Apps that allowed the teacher to set a baseline of what level the student was at and she could track their progress of how they are doing by easy to view reports on her computer. They don’t use iPads as the only way to learn as the teacher still does instruction as we all remember. I would estimate that they only use the iPads at most an hour a day (over the course of a week).

As a parent and technology enthusiast I actually like that they are using technology to assist and educate my child. I know for a fact that by allowing him to have some time to learn at his own pace using the educational Apps has only furthered his interest in learning by continuing to keep him challenged.

What are your thoughts about the use of video games or apps in education?