British Edu Secretary Gove Praises Educational Video Games

In a speech addressing the Royal Society of London on maths and science, British secretary for education Michael Gove explained that video games can allow children to further their education through better understanding. Citing educational games created by mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy, Gove explained that games can be used to help younger people understand more complex ideas. "When children need to solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can learn," he noted. "I am sure that this field of educational games has huge potential for maths and science teaching and I know that Marcus himself has been thinking about how he might be able to create games to introduce advanced concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, to children at a much earlier stage than normal in schools." Gove went on to explain that the Department for Education is working with the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the Stanford Research Institute on a programme that will see computer programmes used to teach maths. He stressed that the programme is being developed by the foundation, and that the Department for Education is helping to run the pilot scheme. "The new environment of teaching schools will be a fertile ecosystem for experimenting and spreading successful ideas rapidly through the system, " he said.