Games teach their players. It's inherent in their design. Be it something related to the game's world, like Mario being unable to just walk into a Goomba, or something that can be applied to real life, game's make us learn, and in doing so through play, find ways to make that learning fun. Applying math and probability to a problem on a page can be a dull affair, but doing it to a tense fight with the Elite Four in Pokemon gives the learned skill a more entertaining, and honestly practical, application.

This seems like it would lead to a lot of games being used as educational tools in schools, but that's not necessarily the case. "Teachers who are gamers and have invested in this have seen massive results and potential, but when you are not a gamer and don't have the time and energy to invest, it is very hard." says Santeri Koivisto, CEO of TeacherGaming, a company that looks to find the educational value in games and connect it with teachers.
"Games are just the media that people love these days and spend a lot of time with it, so we should address this by using this media in our education, too."

Crafting Education

Koivisto's journey to helping teachers through games started years ago with his own desire to become a teacher. "In 2010, I was studying to become a teacher. We need to finish a Masters degree in applied education here in Finland to do so." says Koivisto.

When Koivisto started working in the classroom, it was righ...