- More than 97% of kids play video games.

And today, we will reveal how gaming is revolutionizing the way kids learn in the classroom and how families play together at home.

We'll also meet teens who won a national competition for inventing their own video games.

Plus we'll tell you how kids can go from game players to game makers and pursue a world of well-paid careers in the gaming industry.

That's all coming up on this edition of "IQ: smartparent," and it starts now.

(bright music) Welcome to "IQ: smartparent," I'm your host Darieth Chisolm.

And I'm going to kick things off today with a statistic that might shock you.

A New York Times bestselling book claim that by the age of 21, the average child will have spent 10,000 hours playing video games.

Shocking as that sounds, games can be used in exciting new ways in the classroom, in the workplace, and yes, even in your very own home.

And that's our focus today.

Our guest is Jessica Trybus and she serves on the faculty at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, which is a pioneer in game-based learning.

Jessica, thanks so much for being here on the show.

- Thank you.

- So let's start with this.

Let's have you analyze this.

So is gaming an escapist activity, would you consider that fact or fiction?

- That's an easy one.

Fiction.

- [Darieth] (chuckling) Why so?

- Well gaming, come on, it's been around for a long time.

We're just talking about it now more because we're talking about the digital-mediated form, video games.

But no, it's not an escapist waste of time.

- No, definitely not.

In fact, nowadays people see it more so as learning tools and we've really expanded into that and really want parents and kids to understand the value of that.

- Absolutely.

I mean, if you look at traditional games, chess, baseball, non-digital games, these are frameworks for learning the elements within a game, clear goals, clear roles, feedback, consequences, scoreboards.

These are all actually elements of how we learn best, like proven principles of how we learn best, and how we can communicate best using some of these same components as game mechanics.

So it's certain to be sort of proven.

- Jessica, do you have kids and are they gaming?

- I have one child, she's three and a half.

She is gaming.

I put an iPad and an iPhone in front of her at 12 or 13 months and she very quickly picked it up and she's been playing little problem solving games that are age appropriate and I think it's very positive.

Just last night, we were sitting on the couch and she asked me for a little help solving a problem.

And I had to look at the game and say, "How do we play?"

And then she told me how to play and then I helped her through that little puzzle.

And then she went, "Oh, I got this, I got this, I got this."

And so we had that little interaction just last night.

- That's great.

- Yeah, my child plays games.

She's also outside of digital games, she plays a lot of sports games and she's outside doing other sort of creating board games, and so I have her invested in all these different areas.

- Is there a gender gap or do we know that there's a gender gap?

Are there more boys versus girls playing?

Or is it pretty even out these days?

- Well, I think we think about the 8 to 18-year-old-boys generally sitting in front of the TV playing games, but that might've been true 20 years ago, that there were more sort of folks in that demographic.

But that's just not true anymore.

If you look at the statistics, more and more females are playing.

There are more places to play games, games are more accessible, so that's just not true.

And you have gamers from 2 to 90 now, and certainly, females are a big part of that.

- Certainly.

So we've looked at learning tools, we've talked about some of the emotional benefits that one can gain.

Are there concerns at all, though, that there could be some social isolation when one is playing a game intensely?

- Perhaps.

I mean, I think that's where everything in moderation.

You need to know your child.

If your child is playing so much of a video game by themselves, there's probably a lot of benefit to that.

They're involved in these entire worlds.

They are, a lot of times, communicating with other people that might be playing it.

But if your child is not engaging in other socially appropriate things, I think you need to sort of be aware of that.

So, yeah, I think, in some extreme instances, I always like to say, you go to the gym and no one's going to debate if going to the gym and working out is good for your health.

But you can go overboard, you can go overboard and do a little too much of some things.

And so I think you just, as a parent and a teacher, need to be aware of each individual.

- But perhaps there are some social benefits, though, to gaming and the opportunity, as we just talked about looking at the negative side, so to speak, there's some social benefits that kids can gain from gaming.

- Absolutely.

And again, I would even look at social benefits of games that are not video games.

They're good frameworks for teamwork and collaboration.

And you move it into the digital realm, and there's just so much more we can do.

We don't have to be sitting next to each other in order to collaborate and play anymore, if we're talking about digital games.

We are communicating based on a goal of the game.

And so there are just many different outlets now that could be described as social communication.

- What about this new kind of literacy in the gaming industry and how it might help to create transferable skills that kids need?

- Well, there are a lot of skills that are not new.

I mean, I think that's what we're talking about.

These are not new skills, but video games and video game creation have created an entirely new medium where we can teach kids about problem solving, about goal setting, about planning, about execution, about having a role in that.

So there are all of these things that we've wanted to communicate and teach, but the more and more tools that come out that allow kids and teachers to make games more and more easily, that's where you can play some of these skills out and hone them.

- And it really helps when we think about what happens with children long-term.

I mean, this is all about helping them to become effective adults in the world who are contributing.

And when we look at life skills and overall opportunity to develop careers from just their early engagement in games, it can be monumental.

- That's right.

I mean, I think it comes down to motivation and relevancy, really giving someone a motivation on a bigger goal, learn these foundational disciplines and create games and that can be a relevant goal and that can be motivating.

- Certainly.

Well, we're going to talk a little bit more with you, but let's look now at really gaming in the classroom.

And we're going to show you how gaming can open up exciting new career paths for your child.

(dramatic music) (bright music) - [Darieth] Video games.

Most kids play them, but someone's got to create those games, too.

And that's the point of the national STEM Video Game Challenge.

It's an annual competition encouraging kids to go from game player to game maker and build important 21st century skills in the process.

- In order for children and youth to invent their own careers, they will need to have new 21st century skills, including computer programming and understanding how to make a game or publish their own work.

These are becoming essentials.

- [Woman] Can you just scooch so everyone's sitting right and close.

- [Darieth] The 2015 competition drew more than 4,000 entries from students in fifth through 12th grades and 15 winners are being honored at this ceremony, followed by an open house when the public has the chance, not just to see, but play the video games these teens created.

(upbeat music) - I was ecstatic.

I didn't think I'd make it this far.

(bright music) - I enjoy playing games a lot, but I really do wanna make my own and entertain others 'cause I've been entertained by games.

I wanna provide that same feeling to others.

(bright music) - [Darieth] But there's more than just a fun factor going on here.

Gaming is now a game changer in the 21st century job market.

- Oh!

- [Darieth] U.S. domestic video games amount to a $22 billion industry.

- The industry is now larger than the entirety of box office Hollywood and the music industry combined.

These games really are changing the interface between mankind and machines, and the youth are a key to that.

- [Darieth] That's good news for teens who choose to pursue game design as a career.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the industry is expected to experience rapid job growth through the year 2022.

And right now, the median salary for video game designers is almost $84,000 a year.

- The process of making a game involves this really interesting mashup of creative disciplines and technical disciplines.

It's not strictly about digging in and writing code for 20 hours a day because there's writing, there's sound, there's art direction, there's project management and producing.

- [Boy] One is it helps you win the game and two is it makes you faster.

- When we talk about game design, the first thing that comes to mind is coding.

And for many of the students, they're afraid of coding or feel like it is too difficult for them.

So what we wanna be able to do is to introduce other tools where they can learn about game design.

- One of the bigger challenges was coding.

Coding is always difficult, and I don't fully understand coding even after making a game.

One way to not be so intimidated is to start really simply.

Like I started with a small program called Game Solid, and it's a very simple way to make more simple kind of flash games without needing to know coding.

- So I think that a lot of people don't realize that video games are really just a different form of a medium that's been around for centuries.

So one of the things that I like to do when I'm working with kids and teaching kids how to make video games is I show them no, if you understand games as a system, if you understand how Jenga or Monopoly works, there are elements of a system that you need to understand in order to make a game system.

- [Darieth] Designing video games also helps to develop higher-order thinking skills, including strategy, interpretive analysis, problem solving, how to formulate and execute a plan, and how to adapt to change, skills that are highly valued in the job market.

- I'm seeing ways of doing art that I've never seen anybody approach in the game.

I've seen topics to make a game about.

There's a game just about the nature of buoyancy that I've never seen before.

People using gravity in different ways.

What's wonderful, it's just kind of unconstrained creativity.

- [Darieth] Jesse Schell is a video game designer and the author of the critically acclaimed book, "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses."

He delivered the keynote speech at the ceremony honoring the STEM video game challenge winners.

And he offered this tip for kids to go from game players to game designers.

- Find yourself 20 minutes a day where you say, "I am gonna focus on learning that and work on that.

And if you can find 20 minutes a day, it will add up and add up and add up, because the resources are there and you can learn it if you're interested and you practice.

(bright music) - It makes me feel really good because I've spent so much time making the game.

And finally being able to see someone else's response and actually like make their day, I think that's really cool.

- It's better than Skylanders.

- Yeah?

- It's better than Skylanders.

That's a pretty big compliment.

- I tend to make very difficult games and I've learned that if it's just right for me, it's way too hard for everybody else.

- Oh no!

(laughs) - I would say just make stuff that you enjoy.

I always just made games that I really wanted to play, and I found a lot of joy in that and I think people could see the enthusiasm coming through what I created 'cause it was stuff that I really loved.

(upbeat music) - [Darieth] For teens who dream of turning their passion for play into game design careers, explore game design majors, which are typically offered through a university's computer science or media department.

- You should really follow your dreams, if that's what inspires you.

And if you love playing games, you'd also love making games.

- Right now, we're going to continue our conversation with Jessica Trybus of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.

So Jessica, I'm interested in knowing your perspective on the kinds of games that we see really being developed for classroom use these days.

- Well, some of the games or interactive experiences that we've seen when Carnegie Mellon goes into these classrooms is really around how the teachers are focused around, how the teachers are using these games in order to elicit responses and dialogue and engagement from kids.

There are certainly experiences that the teachers want to have projects around.

So they want groups, teams working together and creating things.

But I think at the heart of it is really a framework or context to have a conversation and get the kids involved, as opposed to these traditional views of education, where you have all the desks lined up and the teacher's passively educating everyone.

It's a whole new world now and evolving more so still.

- It's a wonderful opportunity for kids even to collaborate and work in group or team to produce an outcome.

And so while some might think it is a very isolated experience, them in front of a computer or what have you, the opportunity to work together as a team to develop the outcome would be fabulous for them.

- Absolutely.

Whether you're playing some of these video games.

And certainly, if you're tasked with creating a video game.

And I think, as we're looking at the different types of jobs that are evolving out there, these are team-based.

This is sort of the Da Vinci effect, where you have artists and technologists and they need to work together.

You need to have these different disciplines working together in order to solve problems, which is true in the real world.

And so gaming is one way where this is starting to happen at a young age.

- You wonder though, if there's this mindset or this thought that if we're spending this much time talking about gaming or employing gaming technology in the classroom, that we might be steering away from the basics of math, writing, reading, and arithmetic.

- Right.

Well, it's my view that you need to have foundational skillsets.

You still need to have those skillsets in order to make the best games that you can.

So these things are important.

I don't know how much time you're supposed to allocate to each of them, but no, I don't see that.

- Well, and perhaps it makes it even more interesting to utilize those basics because as the one young man pointed out in the piece that this is an opportunity to follow your dream and follow your heart and if you like gaming, then you'll love creating games.

And we know that it's going to take a series of basic things like knowing, writing, reading, and arithmetic, but when you put it all together and you get to produce a game, now they're really loving that process.

- Absolutely.

I mean, I think it's sort of understanding those foundational disciplines is almost a means to an end.

If you can show them, and luckily through the democratization of gaming, you can show them that they can create something, they can learn those disciplines or those programs in order to do that, as opposed to learning each one of those disciplines in isolation and where it's not relevant.

I think gaming is very akin to writing a story, where you bring in all of these different elements in order to create your story, you know, art and writing.

But this is different.

I mean, you're talking about digital media, so there's a lot more tech involved with the art.

- Certainly.

Where do you see the future of gaming and education?

- Well, I think it's gonna be used more and more.

And I think that teachers should require kids to create games, to be on teams, to create games as part of their collaboration and problem solving and planning and execution of a plan and all of these important transferable skills.

- Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

And so, what does gaming look like in the classroom?

Check out ways these innovative teachers use games to create better digital citizens.

(dramatic music) (gentle music) - "Minecraft" is a video game that has a lot to offer.

At its core, it's very open-ended.

If you wanna have an adventure, you can have an adventure.

If you wanna build something, you can build something.

If you wanna talk to your friends, you can talk to your friends.

If you wanna kill monsters, you can kill monsters.

So the game appeals to a lot of people.

It makes a lot of sense to take a game that is already fun, that is proven to be enjoyable to kids and try to find a way to bring it into the classroom.

(kids chattering) - So you go here, Minecraft, Edu Launcher.

And that should be it.

- You know, my school, as well as many others have been struggling with the issue of how to teach digital citizenship, which is internet ethics, online safety, privacy, research.

I mean, it's everything.

Because as our kids were getting into middle school and high school, we had a lot of, frankly, ugly incidents happen.

And so, the school's administration along with the computer department decided we really need to start teaching these concepts earlier.

We're gonna treat the game world as part of the classroom.

It is a classroom, it's just in the digital space.

Almost every single kid finally kind of came around and got it.

(bright music) (signal buzzing) - Go ahead and let's start off by getting in, following the instructions that are up onto the board.

Hey, you are students, pick your avatar.

- Pixel Pusher as a student project here at ETC is working with Minecraft EDU to develop a series of software features for their software.

So our programmers have been working on a quiz block and a lesson review tool to include in the Minecraft EDU software, while we're also working on researching how and what you can best teach with Minecraft.

You can really teach a wide array of things that aren't immediately obvious.

- The kids have to think it's fun.

Otherwise, what's the point?

There's plenty of educational games out there.

And frankly, very, very few of them have ever been very satisfying for me.

I never wanted to use them in my classroom 'cause it smells like school.

- But the virtual world of Minecraft, I think, is fun and powerful for these kids.

And I think they get it in a way that I think some of their teachers don't sometimes.

- I think the most important thing for someone coming to Minecraft from an educational perspective is to just play the game, just get a feel for how the game works.

And then perhaps even more importantly, let the students play the game.

- You have to think about where 21st century kids are living.

I mean, they come here in schools, but they're texting each other on the way home and then they're on Facebook and then they're playing games together.

It's all a continuum.

They don't separate the conversations that they have typed into Minecraft with the ones that they have in the lunchroom.

(students chattering) There's such excitement around this game.

Getting that excitement into schools all over the world, the more voices we have coming up with ideas and creating content and sharing content, the better.

(dramatic music) - Research done at Oxford University shows that when parents play video games with their kids, it has a positive impact on adolescent development.

So mom and dad, it's time to get your game on.

Take this advice from experts, and from families just like yours, for ways to turn gaming into a family pastime.

(bright music) Research from the Entertainment Software Association shows kids play video games for more than 14 hours a week, mostly outside of school.

But that same research reveals adults are playing, too, making games a great way for parents to connect with their kids.

- This is really, really, really kind of cool.

- [Darieth] Allison Mishkin is a researcher.

She looks for ways to predict positive outcomes with teens and gaming, and it turns out kids reap big benefits when families play games together.

- We find that for both for kids and teenagers, the biggest predictor of whether or not technology and games can be a good force in their lives is how they play with a family.

And it's not about the quality of the gameplay, it's about do you feel like your parents love you?

And if you have a good relationship with your parents, you're gonna be more likely to use technology and games to teach yourself a new skill, to socialize, to grow as a person.

- [Boy] Check it out, you're trying to go- - [Darieth] We talked to families at an open house celebrating the national STEM Video Game Challenge winners.

- I personally think it's a special bond that people can share.

- [Darieth] The parents there said playing as a family gives them a chance to monitor game content, and it's a great opportunity to socialize with their kids.

- I like to see the teamwork and encouraging each other and just enjoying a fun moment, not so much the competitiveness of it.

- I think family game night and family games we play really do bring us together.

And I think it also gives us quite an opportunity to really talk about our values and how we're nice to each other when we don't win.

(laughs) And how to be a gracious winner when we do win.

- We get a chance to laugh and to be silly, which is what he likes to do.

- [Darieth] Gaming together also provides insights into your kids' interests.

- We see that kids are using technology and kids are using games to develop their passions, to find something that they're interested in and learn more about it.

- Like right now, we play chess and I can't really win her anymore.

(laughs) - How competitive we are, how brutal?

No, (laughs) I'm just kidding.

- [Darieth] Mishkin says parents should join in the digital gameplay, even if they lack confidence in their new media skills.

- So I think it's all about asking questions and just talking to them and saying, "Hey, what are you doing in that game?"

Asking them, "What do you like about that game?"

Teach them to be kind of critical scholars of games.

Even if they are not gamers themselves, parents can say, "Why are you having fun?

Hey, can you teach me to how to play that?"

Or, "What if we do some games together?"

- He'll tell you I am not the digital person.

(laughs) So a lot of times, they have to help me out and show me what to do.

And I get impatient a little bit, but they're helping me to become more patient with the digital games.

Why are you making faces?

Oh, he said "A lot."

You need to speak up so they can hear you.

He said, "A lot."

(laughs) - It has led to us talking about things that might not have come up in day-to-day life.

- I would say games have definitely brought us closer together.

- Just trying to show kids, I support what you do, I think it's great, but just tell me about it, 'cause if you love it, I wanna love it with you.

(bright music) - Games give our kids crucial skills to help prepare them for the future.

Get set to see more gaming going on in your child's classroom and remember, when parents and kids play games together at home, the opportunities for teachable moments are endless.

Thanks for joining us today and we'll see you again next time for another edition of "IQ: smartparent."

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(bright music) "IQ: smartparent" is made possible in part by the McCune Foundation and the Grable Foundation.