Video games do have educational value---really!
Hand my son a new video game and he will not do the same as my husband will do; read the directions. I have witnessed my husband build a new shelving unit, and he has the instructions spread out in front of him; first he mumbles about the difficulty he has understanding German, French, and Japanese, and then he reads about what he is going to do. My little boy, on the other hand, pops in his new game and starts to figure it out himself; no directions required. I have seen this repeated in that which is new to him; he uses the knowledge he has and builds upon it, incorporating the new ideas. My son is a Constructivist learner.
Technology lends itself beautifully to constructivist learning—since the use of technology, particularly computers, promotes active, self-directed learning. Students can gain access to real data and use authentic problem-solving situations (http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/edu/fis/techcons.html).
I will always maintain that a child (or anyone else) will not learn something unless driven to by self-preservation. My son did not realize that reading was a survival skill until he found that if he read some of the captions and subtitles on his games, he could beat it sooner. From then, he became a very proficient reader and consequently was placed in the gifted language arts program. To Nintendo, I am truly grateful!
