The association of Nintendo DS with the Mario brother and Sonic the hedgehog has been so deeply imprinted in my mind that the thought of it appearing in a classroom setting leads me to detention classes.

However in a junior high school in Tokyo, not only do the teachers encourage the appearance of the Nintendo DS, the students are rewarded with colorful stickers when they are done with their game.

Well, definitely not for finishing super mario but, a game of spelling bee.

Nintendo turned academic in recent years by partnering with games producers to churn out games such as the spelling bee, kanji writing and even a pocket dictionary for their DS game console.

These games caught the attention of traditional Japanese educationist who decided to combine learning with fun in order to improve the standard of English in Japan.

This revolutionary education reform took a further step in incorporating technology into education.

Out goes the days of heavy laptops for school students and in comes the light handheld game consoles.

It is very interesting to associate the machine which plays Mario games with school work. I can foresee a huge success in gaining the attention of children to do their spelling homework or Chinese writing.

However, I believe their interest for one particular technology will not be sustain for long, but if educationists continue to catch up with the technologies behind the entertainment that children are having and integrate it into the educational process, it will do the trick in getting them to study.

How lucky are the children of this age. They just found another reason to convince their parents in getting them a Nintendo DS.

Spelling in the morning, Super Marioing at night.

Can I be a student again, P L E A S E?

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