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Fortunately, this does not mean using 'Grand Theft Auto III' to hone children's driving skills or that Tomb Raider is a suitable introduction to archeology. Instead MIT is looking to find ways to integrate games into subjects in the curriculum. The project aims to bring academics, games designers, teachers and government together to develop new ways of teaching through gameplay.

'We want to lead change in the way the world learns through computer and video games,' said MIT's Professor Henry Jenkins III. 'Our mission is to demonstrate the social, cultural and educational potentials of games ...and [the] sometimes unexpected uses of this emerging art form in education,' he said.

As examples of the kind of thing they have in mind, MIT students taught children to use a game called 'Supercharged,' in which a 'charged' spaceship had to be guided through electric fields. In another, students played an environmental disaster game called 'Environmental Detectives'.