Disclosure: I have received free products from Nintendo. All thoughts and opinions are my own. My experience may differ from your own.

As the holidays approach we are looking for the best gifts for family and friends. If you are like most kids on your holiday list love electronics and video games, and I have that is probably going to relate to you and introduce your child into the world of fun and creativity, and will also benefit them educationally.

This past September Super Mario Brothers celebrated its 30th anniversary. This video game ushered an era of play-at home games. Nintendo is marking this milestone with the release of a new title, the nostalgia-infused Super Mario Maker. The essence of the game is allowing players to design, share, and play their own levels that look, if not feel like past Super Mario games.

With this game users learn how to navigate a game without being discouraged. When Mario head butts a block that releases a gliding mushroom, the deflecting pip and floating blocks are positioned in such a way that it is tricky for Mario to avoid the mushroom, showing the players its players its power, teaching them the elements of surprise. Now you can create these same types of surprises for your friends.

This time around we have Mario navigate a land under a periwinkle blue skies, more giving Mario levels that resemble real and distinct landscapes. He is able to venture through land, sea and air this has elevated Super Mario Brothers from a button-bashing tournament to a serial adventure with you in control of our hero.

The Super Mario Maker allows the users to take modern gaming to a new level by creating Mario’s own journey across the screen. Creating levels that are littered with secrets and surprises. The fact that 30 years later the initial simplicity has been the key to Mario’s staying power ensures that the next generation will get to send Mario to new heights.

Super Mario Brothers Maker has given users the ability to create games and options not thought about before. It has also transformed the idea that video games are not only for fun and entertainment but can be educational also.

Video games are playing an increasing role in school curricula, as teachers, administrators and parents seek new ways to deliver lessons such as math, reading and computer programming in a way that hold student’s interest.

The new concept of introducing games into education is the future tool that will allow students to take a more active role in learning as they develop the key technological skills they need to succeed throughout their academic and professional careers.

Games such as Super Mario Maker are powerful learning tools when combined with other hands-on-activities and ongoing instruction from a teacher.

You might wonder how this will work when schools have been preoccupied with Common Core Standards, which are dedicated to students passing standardized tests in English and Mathematics. These standards do not offer a creative teaching method such as video games, however, the overuse of standardized tests is starting to encourage creativity again.

Testing issues, combined with more computer use in and out of the classroom and continued experimentation with games as learning tools, strongly suggest that video games will play a significant role in the future of education.

Many teachers are already beginning to use the principles of video games design to write curriculum. They organize the curriculum into missions and quests that help focus on multi-faced challenges that may have more than one correct answer, letting students explore different solutions by making choices along the way. Now doesn’t that seem to be the same concept behind Super Mario Maker.

While video games alone are not the fix to to the educational systems, it is a way to reach an greater number of students.

This season when you are thinking about purchase video games for the kids in your life or adults take a look at Super Mario Maker. It is so easy to create your own levels using the Wii U GamePad controller that it feels your sketchy out your own ideas on paper and can now bring them to life.

Now you and your whole family can bring your creativity to life and not worry that your kids aren’t learning because they are. #NintendoPartner