Sliderocket

Our year 4 students have been using Sliderocket to demonstrate their learning during their work on oceans.

The platform looks a useful addition to our work. It's relatively easy to use and has a helpful option to duplicate presentations. This means that students can work in groups and then duplicate the presentation to personalise their own section.

Thanks to year 4 students and teachers for working so hard on this project. I think we'll be coming back to look at Sliderocket again, especially if an education specific solution can be designed.

Parent Technology Coffee Morning No. 2

Our second Parent Technology Coffee Morning was even better attended than the first one with 56 parents arriving to discuss Games Technology. We were also joined by Frankie Tam from the Hong Kong Digital Games Based Learning Association.

The presentation highlighted why games are an important aspect of child development and how, as one of the most dominant forms of media in young people's lives, parents need to be able to understand the importance and intricacies of many of the games our students use.

We also brainstormed some of the concerns that parents have about gaming. The word addictive was used and we discussed what that really meant. Did it really mean addicted in the clinical sense or did it mean "liked a lot" or "would much rather be doing"! I inferred that parents might be less concerned if they thought their children were "addicted to reading" but to my surprise parents showed that they would be concerned by that too.

Research into the effects of games was touched upon as well as the way the media covers the issue.

Positive aspects of gaming were looked at and we watched a video of some of our students explaining the intricacies of Club Penguin.

We also looked at the way we use games to stimulate learning here at Kellett.

The Prezi shown can be accessed below;

Parent Tech Coffee Morning - Games Technology on Prezi

Resources from the session

Key Text;

Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning! by Marc Prensky (Feb 14, 2006) - available in HK stores but you may have to order it

Other texts;

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition: Revised and Updated Edition by James Paul Gee (Dec 26, 2007)

Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century by Tom Chatfield (Nov 15, 2010)

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal (Jan 20, 2011)

These books will help to gain a better understanding of aspects of game playing.

Areas for development at home

Design

Scratch; http://scratch.mit.edu

Atmosphir; http://www.atmosphir.com/

Kodu; http://fuse.microsoft.com/project/kodu.aspx

Play

Wolfquest; http://www.wolfquest.org/

Little Big Planet; (PS3 PSP) http://www.littlebigplanet.com/

Ayiti; http://ayiti.newzcrew.org/ayitiunicef

Darfur is Dying; http://www.darfurisdying.com/

Spore; http://www.ea.com.hk/spore

Professor Layton; http://professorlaytonds.com/

As in our first session the 75 minutes seemed to fly by and the audience was very positive and engaged with the discussion, offering their thoughts and feedback regularly.

Many thank to all those that attended.

Our next session is set for Friday 18th March and will look at the topic of e-safety.

Year 4 Games Based Learning

It used to be that whenever you talked about Games Based Learning you would always have to start with justifying why you were including games in the classroom context. Thankfully, the need for that is less and less and you would actually have a hard time justifying why you are NOT using Games Based Learning in an authentic 21st Century Classroom.

At Kellett, games continue to have a major influence on our work with recent examples in Literacy with Guitar Hero, Samarost and Moshi Monsters. Next term sees a new initiative for us as we seek to build upon the work carried out in Scotland using Nintendo DS consoles. More news on that later.

Year 4 have also had the opportunity to study a simulation game in their ICT lessons based upon preparing for a natural disaster, in this case, a tsunami. These so-called 'serious games' allow users to use traditional game play techniques whilst allowing them to reflect on some aspect or issue. We've only just started this module but a number of parents mentioned the game during our recent parents evening so the link for the game is below. It also has a variety of other disaster scenarios, including a sadly quite topical one on earthquakes.

The site can be found here.

A Big Weekend

Around 500 delegates are expected to be present at HKIS for this weekend's 21st Century Learning Conference. I'm delighted that 10 teachers will be attending from Kellett and look forward to their views on the huge array of presentations and keynotes they will see.

Good luck to three of our teachers who will be presenting their work on Games Based Learning at Kellett. The Slideshare of the presentation is below. It doesn't include the audio or video but gives you a good idea of the sorts of things they'll be talking about.

I will be sitting on a forum discussing Games Based Learning and offering my views and opinions, which should be fun, if a little nerve wracking.

Keynote speakers include Wes Fryer and Robyn Treyvaud, who visited Kellett last year; it will be good to catch up with what she's been up to since we last met!

Games At Kellett

View more presentations from clived.

Don't Panic

With a huge number of teachers strugglling with illness the possibility of leaving the safety of the ICT room and working in a classroom all day reared it's head today. We were warned last night that this might be necessary due to the likely absence of several at a staff meeting after school yesterday.

Having attended a meeting regarding a forthcoming conference in Hong Kong until 9.30 last night (more on this later), preparation for a full day in the classroom was always going to be a bit rushed. However, armed with ideas from the likes of Tom Barrett and Derek Robertson I decided to try a little experiment and teach the day's lessons with the help of a Nintendo Wii.


Our Literacy lesson would have been spent looking at Endless Ocean and using the underwater environment to stimulate writing, whilst Wii Sports Golf is a great way of tackling aspects of mental maths.

Soon after arriving in school it was clear that a number of our ill members of staff had dragged themselves out of their sickbeds to man the classrooms - why do teachers do that?! - so I wasn't required.

Undeterred though, I set about trying to get the Wii to work on one of our Promethean whiteboards. The video was no problem but the sound proved to be tricky and a few different combinations of speakers and adapters were required before things were sorted. Ms Li had a quick spin with Endless Ocean and proved herself to be an excellent diver. First glimpses of Endless Ocean indicate that it could indeed be used as a stimulus for writing and as soon as I can convince one of the class teachers or year groups to dive headlong into an ocean based cross curricular project I'll be all set!

Our P4 class were the first to use the Wii as we used the golf game as a way of practising addition and subtraction. Golfers hit the ball whilst their classmates worked out how far they had hit by subtracting the distance left from the total distance of the hole. The maths worked fine, but as anybody who is familiar with golf knows, it's not really that simple as the ball rarely (for me) goes in a straight line. P5 students did a similar activity, but as they have been using spreadsheets in recent lessons, they had to calculate the distance hit by entering a formula into the cells.

Students in both classes worked enthusiastically and enjoyed the novelty of the Wii as a context for their work. The activities we worked on were fairly simple and were only really an experiment to see whether the device could be set up to run in a classroom. Now we know that it's possible and some simple tasks have been started, we now need to look at how we can create a more comprehensive module of work like the one Derek Robertson talks about in the link above.

X-Raye

X-Raye is a nice example of a problem-solving/strategy game. Minclip has a number of this type of game that require strategic thinking and planning as well as keyboard and mouse dexterity.

Whilst it's true that some of the games are of the 'shoot 'em up' variety, there's a lot more to Miniclip than that.

XRaye Guide Raye through all 14 levels.

Play this free game now!!

Wish You Were There?

Another important event following on from Shanghai Learning 2.0 is the Scottish Learning Festival which has an extremely stimulating and thought provoking series of seminars. Hopefully, some of the presentations will be available online for those that are interested.

Through the work of Ewan McIntosh, Derek Robertson and their colleagues Scotland are leading the way in innovative uses of technology within the curriculum. Any conference that has a seminar list including 'Using the Sony PSP as a Learning Tool in the Primary Classroom' and 'Please Miss, My Nintendog Needs Fed' is certainly worth taking note of.

As I've mentioned on a number of occasions, Games Based Learning is an integral part of the ICT curriculum here at Kellett and we are always looking for interesting and innovative ways to expand our provision. Hopefully we can learn from the expertise the Learning and Teaching Scotland has put together, a case study of which appeared in the TES recently.

P5 Games Based Learning

P5 pupils have spent time in their ICT lessons investigating the simulation Rollercoaster Tycoon. This game, which is rather old now, is an excellent means of showing how game play can work within the curriculum.

Students have to design a theme park from scratch, planning where the rides are positioned and ensuring they have the funds to purchase them. They also need to manage the staff, ensuring there are enough to run the establishment, co-ordinate publicity, set a research budget and manage their finances.

The type of organisational, planning and strategic skills outlined above are crucial if players are to succeed in Rollercoaster Tycoon... in fact, these skills are pretty crucial in the real world too!

As part of their work, P5 students are also carrying out tasks in Literacy, using the game as a stimulus for writing. In may ways this is similar(not quite on the same level!) to the groundbreaking work carried out by Tim Rylands in the UK using the computer game Myst.

From next year all year groups at Kellett will have a simulation/game playing module built into their ICT studies, with Key Stage Three students looking at elements of games design too.

There is a groundswell of opinion amongst experts that this type of work will become far more common in schools. Influential voices such as Marc Prensky and Derek Robertson are keen advocates of games based learning and research studies looking at the use of games such as Dr Kawashima and Nintendogs are already taking place now.

Are You Paying Attention?

Good to see the often mentioned Derek Robertson getting some press in the UK for his groundbreaking work on games-based learning. His pilot project on the use of the Nintendo DS within Numeracy has now been funded to allow for a larger scale study after the Easter break. It will be fascinating to hear how it goes.

Derek did the rounds on the BBC last week, filming interviews for Breakfast TV as well as Radio Scotland. As is normal, the BBC felt obliged to provide a couch opponent to games-based learning who managed to completely miss the point!

Judge for yourself!

My thanks to Ewan McIntosh for editing these clips together. Copyright BBC2008

Games Based Learning

As a keen advocate of games-based learning (first lesson in 1989!!) I was delighted to be able to hear Derek Robertson from Learning & Teaching Scotland speak during my recent visit to the UK. Derek is pioneering games-based learning with evaluative research in Scotland, and is envied by many, not just because he has a great job, but because he has a cupboard full of 500 Nintendo DS consoles!

At Kellett we have begun to immerse ourselves into games-based learning; P5 students completed a module stemming from the use of Rollercoaster Tycoon last year, covering a number of areas in their Literacy work. We hope to repeat this work during the summer term.

As time progresses more modules will be introduced, and as we move into secondary our students will look at aspects of game design.

Games companies are beginning to pay more attention to education in general and many games are now designed specifically with education in mind. Nintendo, for instance have developed a number of games which fall into the mental agility category, the most famous of which is probably Dr Kawashima's Brain Training for the DS. Derek Robertson's project on using Dr Kawashima in schools looked at aspects of Numeracy in three Primary Six classes. His research certainly makes interesting reading and food for thought for the sceptics!

The latest game which could make an impact in the 'Edutainment' stakes is another mental agility tool for the Nintendo DS; Professor Kageyama's Maths Training. This game aims to offer the opportunity to practise maths skills on a daily basis using the Nintendo dual screen to provide answers. If any pupil gets their hands on a copy I'd love to have a look at it!