Over the last 3 days I have been visiting schools in Highland Region with whom we will be working over the coming months. The enthusiasm and hospitality from everyone I met was brilliant and nothing, I’m sure, to do with the hardware and software that goes with the project!( although one school did take great delight in calling me “wii man”)
My journey took me just over 600 miles and 3 days from Castletown, just outside Thurso to Alvie, just outside Aviemore, via Dornoch, Dingwall and Merkinch in Inverness. Every school was different in many ways (in fact one school had almost twice as many primary sevens as another had pupils) and served a wide range of catchments; but everyone showed a real commitment to embracing technology to enhance learning and teaching and were in no doubt to the impact it might have on their children. I am really looking forward to working with the schools over the coming months and will post regular updates on our progress.
As part of the work that the Consolarium has done in the field of game based learning and more importantly the significance of the reference to games design in the CfE Technology outcomes LTS is in the early stages of an initiative that aims to develop the capacity for the development of a games design community via Glow. As part of this work are carrying out this survey that we hope will help us outline the current landscape about the use and spread of games based learning in Scottish schools. To this end we have worked with Scottish Screen and the Abertay University to create two questionnaires: one for teachers and one for pupils. We are hoping that responses from both questionnaires will give us a clearer picture of the spread of games based learning and some attitudes to it.
Teacher questionnaire Closing date for this questionnaire is Friday 20th November. It should not take more than 5-10 mins to complete.
Pupil questionnaire Closing date for this questionnaire is Friday 11th December. It should not take more than 5-10 mins to complete.
There is the added incentive for pupils to participate by the possibility of winning a Nintendo DSi. The following link also contains text that addresses the issue of safety in relation to children’s participation with this survey.
We fully appreciate that GBL in schools is hapening in many places outside of Scotland but this survey is aimed only at Scottish pupils and Scottish schools. We would greatly appreciate as many responses as possible to so please share it with as many people as you can.
Our results will be shared with the wider community once we have had time to collate and analyse them.
Thanking you in advance for your participation and support with this.
Having just returned from the Handheld Learning Festival I thought I would share some thoughts about what I saw and what we brought to the festival.
There was a range of thought provoking and interesting speakers from Professor James Paul Gee, author of “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy”(2003) and “Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays” (2007)
Through personal reflections on education by Zenna Atkins, the Non-Executive Chairman of Ofsted, to Malcolm McLaren, artist and pop culture icon, as well as a host of others.
As well as these keynotes I also managed to hear John Davitt talk of the tools and technology available to teachers and his desire that we use these tools more productively. I was also delighted to see Tim Rylands, he of MYST fame, show work he has been undertaking with children using Wild Earth:African Safari.
Perhaps the highlight, for me anyway, was to be involved with the Spotlight Scotland Breakout, hosted by Learning and Teaching Scotland. It was standing room only for a series of 30 minute bursts of great practice and innovation in Scottish Education. Katie Barrowman gave a great presentation on GLOW which highlighted GLOW meet and the power of sharing, Derek Robertson introduced CANVAS (Children’s Art at the National Virtual Arena of Scotland) to the appreciative audience. My presentation was on the work undertaken by children in Clackmannan Primary and their teacher Morag Clark. You can watch a version of this below.
After a short break Lisa Sorbie from Perth High School showcased work an S1 class had undertaken with Hotel Dusk:Room 215, some great writing in the noir genre. Anna Rossvoll from Aberdeenshire showed the power of GLOW meet and Wii music introducing, live, a class from Peterhead who spoke to and performed for the audience in London. Ollie Bray concluded the session with a great presentation on the power of free tools for teachers. You can click this link for more on Ollie’s presentation.
A quick introduction; I am Brian McLaren and I am the new Consolarium Development Officer. Three weeks into the job and my head is beginning to stop spinning. I am amazed by the energy and application of everyone I have met so far and I am really looking forward to supporting and sharing the good practice going on in schools.
I am currently looking into the potential of a number of games for classroom use including “Little Big Planet” for PS3, “Wild Earth African Safari” and “SimAnimals” for Wii.
If you have any experience of using these games in your class or are keen to do so please feel free to contact me. I am also keen to hear of your experiences using Games Based Learning in your class and would love to see some pics of your success.
As part of the ongoing remit to explore emerging technologies and their potential application within teaching and learning contexts Learning and Teaching Scotland’sConsolarium has been exploring Virtual Worlds. Virtual Worlds present players/learners with a computer-based simulated environment intended for its players/learners to inhabit and interact via avatars. The most famous virtual worlds would include World of Warcraft and Second Life. Although World of Warcraft is of great interest to us we are not yet looking at this due to reasons that include the time required to spend ‘in-world’ and the unprotected nature of the environment in terms of knowing who is engaging with young learners. However, the world of Second Life has been of interest to us and this is an area that we have been considering. Our ongoing discussions with various industry partners led to a meeting with an Aberdeen based company called Second Places. They make bespoke virtual worlds for clients and have worked with organisations as varied as BP, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and even the comedian Jimmy Carr! Discussions between us led to the germ of an idea that would make the concept of the virtual world in relation to teaching and learning something that would be attainable, accessible and relevant in the modern Scottish classroom. This idea is CANVAS. (Full presentation of CANVAS’ design and planned implementation will be available at a seminar at SLF’09 & HHL’09)
What is CANVAS?
In essence CANVAS (Children’s Art at the National Virtual Arena of Scotland) is a virtual art space where Scottish pupils can exhibit their still or moving image art. Access to CANVAS will be through Glow (full Shibboleth Authentication) and with this comes the opportunity to exhibit pupils’ work, in a safer and securer environment, to the huge audience of pupils and teachers throughout Scotland. Not only will pupils be able to exhibit their work but they also will be able to appear in-world, represented by a virtual character called an avatar, so that they can talk via a chat facility to gallery visitors who come to visit and view the art works on show in CANVAS. We believe that the participative nature of the design will offer a context in which young learners experiences, thoughts and understanding of their own work and development can be enriched and enhanced by the proposed opportunity for dialogue and discussion that the world offers. The exhibiting pupils will not be able to appear in world all the time so we have also built in the functionality that would allow the artist to record and embed a short video that can be played by gallery visitors when learners/artists are not in-world. This in itself is also another rich learning experience in terms of ICT but also in relation to the drafting and recording of a focused and succinct piece that would tell the viewer all about the artist’s work. To further add to this collaborative environment is the function that enables gallery visitors to leave formative comment about their experience and what they have thought about the art that is on show. Each separate artist will have their own forum where comments can be left for them to consider and reflect on.
What is the technology that is used?
Although the world looks and feels like Second Life it is actually made using an application called Open Sim. This has allowed us to create our own bespoke virtual world that can be hosted on our servers so that we have full control over whom we allow in to view and interact in the world. In order to view the world there are some technical issues that need to addressed. These include
• some ports require to be opened in firewalls before schools can access the world. Local Authority partners have been very helpful in addressing this issue so that the integrity of their networks is not compromised
• A CANVAS client will require to be installed locally to any machine that will be used to view the world. Again, we are working with Local Authority partners in order to find solutions for the delivery of this resource across managed networks
• Quicktime must be installed on any machine to be used to view CANVAS (in order to view videos within the world)
It seems that innovation does not come without its challenges and this project has certainly not found itself short on challenges. We would like to comment on the dedication and ‘stickability’ of Second Places and in particular Mark Duffy who has faced a series of what appeared to be never-ending hilltops! We are almost at the top!
What is the role of local Authorities in making CANVAS work?
Initially the idea behind CANVAS involved the use of only one exhibition space. This space would allow a local authority to exhibit pupils’ work for a three-week period. However, this would have meant that some local authorities would need to wait almost three years before they could participate and showcase pupils’ work from their schools. This was not acceptable to us. Further discussions led to the extension of the world so that there were 32 separate rooms so that all local authorities can choose to maintain and refresh their own gallery in a manageable way. The refresh timescale of the exhibition is down to each local authority. There is also some discussion still to be had in relation to what each gallery would exhibit. We are leaving this open to local authorities so that they may choose to have something along the lines of:
• an exhibition that focuses on a particular theme
• a focus on a school to showcase their pupil’s work
• best of Secondary
• best of Primary/Nursery
• a moving image special
• a focus on a particular style such as Impressionism, modern art, portraiture
We still have the main exhibition space but we are currently in discussion about the role that this will play in the future. Should we make this somewhere that displays the work from a selected local authority as first envisaged or should it exhibit a monthly selection of art from the 32 local authority galleries? Might this main exhibition space showcase art of a particular theme from schools across Scotland or can it also show art from galleries not connected with school or maybe even art teachers work? These are questions that we are currently discussing but at this stage we still envisage using this main space to showcase pupil art from selected local authorities.
Management of the CANVAS environment has been made as accessible as possible for users. We aim to give ‘god’ accounts to the people within each local authority who would be willing/responsible to manage the collation of the artwork and the subsequent uploading of this to CANVAS. They will also need to work with the exhibiting schools/pupils in order to arrange times when the pupil will be available to be ‘in-world’ so that they can interact and engage with visitors to the gallery. LTS are more than willing to support local authorities in the use of CANVAS so that they can take ownership of it at as early a stage as possible.
There will also be some requirement to moderate the comments that are submitted to the formative forum. We do hope that this will not be too onerous a task and as we know the identity of everyone in the world is (via the Shibboleth authentication) then we can trace any inappropriate comment, delete it and then, if appropriate, suspend the offending person from the world. This is an issue that may cause us the occasional headache but we believe that we have the mechanisms in place to address it if it does arise.
Taking this forward
We understand that there are have been some unfortunate stories linked with Second Life over the past year or so. We wish to stress that we are not using Second Life but an application called Open Sim that has enabled us to create out own world that we have complete control over in terms of who can access it. We would also like to stress that this project has been carefully considered with CfE and AifL clearly in mind and has been developed in conjunction with a range of ICT, Expressive Arts, AifL and school partners. It has the potential to be a significant resource and is another example of how we are exploring emerging technologies that have become embedded, for good or bad in contemporary culture, but with a clear focus on teaching and learning. Finally, CANVAS has such a low technology skills threshold that we believe that it will enable the vast majority of teachers to use it without any fear of its technical aspect.
We believe that CANVAS has the potential to be a transformational resource and that it will enrich learning in art & design for Scottish pupils
If you are thinking of getting your schools pupils involved in the LTS does Dragons’ Den event at SLF’09 this year then maybe this promotional poster will help promote interest in the exciting opportunity and challenge faced by pupils and encourage them to get their creative juices flowing.
We are very lucky this year to have three Dragons from the Scottish Games Industry to sit on the panel . These are:
Get the guitars and the drums of Guitar Hero World Tour at the ready and get those scores in for this year’s Guitar Hero Challenge SLF’09! Full details of the competition can be accessed from this blog post from the summer term and as you can see we now have our leaderboard ready and waiting to be filled with the highest scores possible.
There is a choice of songs this year and each song has its own icon to identify it:
Far left: Bushy haired and handsome Bon Jovi with ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’
Second from left: Beret wearing 80’s rockers Survivor with ‘Eye of the Tiger’
Second from right: Fully loaded Mancunian sideburns of Oasis with ‘Some Might Say’
Far right: Raven haired and goatee bearded Lenny Kravitz with ‘Are you Gonna Go My Way?’
Teacher validated scores should be sent to the consolarium@ltscotland.org.uk and these scores will be added to the leaderboard as soon as they come in.
Make sure your band name is something to behold and good luck. Your GH band might make it to the stage in Glasgow for the final showdown.
There are still a couple of kits available for any schools that may want to participate. Again, drop a line to consolarium@ltscotland.org.uk if you think your pupils have what it takes…
Please remember that the closing date for the competition is Friday 11th September.
I was delighted to have the opportunity to return to Lairdsland Primary School on June 23rd to see how Cooking Mama:World Kitchen had developed as a project in P3/4 with class teacher Catriona Calvert. I was enchanted and excited by what I saw and heard – quality learning, enthusiastic and confident children completely absorbed in the world of international food and cuisine!
Catriona explained to me that the project had started by choosing four countries; these were chosen to reflect the nationalities of families in the school. The children had then researched these countries and created a fact file. This had given them the opportunity to extend their geographical vocabulary and knowledge of sense of place.
Many contexts and opportunities for writing were facilitated by the game. These included writing biographies for imaginary chefs that were brought to life using Crazy Talk, booklets about the equipment used in the kitchen, instructions for making a chef’s hat and apron and menus for use in the Lairdsland Café (a role play area in the classroom where e.g. goods were priced and recipes costed out).
The class had collaborated to create a ‘Foods of the World’ recipe book and made a profit of £300! The children had written letters to parents appealing for recipes, they word processed the recipes, advertised the book and coordinated the sales including handling the money and keeping accounts. Catriona explained that the preparation of the book had heightened the children’s awareness of different cooking methods, the variety of foodstuffs and different cultures.
Health Week in the school had provided an opportunity for cross sector working – staff and pupils from Lenzie Academy had come and worked with the class and cooked ‘Tortilla Wraps’ with the children. I had the pleasure of being present at the first screening of the ‘cookery shows’ that the children had made with the help of pupils from P6. This process had involved writing a script, identifying props, accurately weighing and measuring ingredients and adopting the role of chef and presenter in front of the camera. The films had been edited by the P6 pupils and the results were fantastic! Everyone was given a copy to take home as a memento and to share with their families.
The visiting art teacher had explored working with different media with the children, a classroom assistant from Poland had talked to the class about her home country and what it was like to live there and the portraits of celebrity chefs were amazing! Children handled money confidently as they worked through shopping lists and easily navigated their way around the internet as they searched for information about their favourite foods and recipes.
I had a wonderful time in P3/4 at Lairdsland Primary school – I saw rich cross curricular learning, facilitated by creative and innovative teacher Catriona Calvert resulting in motivated, enthusiastic and confident children! Cooking Mama:World Kitchen – obviously a recipe for great learning!
I love watching the Grand Prix so it will be no surprise to learn I also love Mario Kart for the Wii.I could see an opportunity here for a great context for learning so I was delighted that Head Teacher, Gillian Penny at Gavinburn Primary School could also see the potential and was happy to trial it for me with a P5 class.
I visited on June 18th and class teacher Lorna McNicol had done a great job. The P5 classroom was festooned with pieces of writing, maths and art work all arising out of the context facilitated by Mario Kart.When I arrived the children were busy rehearsing advertisements about an up and coming racing championship. Later on these were captured on the computer complete with sound effects and music, ready to be burnt to CD to take home as a memento of the project, all done with the help of a P7 tutor. Nice to see ICT permeating through the learning!
The children had been organised into seven kart teams of four. The teams competed on Mario Kart and a championship had been created out of that. All the teams had names – Killer Karts, Wheels on Fire, Mega Mushrooms – and everyone had their own name badge.Team logos and pod stickers for their karts had also been designed.
Writing: Each kart team comprised a driver, a mechanic, a press agent and a manager and they had written biographies about imaginary characters who are drivers, mechanics etc.The children had interviewed each other in role as their imaginary characters and produced an account of that interview.They had drafted letters to a company asking for sponsorship and had also written reports about an accident at the race track.Lorna explained that drama had been used where ever possible to help with the writing process. She said that it had really helped the boys in particular to be immersed in this imaginary world with the visual aspect of the game helping them with a starting point for writing activities.One boy said, “ I don’t like writing but I liked writing The Accident Report.We had pictures of a racing car accident and imagined that we were there and of course we have crashes when we play Mario Kart!”
Maths: Problem solving in maths fitted easily into this context with opportunities to calculate fuel consumption, speed and costs.The children had looked at decimal places for lap timing using a model race track and had also investigated the cost of flights and accommodation to visit a Grand Prix location.
Art and Design: Logos had been designed, karts made from junk material, suits designed for racing drivers and a crowd scene witnessing the crash had been created.
Next week, the plan was to focus on Science and some of the science teachers from the secondary school were coming to get involved in the investigation of friction, air resistance, stream lining and water and fire proof materials in the classroom.Great – and an opportunity for cross sector working too!!
Lorna is a probationary teacher and this is her first experience of games – based learning and she has been delighted with the enthusiasm and motivation that the children have shown. The children were obviously still motivated, energetic and excited and were producing work of high quality – and there was only a week to go before the holidays!! Lorna has been enthusiastically sharing her experiences with other probationary teachers which is great news.
Much more had been planned for the project, but the end of term was looming.Drama, music, animation, web design and a trip to a kart track will all be on the agenda next time they run the project….(and Gillian says they will definitely be doing it again….!)
Rock and Roll is returning to the Scottish Learning Festival this year so be prepared to turn those speakers up to eleven once again with the return of the Scottish Schools Guitar Hero Challenge! The standard of competition last year was extremely high with David Whyte from Baldragon Academy in Dundee outperforming all comers to take the title. If you think that your pupils have the potential to win this then get involved in this year’s Game Zone Challenge at SLF’09. All you need is one of the following: a PS3, XBox360 or Nintendo Wii along with a copy of Guitar Hero World Tour (with an extra guitar).
This year’s competition is different in the sense that we are not looking for individual entrants but groups of players who will form a band to play the instruments in Guitar Hero World Tour. This would mean a drummer, guitarist, bassist and vocalist!
This year we are offering a choice of songs as opposed to just one. The songs that you can choose from are as follows:
Eye of the Tiger by Survivor
Some Might Say by Oasis
Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi
Are you Gonna’ go my Way? by Lenny Kravitz
You can open all the songs in the game by going in to the Cheats option and keying in the following combination Blue, Blue, Red, Green(2), Blue(2), Yellow
Scores that are achieved by bands should be validated by validated by their teacher and emailed to consolarium@ltscotland.org.uk and we will then upload these to the leaderboard. Schools can enter as many bands as they like. The closing date for submissions to the competition is Friday 11th September with the successful contestants being notified by Monday 14th September. Travel costs will be covered by LTS. This event will take place at the SLF’09 on Wednesday 23 September, 4:00pm.
Last year’s event was a great success and we hope that this year’s event will at least match if not better it. Who knows, we might even see this year’s finalists really going for it and coming ‘dressed for the event’. We’ll leave that idea up to you…
We have established a Guitar Hero Glow Group for schools to share the associated curricular work that can go on around a game such as a Guitar Hero but if your school is not yet in Glow don’t worry you can still participate by sending your high scores to the earlier stated email address and we’ll ensure that they are added to the leaderboard.
We have a small number of kits that we can loan to those who don’t have access to the game and the console so please contact us if you have are interested in this or if you have any other questions related to the competition
Blog feed