Consolarium

A few months ago Stuart Lennie and the ICT Development team from Falkirk Council came to visit the Consolarium. We had a very good day and as a result of that initial meeting we now have a number of games based learning projects happening in that local authority. Not only that but last night they held a CPD computer games for learning event at Bo’ness Academy.

I was asked to give an initial talk about the place and value of computer games in teaching and learning but the real reason to be there was to see what is happening in schools in that authority. It seems that games based learning is certainly taking hold in Falkirk.

Here are just some of the things that are happening there:

Falkirk Council Active Schools: The people from the active schools team gave a demonstration of the Stepmania software that you can install on your PC and is then controlled via a USB connected dance mat. Maybe the people that say computer games cause obseity in youngsters need to have alook, and a go , at some of the se activity based games. Have a look at some other exertainment links.

Bankier Primary School: The children and teachers from Bankier PS gave a demonstration of RM Easiteach dance mat resources. Have a look at this in action.

Bo’ness Academy: The staff and pupils from the pupil support department gave a demonstration of how skilled they are becoming at using the Nintendo Wii Sports game and Big Brian Academy for the Wii. We hope to follow up this project in the near future.
Bo’ness Academy: Now this is a particularly interesting and juicy games based project. The English Department are using the Nintendo DS and the Phoenix Wright game as the context for a writing project. The children are allowed to take the consoles and the game home but they are expected to complete the case files that Phoenix has to solve. Up to now there has been 100% completion of the tasks and the associated and unconnected homework. When they come back to class the teacher is using the context of the game to encourage the children to write their own newspaper reports of the crimes that are being investigated in the game, they are writing scripts so that these can be recorderd and shared via podcast and they are developing their own characters that will appear in their own crime mystery stories. Much more of this to come in the near future.

Denny Nursery: The staff from Denny Nursery gave a demonstration of Primary Steps Phonics software that uses a dance mat. This resource is really taking off and is making appearance in mnay local authoriuties.

Easter Carmuirs Primary: The very popular and successful Sony PS2 game Buzz has just included another version into its family. It’s called Buzz!: The School Quiz and this school is j ust one of a number throughout Scotland that the Consolarium has managed to make available as part of a pilot project with Sony. Again, much more to come about this…
Glenfair Nursery: The staff from gave a demonstration of the Eye Toy for the Playstation 2 and talked about the impact that this is having on the youngsters in that context. One thing that it seems to be teaching the children is turn taking and queuing. It seems that the Eye Toy is the first thing that the children want to queue for in the Nursery!

Very well done to all at Falkirk for what was a truly exciting and inspiring CPD session. We look forward to reporting in depth about all of these projects.

Categories: Consolarium visits, Falkirk