We had the great pleasure of welcoming colleagues from West and East Dunbartonshire to the Consolarium today.

We spent some time discussing the role that new technologies and in particular, games, can play in teaching and learning in the classroom of today. Luckily enough we had some game literate people although this did not stop everyone else having a go at playing the games. Again, we have found that much of our rationale for games based learning received an understanding and willing ear from today’s visitors and it looks as though both authorities will feature in the ‘Sharing Practice’ area of our site before long.

Two of the primary representatives spent some time looking at Cosmic Family for the Wii. This game is in a similar vein to Buzz Jungle Party in the sense that it contains lots of mini-games that teachers could use particularly in the Nursery setting. Pre-reading, pre-number activities also colour recognition and problem-solving tasks abound in this quirky and enjoyable game. This is one game that we suggest is worth looking at for nurseries…
Accompanying the local authority people were two representatives from Engineering the Future at Glasgow University. Games based learning is reaching out to a number of agencies and the interest from this one is all about looking at how games may impact on developing school children’s interest in engineering. Hopefully this initial meeting will be something that we can report on in future. In the meantime if anyone can recommend any games that they feel have relevance to engineering then please let us know.

Categories: Consolarium visits, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire