The most challenging and in some ways satisfying task that I have been faced with so far with in this job was not so much the initiation of a series of games-based-learning initiatives with local authority partners but more leaving them long enough so that we could then go back to find out what had happened. The pressure was really on prior to SLF ‘07 because the long promised Consolarium website was still to make an appearance…..but you have to have something to show don’t you!

Anyway, there are some case studies online at present but there are a great deal more in the pipeline. Today I visited Falkirk Council to begin recording some of the excellent work that has been happening there. I was accompanied by Barrie Barreto from SITC who is the audio visual master of ceremonies. It’s amazing to see the finished product that people like Barrie come up with and their great work does go unnoticed in some ways so a big thanks to him for what he does.

The schools we visited today were:

• Bo’ness Academy: There is lots of games based learning work going at this school but the project that I was capturing today  was the Phoenix Wright project. We have given 20 Nintendo DS machines and copies of Phoenix Wright to the school and a 2nd year class has been using this with their teacher for the past couple of months. I had a feeling that this game had real possibilities for creating the context for a series of English language activities and I’m glad I was proved right. The Teacher, Mrs McIntyre, has used this game really well and her pupils have :
  • worked on character sketches with the main players in the game being used as the focus for this task
  • written newspaper reports about the cases and the goings-on in the game
  • devised their own game ideas that have been packaged in games casing. Some of these games were incredibly imaginative and detailed, one even looking at the world of ballet to create a ‘Dance Academy’ type game (apparently it’s only for girls!)
  • been writing their own drama scripts based on the story and have recorded these using Audacity so that the mp3 file can be shared as a podcast

As with almost every project I have seen in schools the children today were really excited and keen to tell us what they thought about the work they had been doing and how much they liked the idea of games in school.

• Glenfair Nursery School: I gave a number of authorities a couple of PS2 machines with the Eye Toy. I though that this device had great potential in the pre-school setting and today was the first time that I saw it in action. What a time we had. The children love the Eye Toy and they will queue patiently until it’s their turn. This is something that the staff in the school are very pleased with. We have captured on video 3 & 4 year old kids working their way through the set-up of their game and then playing it. We managed to avoid splashing water, clattering utensils and very-inquisitive children in order to capture this case study. I look forward to seeing this one myself…

• Easter Carmuirs PS: This school has taken ownership of a PS2 and the Buzz for Schools game. We saw the children playing some maths and English Language games and it was very interesting indeed. Again, great concentration and engagement but I must say what a demanding set of questions there were! I fancy playing this myself because it was so tough. Here’s one example of the level of difficulty:

put these books in order of when they were published:

1. The Northern Lights
2. Treasure Island
3. The Tales of Beatrix Potter
4. Swallows and Amazons

How did you do? Difficult, eh?

These case studies will need to be edited, packaged and prepared for the web but we hope to have them available very early 2008. Thanks to all at Falkirk Council for a great day and for allowing us access to schools where such great practice is happening.

Categories: Falkirk