Before I go anywhere with this blogpost can I ask you to have a look at this excellent example of collaboration between LTS and a local authority partner.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did!

Today I spent a superb day capturing case study materials in schools in Stirling Council. As with yesterday in Falkirk we had a smashing day with the educational development team, the teachers and pupils in the schools. Yet again, the work that is happening with the games-based-learning initiatives that we witnessed today was delightful and in particular it’s great to hear the pupils talk so positively about what they are doing. The schools we visited today were:

Cornton PS: The P.6 class from last year were using an application called Crazy Talk. I have been very keen to capture this for some time now and at long last I managed to bag it today. I’m sure that this will prove to be a very informative and at times entertaining case study. It’s just brilliant when children spontaneously offer words and phrases that affirm why you put an application in a school in terms of how good it’s been for them. Today that happened. One boy was asked about Crazy Talk and he said that not only was it great fun but that he used to only write a paragraph or two when asked to write but that now with Crazy Talk he is writing pages of stuff! The children were so delighted to have been given the opportunity to use Crazy Talk in their class that when they found out that I was responsible for giving them the programme they asked for my autograph! What next? As you can see, I was happy to oblige. Some great stuff caught on camera here today.

Gargunnock PS: Laura Costello was one of the teachers who attended the computer games design training session that we held back in May 2007. She is using Missionmaker with the children at this school and is delivering it via a computer club.

It’s quite a complex application but Laura is introducing concepts and techniques a bit at a time and the children are so delighted to be making their own computer games. I was really impressed with the way that Laura Costello has taken this forward and with the level of expertise that was displayed by the children. They were able to tell me about volume triggers and props and characters and they also talked about how pleased they were that they have been given the chance to ‘make their own computer game’ in school!
Again, this will prove to be a valued addition to the Missionmaker case study in the Sharing Practice area of the Consolarium’s website.

Thanks to all in Stirling for a great day.

Categories: Stirling Council
Tags: Consolarium, crazy talk, missionmaker