- May 29th, 2009
Games-based learning galore at Lairdsland Primary School, East Dunbartonshire!
- kaplin
- Comments: 1 CommentTags: games based learning, Glow
A day this week at Lairdsland Primary School surrounded by engaged and motivated children and creative and enthusiastic teachers was a real privilege and a pleasure.
I had been invited to visit Fiona Angus and her P4/5 class who have been using the Nintendo Wii game Endless Ocean as a contextual hub for cross curricular learning. Endless Ocean is a game in which the player explores the ocean and swims on a coral reef, interacting with a huge variety of sea creatures.
The children have been keeping diving diaries about what they find whilst exploring the ocean in the game, producing tourist guides, creating newspaper reports about discoveries on the reef, researching the animals they find, exploring many different media in art and design in producing art work of different kinds of marine animals and inventing their own exotic sea creatures. During my visit, we brought some of these creatures to life using CrazyTalk which allows a digital image to be animated and a voice added. The children were keen to share their writing with each other in this way (even those who were usually quiet and reserved!) and had been rehearsing some great accents! What wonderful ideas they had for their creatures and what fun! Children are bringing things in from home connected to what they are doing in school and are keen to continue with their activities even when the bell rings for break time or lunch time!
Fiona is using the Endless Ocean project as a starting point for a study of Australia and the children hope to have the opportunity to ask questions and to exchange ideas with visitors from Australia next month. Endless Ocean has already proved to be a great resource for creating a rich context for learning and has done it again at Lairdsland.
I also had a chance to talk to Vicky Mackenzie and Fiona Morrison about their Guitar Hero World Tour project currently running in P7 and P6/7. They have replicated a lot of what has been highlighted as good practice with this resource but this year the topic has the title ‘Making it BIG in the USA’. The idea is that the children are members of a successful UK band and they are now trying to break into the American market. The children are going on a tour of America and are responsible for budgeting and managing their own tour.
The children have their ‘Making it BIG in the USA’ glow group. This group contains these sections:
Notice board - used to target news such as promotions on hotel rooms, deadlines for budgets etc
Classified Ads - this will be used to advertise for staff (such as security) and will also be used to advertise band merchandise (which they have designed), to raise funds.
Band Banter - this is a discussion page where the class teachers will set questions that the children must respond to in the style of their band.
Useful Websites - this has been categorised into Travel, Accommodation, Restaurant and General Websites. The children will use these when booking their flights to the USA and between states, finding appropriate places to stay etc.
Band Budgets - this is for the children to store their Band Budgets. These are excel spreadsheets that the children are creating throughout the topic. They will keep a record of everything that they have spent and earned. At the end of the topic the band with the most money in their account will be awarded a prize. A good way to use the context for learning about currency conversion and financial education and a great way to use Glow!
My last stop was the P3/4 classroom where class teacher, Catriona Calvert, is using Nintendo’s Cooking Mama World Kitchen as a starting point for another interdisciplinary project. I was shown the chefs’ hats that the children have made and the instructions that they wrote for that process. They have researched countries and have made fact files, they have written menus and are in the process of setting up a restaurant in the classroom for role play. They have just completed a really successful enterprise project in which they wrote, produced and sold their own cookery book, selling over fifty copies on the first day! I have been promised photographs and examples of the children’s work as the project develops which I can’t wait to see. Well done Vicky and Catriona for spotting the potential of the game for classroom use!
What a great day!
Categories Consolarium, East Dunbartonshire, Glow
Thank you Kim for the very detailed description of the work you saw on your visit to Lairdsland. Not only is Lairdsland an exciting place to be for children, it is also an exciting place to work in. The staff are so innovative in their teaching methodologies which captures the imagination of the children they are working with. The children are so motivated which has a fantastic impact on their attainment, their attendance and their attitude. You are so right about the children not being in a rush to go out at playtime. Today I was in Primary 7 and they wanted to work for part of their lunchtime because they are so keen to make more money for their band (virtual funds). Three other successful projects took place earlier this year. Children in Primary 6 took part in an 8 week block using Brain Gym to improve their mental ability using Nintendo DS, Primary 2 children used Nintendogs on their DS machines as they were involved in a cross curricular topic focussing on The Pet Shop and Primary 7 took part in a cross curricular topic called WIIBLEDON. The benefits to the children of using a Games Based Learning approach is amazing. The quality of their writing improves dramatically as the children have a context,purpose and audience. Using the games is a huge motivational factor as it really helps put the learning experiences in a context that children understand and can relate to. I have mainly described the impact on attainment in writing but improvements can be seen in all curricular areas that the topic encompasses. We are more than happy for any school who wishes to see first hand the work going on, or even to speak to the teachers who have carried out the topics to contact us if they wish to visit or perhaps arrange for a Glow Meet
session. Thank you once again for highlighting the good work going on.
Eileen Cocozza
Headteacher
Lairdsland Primary School