Consolarium

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.

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.

Since December ‘06 we have had quite a lot of local authorities visit the Consolarium. An initial interest in what games based learning has to offer and then an exploration of how this could impact in their particular context leads to projects and pilots happening in schools. On Friday we had a visit from colleagues from Perth and Kinross. Having seen a couple of the games based learning presentations at SLF ‘07 Jim Hynd and Matthew Mackie from Perth High School contacted me to see if they could visit the Consolarium and find out a bit more about what is happening with games in Secondary schools. So along with Mark McShane, ICT Development Officer, they came for a visit yesterday.

It seems that Jim in particular has an interest in games. He is a level 6 ‘Mage’ (is that right Jim?) in World of Warcraft and has used games in his practice for years it seems. Matthew and Mark were also aware of the wider landscape of games and they were very keen to explore how games could impact not only in Perth HS but also across the authority.

The Consolarium is proving to be a successful set-up in terms of engaging local authorities with reflecting on the concept of and practical application of games based learning. A visit allows engagement with the arguments and debates around the subject and then a chance to have a go at many of the games that we suggest could work in schools. Here we see Jim having a go at Wii Golf but we spent quite a bit of time looking at a range of games.

Unfortunately the gentlemen from Perth had to get back to school for the afternoon so the session had to be cut short.

Looking forward to working with colleagues in Perth & Kinross.

It’s been a while coming but at last we’ve made it, the Consolarium’s blog is finally here. The chances are that you will have found this blog via the games based learning pages within the Learning and Teaching Scotland online service so if you have welcome. If you didn’t find it via that route then you are still welcome!

Custom Robo Arena challenger).Many more posts to follow but may once again may I welcome you to this blog. It would be great for us to hear your comments about our work and to let us know what it is you are doing with games based learning. We are always looking for partners for projects as well so that we can continue to widen the scope of what we are doing so please don’t hesitate to get in touch.