Consolarium

The Consolarium’s attempts to bring games based learning to the Scottish Learning Festival culminated in the final of the Sonic and Mario at the Olympics competition at the Gamezone Challenge. The past month has seen Scottish schoolchildren attempting to qualify for the finals by playing the trampolining game and their expertise left me with a little bit of egg on my face… I had thought long and hard about which game to set as the qualifier and after much deliberation I chose the trampolining because I thought it was far too difficult to get a perfect 10 and that the children’s efforts would be a real spread of scores that would allow me to get my 8 qualifiers for the final. Great thinking on my part because on the final day of qualifying no less than 19 children had registered a perfect 10 on the leaderboard! As a result of this four of the qualifying schools had their own play-offs to select the two children who would represent their school at SLF ‘08.

The event itself was brilliant. Children from Lairdsland PS & Woodhill PS (East Dunbartonshire), Clepington PS (Dundee City) and Cathkin HS (South Lanarkshire) came to compete and compete they did. A large crowd had gathered to see the competition and they gave superb backing to all the competitors with Simon Tait from Cathkin HS just taking the title in the last game. Simon won an Xbox 360 with Guitar Hero plus a Nintendo Wii with Mario Kart and a Wii Fit for his school.

The Gamezone Challenge proved to be a real hit and hopefully it will become a fixture of the Scottish Learning Festival in years to come. Well done to all who participated.

Recently it was announced that LTS’ very own Laurie O’Donnell was given the great honour of being named as one of the Global Six by the George Lucas Foundation. Laurie was recognised for his work in leading developments with technology in Scottish Education. The people at the Foundation were particularly take with the vision that was and has become Glow. Congratulations to Laurie for this, such recognition helps to affirm that you are  most certainly on the right lines!

Through Laurie’s links with  Edutopia we had the pleasure of welcoming Milton Chen and Steve Arnold to Scotland last week. This was so that these gentleman could find out a little bit more about the work that LTS is doing in helping to lead developments with technology in Scottish schools. Andrew Brown from LTS took care of the programme for the Thursday and I had to organise the Friday programme.

After meeting Milton and Steve at the train station I was given time to share with them the work that we have been doing at the Consolarium. They were really taken with what I told them about and were particularly interested in our Dr Kawashima, Guitar Hero and Nintendog projects. In order to try and bring what we do to life for them we organised a visit to Clepington PS in Dundee to see a P.6 class who have been using Sonic and Mario at the Olympics for the Wii as the contextual hub for a cross-curricular project.

The children had recently held an open afternoon for parents so that they could show them the work that they had been doing with the game. I asked the children what their parents had thought of this idea of using a Wii in class and they said:

“…my mum and dad thought it was nonsense and that we were just playing games. That was until they saw what we had been doing and they couldn’t believe it. They were really impressed.”

“…parents think that games rot your brain but they don’t, they help you think and get smarter. My parents thought the project was magnificent…even great!”

“…my mum was dead surprised that I was doing all this writing. I don’t normally like writing but I didn’t mind it in this project.”

Milton and Steve spent time talking to the children at all the learning stations that were set up and they were impressed with the level of motivation and enthusiasm that was clearly in evidence but also impressed with the confident and articulate way they engaged with their American visitors.

A quick visit to Charleston PS to see one of the classes involved with the extended DS project was planned for the afternoon. A warn welcome was given by Chris Smith, Depute Head, and the P.6 class. We asked the children how they were all getting on with the DS and then watched them take their Brain Age check. It looks as though they are getting to grips with the game and making progress already!

Thanks to both schools who made themselves available to us that day and for giving such a warm welcome to our visitors. I know they had a very enjoyable and interesting day.

The past two weeks have been rather hectic, with the promise of more of the same next week. I’m writing this post from the Western Isles EDC offices in Stornoway having completed another leg of the LTS extended Dr Kawashima project.

Last year we carried out a small-scale intervention using Nintendo DS & Dr Kawashima in a P.5/6 class in Dundee. Thew results proved to be so interesting that we managed to access funds that has allowed us to extend this to 16 schoolsd with Nintendo with 16 control groups. The methodology is very similar to what we did last year with the exception that we only have Nintendo groups and control groups this time around and the fact we are using different measures to the Burnett Self-Scale that we used last year. So now things are well under way…

We had a great start last week in Aberdeenshire schools that are taking part. It was an experience, to say the least, to have some headteachers waiting at the front door for my arrival and then to be welcomed with the excited exclamation, “It’s the Nintedno man!” The pre and post tests went like clockwork, no small thanks to Anna Rossvoll, Alison Butcher and Caroline Denning from the ‘Shire’s ICT team as well as Elizabeth Cole from HMIe.  What a team!

This week has seen me carrying out the needful in the Western Isles with my colleague from the University of Dundee, Dr David Miller doing likewise in the participating Dundee schools. Next week will see us both doing the same in our partner schools in East-Ayrshire.

I’ve always said that teaching is a great career but it’s an added bonus to see the gleeful reactions and to hear the gasps of disbelief when we tell ther children that they are getting to use the DS in class, and that we are giving them one each for the 10 week duration of the project. Good times.

We’ll all be back to visit the schools to carry out the post-tests in 10 weeks time and then for the analysis…

Last week I took the Consolarium to a CPD event in Dundee. I was invited along by the ICT Staff Tutor team in Dundee to contribute to an in-service day that was to take place in a city centre hotel. The idea was that it would act as a mini-exhibition similar to the one that LTS has at The Scottish Learning Festival. Organisations and companies whose business is focused on ICT in teaching and learning were invited along to raise awareness about how their products could impact on teaching and learning.

The staff tutors were also working in conjunction with the Learning Together in Dundee (LTiD) team. LTiD is Dundee City Council’s main driver in relation to embedding formative assessment strategies in classroom practice and this was designed to highlight ways in which ICT and LTiD could work in tandem. Have a look at how one school in the city is implementing this strategy.

The Consolarium stand was given a prime spot with a ridiculously large projection screen, however, it made the games look even more spectacular. I had taken along the Xbox 360, the Wii and the PS2 as well as Nintendo DS and Sony PSP machines. I also took along a variety of games that would exemplify a wide range of curricular applications of games based learning.

To say the stand was busy is an understatement. The teachers who came along (and it was estimated that almost 900 were in attendance over the course of the day) were very interested in what games based learning was all about and how it might work in their clasrooms. Many of them had read about our Dr Kawashima project and quite a few had visited the Consolarium’s website. Many of the Wii games proved a hit but Guitar Hero was the most popular of the day. At one point there was chorus of ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ drowning out almost everything else as a large group of teachers let their hair down and lost themselves in the game when two of their colleagues battled out that song. Apologies to the other presenters who were beside me.

I have made a short podcast of the day which can be accessed via my own blog for the time being.

Hopefully this will give a flavour of the day and of how the teachers enjoyed this ‘different’ approach to in-service.

Thanks to all at Dundee for the opportunity to share our work with their teachers and thanks to the teachers who engaged, in such an open-minded and enthusiastic fashion, with the resources and concepts underpinning our work .

The Consolarium’s work in using the Nintendo DS in the classroom has been lucky enough to garner a lot of media recognition this week. This really came about as a result of our invitation to Stephen Heppell’s ‘Be Very Afraid’ event and also our invitation frm ELSPA to present our work at the London Games Festival.

First up we have a video clip from BBC Breakfast on Tuesday morning. The focus of the clip was the London Games Festival and in particular the Be Very Afraid event but the background images used were of the boys from St Columba’s playing the game with their Head Teacher, Mrs Andrews, and me hovering in the background grabbing a DS or two to get other people started using it.

We then found out that a computer games based website called Spong had taken great interest in what we did and thery posted an article on their site. This was followed up by a lead piece in today’s TESS. The journalist that I spoke to was very interested in what happened and he even followed it up further than we did by contacting one of the boy’s mums to ask her what she thought about the project. I am pleased to say that Mrs McPherson was delighted with how this experience has helped her son.

Last thing to report in this post is that BBC Education Online have just published an article about the DS project.
There has been a great deal of genuine positive interest about this story and we are really delighted that this story about the possible benefits of games as learning tools has been received in the spirit that it has. We hope to continue sharing many of the other positive stories that are happening with our local authority partners over the coming months.

What a fantastic day today we have had at Stephen Heppell’s “Be Very Afraid”event at BAFTA in London. After a hectic day travelling we finally managed to get to BAFTA in Piccadily for the pre-event meeting. After that we all headed back to our hotels. The boys from St Columba’s PS in Dundee who came with us to London had never flown before and they had never been to London! The apprehension and excitement in their voices as the plane engines roared for take-off at Dundee airport was heard throughout the plane, and the same happened as we landed at London City! Here is a short video of our time at the event:

Anyway, what an experience today was. Although the Be Very Afraid event was superb and packed with innovative, cutting-edge practice and bright sparky kids I could not help but feel inward glee at the way the boys from Dundee not only conducted themselves but also with how they demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Nintendo DS device and the Dr Kawashima game they used. Their ability to convey the excitement, value and challenge they experienced during the project to such a wide and varied range of interested parties was a joy to behold. They were articulate, confident and accommodating and I’m sure that a great many people who spoke to them and took the oppoertunity to play the game managed to get a little insight in to what a positive experience this project was for them.
They really were a credit to their school and to the Consolarium’s work in trying to put LTS’ games-based-learning initiatives in the educational mix. Very well done to you both boys and to all the children from St Columba’s PS and the other schools involved for all their work and efforts.

A few months ago Stephen Heppell visited the Consolarium in Dundee and I had the pleasure of taking him to a couple of games based learning projects that were happening in the city. One of those was the Dr Kawashima Nintendo DS project that is featured in our sharing practice site. He was very impressed with and interested in what we were doing with this game and in the resultant gains and impact that it appeared to have. As a result of this we have been invited to his Be Very Afraid event at this year’s London Games Festival. “This is an annual event held at BAFTA in London combining ingenious students - from primary to university age, cool technology, conversations with key influencers, and some remarkable projects - all jammed into a room which is literally bursting with creativity.”

Stella Andrews (HT), myself and two of the P.6 boys from St Columba’s who participated in the case study will be attending and contributing to this year’s event. They will be armed with their Nintendo DS machines, the Kawashima game and tales of their experiences using the DS in the classroom. More information about the event can be accessed via this link but this short paragraph from the London Games Festival website possibly captures the essence of what it’s all about:

“Be Very Afraid” poses a number of questions for policy makers. It is clear that the old “factory schools” who were “delivering” a curriculum into “empty vessels” are disappearing. But what is replacing them is exciting AND effective. Be Very Afraid annually brings us all up to speed with what our children are capable of, when you add inspired teachers, new technology, imagination and a little space into the mix. It has become a major fixture for senior policy makers and for those who care about the future of cinema, television, games and learning. nowadays, they are afraid to miss it!

We have also been asked by ELSPA to deliver a session about the games based learning initiatives that the Consolarium has led this year. This will again be delivered at BAFTA and will be focused mostly on the DS case study and the Guitar Hero case study. If you are in London at this time (Oct 24) then please come along and see what some of the pupils and teachers in Scottish schools have been getting up to with games.

Needless to say we will document the children’s experiences at the event on this blog so stay tuned (or RSSd)!

..so says Stephen Heppell in his Back and Forth article in the Guardian (18/09/07). Stephen came up to visit Dundee a few months back and I took him to see the children that I had worked with on my Nintendo DS Dr. Kawashima project. He was very interested in what had happened in the project and he summarised it this way:

“It will be no surprise to readers that performances got better in some key areas of the curriculum, but new orders of merit also emerged as unexpected performances showed new and unrecognised potential. Being brainy became cool, too, and it has been quite a while since schools students regarded anything related to school technology as cool.”

Full details of the project can be found at the Kawashima Case study within the Consolarium’s sharing practice area.

We delivered a seminar presentation about this project at the Scottish Learning Festival. There was great interest about what happened and added value in terms of the DHT from the school that I worked with talking about how he and the school feels that there has been a longer term affect on the dynamic of the class as a result of the project.

The more I talk about this project the more I am hearing of other teachers talking about using the Nintendo DS in the class. If so what are you doing with it? Let us know.