The latest edition of the Consolarium podcast is now available. You can subscribe to the podcast from itunes via this link or listen to it via the embedded player.
Super samba inspired learning in schools!
This edition of the Consolarium podcast is solely dedicated to a project that came to an end just before Christmas 2009. Meldrum PS and Slains PS in Aberdeesnhire had been working with the game Samba de Amigo for the Nintendo Wii. When this game first came out the team at the Consolarium thought that this would have great potential in schools and so it was duly purchased. Here’s what it looks like:
OK, I think that after that clip you may be asking, “How on earth can a game that requires the player to shake out samba rhythms help children learn?” Well it most certainly has. What has been going on?
Samba de Amigo inspires ‘relevant and engaging learning’
The methodology that the Consolarium invariably employs in our approach to game based learning involves the computer game being used as the central ‘contextual hub’ about which learning can be situated. We have used this approach with many of our previous projects and it has proved to be a successful methodology. The teachers involved in this project worked together to create a collaborative story that focused on a rags to riches tale about a favela dwelling samba musician who made it to the big time. Accompanying this came the story of a plane, that was carrying the newly created Samba music superstar, crashing in the Amazon jungle and the associated learning about that. Here is some of the children’s work. Here is a news report of that event:
Some people may still be of the opinion that the idea of game based learning is something that does not sit with what school should be about but we would argue that game based learning, if used appropriately, can excite, challenge and create relevant and appealing contexts for learners. Just look at how writing has been developed here”
The children were inspired to carry out research about the Amazon Rainforest as a result of the “plane crash’ scenario and other ways in which the teachers had created the settings in which intrinsic motivation to explore the topic. Have a read of this piece of writing: The Amazon Rainforest
The children from both schools used Glow to begin to explore how they could work together on story start project. Here is the beginnings of their efforts: Trible Troubles Chapters 1, 2 and 3 If you would like to find out more about how Glow was used then join their Samba de Amigo Glow group.
The children also used Crazy Talk to great effect to bring their writing to life. Here we see how writing about an imaginary Amazonian rainforest creature can be enhanced by this simple piece of technology:
If you take the time to listen to the podcast about the Samba de Amigo project then you’ll here us talking to a pupil about his experience. If we could have written a script for a pupil to read out about the benefits of game based learning then what he said (without coaching or prompting we may add) would have been what we would have said. He talks about his learning connecting up, about it being exciting and active and how he will rmember this project. Great stuff from him. Here is a brief clip of some boys actively involved in the project and warming up for their Samba music creation lesson.
Hopefully the podcast and this brief blogpost will give you a flavour of just how good this GBL project was. A fuller account of what was done and how this GBL context impacted on learning will be released in the near future. In the meantime can we just say thanks to all at Meldrum PS and Slains PS for working with us on this project.
Over the last wee while I have been visiting schools to see the impact of some ongoing projects. I visited Tullos Primary in Aberdeen where a class of primary 6 children have been undertaking a Wild Earth African Safari. I popped in to see a primary 3 class in Dingwall Primary working on a Nintendogs project and then off to Alvie Primary in Kincraig near Aviemore where a composite p 3/4/5 were taking on their own African Safari.
In Tullos Primary the teacher undertaking the project spoke about her experience at an InService day and the rest of the staff were so impressed by the potential that they will be purchasing gaming technology of their own so games based learning can be extended throughout the school.
In Dingwall primary the children have been using their Nintendogs to enhance and improve literacy. Both management and class teacher have been amazed by the impact and how the desire to write and reach an audience outside the school, through their blog, has moved the learning of all the class forward.
From Alvie Primary the teacher has tied the whole experience together as an enterprise Activity and will showcase the work for parents in a Safari afternoon. She also reckons that when the wii is returned to the Consolarium it will have a whole class of children attached to it who will not let it go!
“Play is something that ICT has been bringing into learning from the very beginning. ICT in learning holds the potential to bring back playfulness and engagement…”
The Games based learning approach taps straight into this potential and, for those of us working in the Consolarium, we are lucky enough to see practical examples of the impact of this everywhere we go. Share the joy! If you and your class or school are using games based learning then please let us know and share your good practice.
John Donne espoused that we are all connected and I think that we are all the better for it. Having connections whether familial, social or professional enriches all that we do and extends, supports and challenges us.
I have been thinking recently about the way my learning has changed now that I am no longer in a school setting and how much I relied on the people in my school staff to bounce ideas off, to rant to, to use the experience of and to laugh with. Now that I no longer have a physical staffroom to use I have found myself using the skills and knowledge of a different set of people in a very different way. I have a virtual staffroom, open 24hrs a day containing a set of people from all over the world, with a huge array of skills and experience which I can tap into, and who generously share their learning. I use Twitter. There, I’ve said it and it doesn’t make me a bad person!
She and her class were considering the use of Wild Earth: African Safari for the Wii and wondered if it would be a worthwhile context for learning. Through the work they have shared with me it is clear that they have been involved in a very engaging, motivating and successful piece of learning. I had the great privilege of meeting the children online at the tail end of last week. We set up a Glowmeet and through the use of this technology children over 400 miles away, including at least one flight and a ferry, could share the fantastic work they had done with me in real time and get immediate feedback. Go and visit the Burravoe Primary School blog, read about life in their school and read the “Brilliant Story” by Charlotte in p3.
Through the use of technology available to those in Scottish Education our children have access to an immediate national audience for their work, Glow groups, glow meet, CANVAS and a host of blogs allow our children the opportunity to share their work and receive feedback . We should all be sharing our practice and seeking feedback on the work we do and providing constructive feedback on the work of others. We cannot afford to be islands.
Years ago, when TV was a source for the collective conscious, I remember sitting down with my folks to watch the Generation Game on BBC1. The willing contestants were always presented with challenging and nonsensical tasks to try out and one that sticks in my mind involved handbell ringing!
Somehow a visit to a school in Peterhead last week to see a game based learning initiative that used Wii Music brought that memory back to me as I watched groups of children swing their wiimotes and nunchunks in a campanology stylee but in so doing they really were ringing the bell for game based learning in schools…
I was contacted by Jonathan Cordiner from the Aberdeenshire Glow team some time ago to be informed about the work that he was doing with Esther Clark and her P.6 class from Buchanhaven PS in Peterhead using the game Wii Music for the Nintendo Wii. Now Wii Music involves a number of games that encourage you to ‘jam’ with the Miis on screen and in so doing play various instruments and learn a surprising amount about music.
When I mentioned the potential of learning about music through this game to some people they did not initially think that standing in front of a screen waving a game controller up and down or side to side could have any real substance or add value to learners experience in this area. Having visited the class and seeing what they have done for myself I can’t help saying just how incredible the skilled and informed use of this resource has been and just what a tremendous impact this has had on the learners in this class.
What have they been learning?
The first thing that struck me when I met the class was just again how excited and motivated the children were to show what they had been doing and to demonstrate their new skills.
For me the educational ethos in a class is so important if children are to be engaged by learning and here we saw a class bursting with enthusiasm, industry, skills and knowledge of their subject. I saw:
Groups of children accompanying the Miis with various vitual instruments in the game to perfectly perform a selection of songs
Children learning about the role and responsibility of the orchestra conductor and showing their skills in conducting the Wii orchestra
Children moving away from the game to play ‘real’ instruments in order to play the songs they had performed within the game
Children talking confidently and knowledgeably about the range of musical instruments AND musical notation
Children performing their own ringtones that were created using a pentatonic scale
Class displays about various composers and the different genres of music there are
Above all I saw learning happening in a classroom bursting with life. We have videoed a lot of the work that the children have been doing but is just at the edit stage but have a quick look at some of the work that the children have done about the composers that they investigated:
Yet again we see how a game built for entertainment can prove to be such a rich source for learning when used by skilled and thoughtful teachers who know how to use game based learning in order to create the appropriate context and climate in which rich learning can thrive. There have been many requests to the Aberdeenshire Glow team for the plans that were used for this project. These can be accessed here:
This project was a sheer delight to see and many congratulations must go to Jonathan and Esther for their imaginative and thorough approach, an approach that has made this initiative such a success.
A quick introduction; I am Brian McLaren and I am the new Consolarium Development Officer. Three weeks into the job and my head is beginning to stop spinning. I am amazed by the energy and application of everyone I have met so far and I am really looking forward to supporting and sharing the good practice going on in schools.
I am currently looking into the potential of a number of games for classroom use including “Little Big Planet” for PS3, “Wild Earth African Safari” and “SimAnimals” for Wii.
If you have any experience of using these games in your class or are keen to do so please feel free to contact me. I am also keen to hear of your experiences using Games Based Learning in your class and would love to see some pics of your success.
Ollie Bray, depute headteacher of Musselbrough Grammar School, East Lothian, took first place in the Innovation in Community section for his presentation of ‘Thinking out of the XBOX’ at the Innovative Teachers Forum 2009 in Vienna. He is currently on secondment to Learning and Teaching Scotland as a National Adviser for Emerging Technologies in Learning.
Inspired by a project initiated by Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Consolarium initiative he organised an extension of this innovative idea and organised a transition project for the associate Primary schools of Musselburgh GS using Guitar Hero. This approach proved to be a great success and the Guitar Hero transition project will now be rolled out across East Lothian schools within weeks. Schools all over Scotland are already using this resource. Schools in England and even as far afield as Hong Kong and Australia, are interested in the project. Mr Bray devised a three-step process of ‘learning, social interaction and reflection and moving on’ as children change.
To celebrate the impact that this work has had in Scottish schools and to test the ability of teachers and pupils alike we decided to have the Dr Kawashima (how fast can you do your sums) Challenge at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival? This event was supported by Nintendo and they kindly donated 30 DS plus games to us to offer as prizes in this competition. We asked the delegates at this years conference if they were the fastest sums expert in Scotland! We were unsure if teachers would avoid this because they might have felt a little compromised because they couldn’t quite remember things like 7 x 8 under pressure.
Over the course of both days the LTS stand was extremely busy with teachers undertaking the x20 challenge in the game in order to get on the leaderboard so that they had a chance of getting in the top eight that would compete at the Gamezone Challenge at the end of the day.
The final involved the top 8 teachers directly competing against each other in the x30 download challenge. The teachers that did compete did very very well and they contributed to a great session at the end of both days., The winners were:
Wednesday: Steven Beattie, Dens Road PS, Dundee (15 DS plus games)
Thursday: Vicky Mackenzie, Lairdsland PS, Kirkintilloch (15 DS plus games)
Well done to both winners and we hope that you enjoy and make good use of your newly acquired games/learning devices.
As a result of a small scale intervention that we carried out in some classrooms last year we managed to fund an extended study to explore further the findings that we identified in relation to mental maths attainment and academic self-concept as a result of playing Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for the Nintendo DS in the primary school.
As a result of this extended study, carried out by Learning and Teaching Scotland in partnership with the University of Dundee and HMIE, we now have some concrete evidence of learning gains that can be attributed to the use of a games console in the primary classroom. But it has also raised a series of questions in our minds; there is a lot more we need to learn…
Although our research does indicate significant gains by the Nintendo group we feel that two things are particularly important for those with an interest in Scottish education. The first is that even the control group children showed measurable improvements in performance; this reflects very well on hard-working Scottish class teachers. The second point is important when thinking about the implications of our findings: because of the research design, we can feel confident that these findings are likely to be typical of what we can realistically expect across the board in Scotland.
We attach a summary paper that gives an outline of what we have found. We intend to submit a fuller paper for full academic review hence the summary nature of the information that we are sharing with you. The results will be discussed and shared with a wider audience for the first time at the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow.
As part of this year’s Consolarium inspired Gamezone Challenge at this year’s SLF we have the DR Kawashima Challenge: How fast can you do your sums? Delegates are invited to take the x20 challenge within this game and see if their score gets on the leaderboard! If a score features in the top eight by 3:30pm on the Wednesday or 2:30pm on the Thursday then the talented delegate will be invited to take part in the x30 download challenge to see if they are the fastest sums expert in Scotland! This title will come with 15, yes I said 15 Nintendo DS plus Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training for the DS.
This week has seen my colleague from the University of Dundee, Dr David Miller, carrying out the post-tests in participating schools in Dundee with me making my way to Stornoway to carry out those in the Western Isles. The life of a Development Officer for LTS is not an easy one I may add what with a 4:30am wake up on Monday morning so that I could get to Edinburgh Airport in time for my flight! Even so, to get the opportunity to visit parts of Scotland such as the Western Isles is really a bonus. If you haven’t had a chance to come here then take the first opportunity you can…it’s Scotland with a completely different flavour to that of the central belt and it’s great to see, smell and feel.
My host and contact up here, Hamish Budge and I combined to mix up the dates of my visit and so my arrival at the airport was not expected. Eventual phone contact led to Hamish saying, “Don’t worry we’ll fix it,” followed 10 minutes later by a trail of dust left behin by Hamish’s Citroen Berlingo LPG as it streaked into the airport carpark.
All the schools managed to accommodate our rearranged visits to carry out the post-tests and many thanks to all at Laxdale, Stornoway, Tong and Back Primary Schools for their help with the project.
Today we visited Sgoil nan Loch which sits just outside Stornoway. Andrew Reeves (HT) gave me a tour of the school and I must say what an exemplar school it was. A new building with plenty of light, excellent resources, a fantastic situation with wonderful views and superb displays throughout the school. Most certainly a place of learning. See some of the photos on the Rock You slide show.
Thanks once again to all in the Western Isles for their help with this project but also for the warm welcome that is always made to visitors such as myself. Tapadh leibh!
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ir own so games based learning can be extended throughout the school.
Somehow a visit to a school in Peterhead last week to see a game based learning initiative that used 
To celebrate the impact that this work has had in Scottish schools and to test the ability of teachers and pupils alike we decided to have the Dr Kawashima (how fast can you do your sums) Challenge at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival? This event was supported by Nintendo and they kindly donated 30 DS plus games to us to offer as prizes in this competition. We asked the delegates at this years conference if they were the fastest sums expert in Scotland! We were unsure if teachers would avoid this because they might have felt a little compromised because they couldn’t quite remember things like 7 x 8 under pressure.
As a result of a