Consolarium

November 23rd, 2007

ICET 2007: PowerPoint and Art

Derek Robertson

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: ICET2007
 : Categories Art & Design, Conferences

Sometimes simple ideas are the best. Amid all the high tech and new ideas I saw at the conference a very simple and yet very effective idea in relation to meeting the teachers learning intentions. Nur Ilyana was one of many teachers from Singapore at the conference whose work in classrooms had been recognised by the State. They were awarded a gong in recognition of their innovative and effective practice. Nur’s presentation was really quite enchanting and is something that anyone can do.

She is an Art teacher and she talked about how difficult it is to get children who feel that they can’t draw to engage with her subject in such a way that she can extend their knowledge, appreciation of and engagement with Art. What she did was introduce the concept of Shapes and Lines to the children and showed them how they could make impressive images by combining both. There was a real oriental feel to the images that were created and they were totally engaging. the children she had been working with were Year 5 and some of their work was hugely entertaining.

Once images were created using the drawing tools in PowerPoint Nur showed the children how to use custom animation tool within and how their images could then be made to move to music. The one that really caught my eye (and it is in the accompanying photograph for this post) was of Rhianna who recorded the song ‘Unbrella’. I’m going to email Nur to see if I can get a copy of this PPT because it was so simple and yet so effectice.

As I said, sometimes the simple ideas work.

November 23rd, 2007

ICET 2007: World of Warcraft demo

Derek Robertson

Comments: 4 Comments » Tags: Tags: , ICET2007, WoW
 : Categories Conferences, Multi-player games

One of the anticipated highlights of the conference was the presentation by Professor Angeline Khoo from NIE in Singapore. Her presentation was called Active Learning through Gaming. It seems that Professor Khoo is a World of Warcraft (WoW) player and the session was advertised as follows:

Looking back to the 24th of July, 2007, World of Warcraft, the award winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) made by Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. has officially surpassed the 9 million subscribers mark. What makes the game successful and how has it become a defining icon of online gaming entertainment? Why have 9 million people around the world given their time to it?

In the Gaming Demonstration at ICET 2007, we will “walk” through a gaming scene from World of Warcraft. There, players will form a team to fight an enemy (termed as the BOSS). Team members will learn how to plan, coordinate, and strategize in order to prepare themselves to attack and defeat the BOSS.

Players are constantly tested as the game progresses with new abilities and challenges. To look at it from another angle, the player has to gain the ability to learn, adapt, and implement his skills in the world to ensure the continued survival of its gaming character. The result: better learning rates, as well as higher levels of logical thinking, and coordination.

Come join us for the full insight on how gaming, and in particular World of Warcraft, can play a significant role in shaping the future of learning in gaming.

I must confess that I have yet to delve into and invest the necessary time required to make progress with WoW so I was interested to see what they were doing with this game in relation to its application in teaching and learning. Professor Khoo talked about how she has become hooked on this game and how important her avatar is to her. She has invested a lot of time in its creation and evolution and it has helped her make friends in her Guild, friends who come from all over the world. She demonstrated it in action in relation to how one would interact with another player. The text message system worked perfectly although the voice communication did not work.

Then Profesor Khoo invited a group of adults who were teachers and ICT professional on to the stage so that a live raid could take place in the game. Unfortunately there were some technical problems so the ‘raid’ was 10 mins late in starting! When it did start it was good to see how the team worked together in order to co-ordinate attacks on enemy monsters.

The question and answer session was interesting and points raised included:

• issues about connectivity with such games via school network
• how does current curriculum architecture facilitate the time required to make meaningful progress within the game?
  
• what are people learning when they play this game?
• is it appropriate to collaborate to kill in a game, and do to this in school?
• how do you balance your life when this game demands a lot of time?
• how can we make explicit the learning that implicitly happens within the game?

I wasn’t wholly convinced that this presentation would make me want to use this in my classroom although it does make me consider how such games could be used to help develop leadership skills and team dynamics. No doubt you have other ideas so I’d love to hear from anyone else that is using WoW in their practice.

November 23rd, 2007

ICET 2007: Useful Scratch resource

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: ICET2007, Scratch
 : Categories games design

I met a very interesting teacher at the conference who was giving a presentation and running a workshop. Mike Leishman is a computer teacher at Newman College in Perth, Australia and his presentation was about how he is using Web 2.0 applications in his school. His post-conference workshop was about how to programme with Scratch. You may not have been able to make this workshop but Mike has made tutorials available via one of the wikis that he is using. His Kids Programming wiki has tutorials in Scratch and other languages so feel free to dip in and see what’s available. If you can contribute to this wiki then Mike has given me the password to share with you. It is ecawa.

Thanks for this very useful resource Mike.

November 23rd, 2007

ICET 2007: The Consolarium in Singapore

Derek Robertson

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: British Council, Consolarium, ICET2007
 : Categories Conferences

I find myself in my hotel room in Sinapore looking out of my window as I type this blogpost. I’m on the 12th floor of the Orchard Hotel on Orchard Road in Singapore and I am amidst high rise flats, offices and building sites. This really is a futuristic looking city and very very busy.

I have been lucky enough to have been asked to present the work that I have been doing via the Consolarium and with local authority partners throughout Scotland at the ICET 2007 Conference. This opportunity came about as a result of Laurie O’Donnell’s visit here a couple of months ago. He met up with officials from the British Council and he suggested that the work that we have been doing would be of interest and helpful to people in Singapore as they determine how best to approach games-based learning strategies in their schools. As it so happens they have already made inroads into this and have almost put in place two bespoke games that will be installed on PCs in all schools in Singapore. You can find out more about these here.

I gave my presentation yesterday and I decided to make a real effort to slow down my speech. This has come about as a result of the difficulties that I have experienced with the voice recognition on the DS and as a result of being asked to slow down my speech before a presentation in London last month! The lyrics for the Proclaimers song ‘Throw the ‘R’ Away’, come to mind here…although like Worzel Gummidge used to say, “You need different heads for different occasions.”

My presentation was very well received and many teachers waited behind to ask me more about what we have been doing, how we have managed the projects and how we managed to get the ideas and the resources to try such projects. Quite a few schools have expressed an interest in following up our initial discussions so I think there could be opportunities for collaborative games-based-learning projects in the future.

I met with Eunice Crook OBE and Sandra Bodestyne from the British Council this afternoon. My trip was sponsored by them so we had a debrief session about how things have gone. I must report back to colleagues in Scotland that your imaginative work has caused quite a stir here. Both Eunice and Sandra commented on how positively the work that we have been doing was received and they were very interested in the imaginative and creative ways in which we have been applying games in teaching and learning. There could be the possibility of future collaborations between us as they are very keen to learn how we do what we do.

I look forward to establishing a healthy link between LTS and the British Council in Singapore and to a relationship that both parties can benefit from and grow. I would also like to thank them for sponsoring my trip.

Tomorrow is my last day so a few more blogposts and then I’m off to Raffles for a Gin Sling.

November 23rd, 2007

Consolarium at CPD event in Dundee

Derek Robertson

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: , Consolarium
 : Categories Dundee City, podcast

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 .

November 14th, 2007

Case Studies from Stirling Council

Derek Robertson

Comments: 3 Comments » Tags: Tags: Consolarium, crazy talk, missionmaker
 : Categories Stirling Council

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.

November 13th, 2007

Collecting ‘Case Study’ material from Falkirk Council

Derek Robertson

Comments: 10 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Falkirk

The most challenging and in some ways satisfying task that I have been faced with so far with in this job was not so much the initiation of a series of games-based-learning initiatives with local authority partners but more leaving them long enough so that we could then go back to find out what had happened. The pressure was really on prior to SLF ’07 because the long promised Consolarium website was still to make an appearance…..but you have to have something to show don’t you!

Anyway, there are some case studies online at present but there are a great deal more in the pipeline. Today I visited Falkirk Council to begin recording some of the excellent work that has been happening there. I was accompanied by Barrie Barreto from SITC who is the audio visual master of ceremonies. It’s amazing to see the finished product that people like Barrie come up with and their great work does go unnoticed in some ways so a big thanks to him for what he does.

The schools we visited today were:

• Bo’ness Academy: There is lots of games based learning work going at this school but the project that I was capturing today was the Phoenix Wright project. We have given 20 Nintendo DS machines and copies of Phoenix Wright to the school and a 2nd year class has been using this with their teacher for the past couple of months. I had a feeling that this game had real possibilities for creating the context for a series of English language activities and I’m glad I was proved right. The Teacher, Mrs McIntyre, has used this game really well and her pupils have :
  • worked on character sketches with the main players in the game being used as the focus for this task
  • written newspaper reports about the cases and the goings-on in the game
  • devised their own game ideas that have been packaged in games casing. Some of these games were incredibly imaginative and detailed, one even looking at the world of ballet to create a ‘Dance Academy’ type game (apparently it’s only for girls!)
  • been writing their own drama scripts based on the story and have recorded these using Audacity so that the mp3 file can be shared as a podcast

As with almost every project I have seen in schools the children today were really excited and keen to tell us what they thought about the work they had been doing and how much they liked the idea of games in school.

• Glenfair Nursery School: I gave a number of authorities a couple of PS2 machines with the Eye Toy. I though that this device had great potential in the pre-school setting and today was the first time that I saw it in action. What a time we had. The children love the Eye Toy and they will queue patiently until it’s their turn. This is something that the staff in the school are very pleased with. We have captured on video 3 & 4 year old kids working their way through the set-up of their game and then playing it. We managed to avoid splashing water, clattering utensils and very-inquisitive children in order to capture this case study. I look forward to seeing this one myself…

• Easter Carmuirs PS: This school has taken ownership of a PS2 and the Buzz for Schools game. We saw the children playing some maths and English Language games and it was very interesting indeed. Again, great concentration and engagement but I must say what a demanding set of questions there were! I fancy playing this myself because it was so tough. Here’s one example of the level of difficulty:

put these books in order of when they were published:

1. The Northern Lights
2. Treasure Island
3. The Tales of Beatrix Potter
4. Swallows and Amazons

How did you do? Difficult, eh?

These case studies will need to be edited, packaged and prepared for the web but we hope to have them available very early 2008. Thanks to all at Falkirk Council for a great day and for allowing us access to schools where such great practice is happening.

November 8th, 2007

The Dunbartonshires come to the Consolarium

Derek Robertson

Comments: 3 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Consolarium visits, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire

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.