Consolarium

November 15th, 2008

Endless Ocean and endless learning in Stirling

Derek Robertson

Comments: 6 Comments » Tags: Tags: Consolarium, Endless Ocean, games based learning, Wii
 : Categories Stirling Council

Endless Ocean for the Nintendo Wii was one of those games that immediately caught my eye. A wonderful world in which the player can become immersed in a rich, vibrant and somewhat hypnotically therapeutic underwater world. I’ve written about how I thought it might be used to drive learning before but my initial ideas have been put into place and extended beyond recognition by some really creative teachers.

Last week I went with Margaret Cassidy from Stirling Council to Cowie PS to see a teacher that was using Endless Ocean with her class:

Mrs Bullivant and her class of P.6 children treated me to an afternoon of sheer joy. I walked in to a class that had been turned into an underwater world that was awash with a tide of enthusiastic and industrious learnning.

• Streamers of various shades of blue were hung from two lines that criss-crossed the class.From these lines also hung starfish, sharks and other underwater creatures that the children had made.
• The Wii was hooked up to the whiteboard and the gameplay was integral to the learning.
• The children were divided into ‘dive teams’ and their ‘dive leader’ had to manage certain aspects of how the children worked together.
• Children were engaged with a teacher led leson that investigated buoyancy.
• Children were searching the web to find out more about some of the creatures that they discovered in the game.
• A spreadsheet activity detailing the range of creatures that they had discovered was in place.
• A shipwreck (created by the janitor) was sitting in the class. This helped drive much of the creative writing work.
• The children created treasure maps and were using these to look at grid references.
• Mermaids were created in art and design and very lifelike they were too!
• Reference books were in great demand when I was in the class and the initial stimulus of the game appeared to drive a real interest for what could be found in the complementary resource that was the book.
• Children actively encouraged to measure exactly how long 7 metres is as a result of finding out that that was how long a Great White Shark was.

This was just a wonderful visit and an example of what learning in class can be. Yes we need creative teachers to lead this but isn’t that what we are meant to be. The work that was in evidence in this class was delightful to witness and further cemented my ideas of the possibilities of sandbox games such as Endless Ocean.