August 10th, 2011

The Land of Me at Port Ellen PS: A visit from the King of The Land of Me 2/5

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: cfe, Consolarium, game based learning, games based learning, The Land of Me
 : Categories Argyll & Bute, Early Years

The team at the Consolarium first saw The Land of Me when it was being presented at a game based learning conference in London. We were quite enchanted by the resource and felt that it could be something that, if used appropriately, could work well to support and enhance learning with younger children. We managed to meet up with James Huggins who is the CEO of Made in Me, the company that make the software and let them know that we would be interested in running pilots when the resource was ready to go…

Discussions continued with James and his team and eventually we managed to get things on the move. However, this was not where things stopped in terms of partnership with Made in Me. Very keen to see for himself how things had been going on in Scotland he asked if he could accompany us on out visit to Port Ellen PS to see for himself how his resource was being used in a teaching and learning context.

Once Janice McRae heard that James Huggins was coming to visit she began to think how she could best exploit this event to have further impact on the chidren’s learning…and in so doing she came up with an idea!

The King of the Land of Me comes to Port Ellen PS.

Janice’s idea was to ask James Huggins to act as the KIng of The Land of Me when he came to visit. That meant that the children could write letters to the King telling him what they know about his fabled land. James was in agreement and soon enough a batch of hand-written letters found their way to the King of The Land of Me’s postbox. James took time to to respond to all the children’s letters and duly sent them back with a promise that he would come to see them in the classroom.

This was the catalyst for great excitement and following on from the Royal Wedding this year plans were put in to place to ensure that things would be ready for the Royal visit.

On arrival at the school James was asked to wear a crown and a cloak so that his persona as the King of The Land of Me could be as true as possible for the excited children. He readily went along with this and was somewhat at ease in his Royal role! As he entered the class he was given a guard of honour by the children who were acting as animals from his Kingdom. A red carpet then led to his classroom throne where he was then met by his loyal and admiring subjects.

I spoke with James later that day about what he had seen and what he thought of the way that his resource was being used. His first reaction was to say that he was ‘speechless’ and that “we could not have created a better example of why it is we made The Land of Me or how we’d like it to influence learning!”

You can hear our conversation below:

The craft of the teaching and the way in which contexts can be created to help learners suspend their disbelief is clearly in evidence here. Yet again we see how young learners can respond in such a positive fashion to this methodology and how the thoughtful and imaginative teacher can create the environment in which rich learning can happen and thrive.

June 10th, 2011

The Land of Me in Dundee: Building dens in Templeton Woods

Derek Robertson

Comments: 3 Comments » Tags: Tags: early years, game based learning, games based learning, Land of Me, outdoor learning
 : Categories Dundee City, Early Years

Some months ago we began a pilot project in three local authorities using a resource called The Land of Me. At one of the early meetings in Dundee we met Bernadette Donald from Wallacetown Nursery and she talked about how she planned to use this resource to help support teaching and learning in her setting. Bernadette talked about the opportunities that can arise from the context of this resource, particularly in relation to taking the children outdoors. This aspiration to take learning outdoors resonates very loudly with the aims of Curriculum for Excellence. Part of the rationale that can be found in Curriculum for Excellence through Outdoor Learning states that:

Outdoor learning experiences are often remembered for a lifetime. Integrating learning and outdoor experiences, whether through play in the immediate grounds or adventures further afield, provides relevance and depth to the curriculum in ways that are difficult to achieve indoors…it signposts ways for teachers, educators and their partners to plan for and use the outdoor environment to provide imaginative learning and teaching which is relevant, lively and motivating.1 all staff at every level of involvement with the education of children and young people have a responsibility to make the most of the outdoor environment to support the delivery of the experiences and outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence……Well-constructed and well-planned outdoor learning helps develop the skills of enquiry, critical thinking and reflection necessary for our children and young people to meet the social, economic and environmental challenges of life in the 21st century. Outdoor learning connects children and young people with the natural world, with our built heritage and our culture and society, and encourages lifelong involvement and activity in Scotland’s outdoors.

Taking this rationale on board and considering the needs of her learners Berrnadette planned to take the learning away from the digital screen and to use the context of The Land of Me to allow her and her colleagues to take it out in to the woods (Templeton Woods) so that the children could build a den! She also thought this was a perfect opportunity to introduce this environment to many children who live quite close to it but who have never been to visit this forest on their doorstep. Have a look at this montage of photographs that shows what happened on their visit. Click on the picture to view the slideshow:

Bernadette and I managed to get some time to chat about the Land of Me and to find out why she was interested in taking learning outdoors and just what it was about this resource that enabled this to happen. Have a listen to what Bernadette had to say about this.

As a result of our conversation being interrupted by a youngster in her Royal Wedding dress the interview is in two parts: Here is the end of our discussion!

Bernadette points out a number of issues about this resource and her subsequent pedagogy when planning to use it. These include:

• Context of the world and subsequent discussions about it have led to lots of child-centered enquiry and active learning
• Children spending some time at the computer screen but resource acts as springboard for activity away from the screen
• Has encouraged an increased interest in story-telling
• Perfect opportunity to work in partnership with Countryside Rangers to plan the visit to the woods
• Forest setting allowed the children to explore the habitat where real forest creatures live and to have an adventurous day building their very own forest den
• Purposeful way to involve parents in children’s learning
• The game itself also had positive impact on young children who have English as a second language

The experience of taking learning outdoors is seen within CfE as one of the fundamental aspects of teaching and learning that will contribute to the development of the whole person. The aspiration to expose learners to an adventurous approach to learning is also at the core of outdoor pedagogy.

It is also argued that the outdoor environment encourages staff and pupils to see each other in a different light, building positive relationships and improving self-awareness and understanding of others. Building dens in the woods is a great place to start!

May 31st, 2011

4/4 Driving Learning with Mario Kart: Healthy Eating and Grannie changes her mind

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: cfe, game based learning, games based learning, gaming, Mario Kart
 : Categories Early Years, Renfrewshire

“This is play but it’s educating them!”

Over the years we have worked with so many teachers and seen them use commercial off the shelf games in such a way that they are able to make purposeful, relevant and appealing links to traditional curriculum objectives. This has been the case in nursery, primary and secondary settings. We have found that handing over ownership of initial GBL ideas to teachers empowers them to bring their own idiosyncrasies to the table and to build experiences that can meet the needs of their learners. Here is another example of how teachers have done just that.

How would you use the context of Mario Kart to help P.2 and P.3 children develop a real interest in and understanding off the healthy eating plate? Well. I wonder if there is anything that we can learn from the children at Bargarran PS, Mario and his gang in Mario Kart?!:

Changing a Gran’s point of view…

This example of how childrens’ learning can be situated within an appealing context sits nicely with the thoughts of one of the children’s grannies that I had the pleasure of chatting with at Bargarran PS’ Mario Kart Open Afternoon. I first met Mrs Fortescue, who has a grandson in P.2, in the corridor just as the afternoon kicked off. Her first words to me were, “It wasn’t like this at school in my day - this isn’t school, they’re just playing!” As a result of this chat I I asked if I could come back and speak to her after she’d seen what has been happening in the class… Have a listen to what Mrs Fortesuce had to say 30 minutes later:

As you can hear Mrs Fortescue was somewhat taken aback by what she saw, by what her grand-daughter had been doing and what she was able to tell her Grannie all about. Some of Mrs Fortescue’s main points about what she had seen include:

• you’d normally associate computer games with playing; I’d never seen them being used like this way in an educational way
• my granddaughter is so full of information, she’s been telling me all about everything in class as we’ve gone along. I can’t believe how much she knows
• I first thought what a waste of money, you’re there to be educated. That’s not education like how I was taught but when you look at it they’re playing but it’s educating them.

A consensus from the grandparents on the day?

I also spoke with another Grannie to see if this was a lucky or pressured change of heart. Mrs Hall has a grandson at the school as well and her interview was equally as positive as Mrs Fortescue’s:

The main points raised about the positive aspect of what she had seen at the open afternoon included:

• I think it’s marvellous what I’ve seen in class, I didn’t realise they’d done as much
• my grandson is always telling me about what they’ve done with Mario Kart when he comes home from school
• coming in to class to see what’s been happening helps you make sense of the Mario Kart project

If schools can build purposeful learning experiences that can engender such buy in from the children, their parents and their grandparents then maybe we are doing something right? Let’s not lose sight of what some of the parents and grandparents have said - if the resource has appeal than why not put it to good use to help children learn?

Hopefully this series of posts has helped convey some of the industry, life and sense of excitement about learning that I witnessed in my time at Bargarran PS. Thank you to everyone involved with this project and a huge thank you to those who shared their thoughts with us. Do feel free to leave a comment, question or observation on any of these posts.

May 31st, 2011

3/4 Driving learning with Mario Kart: The parents’ perspective

Derek Robertson

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: cfe, Consolarium, game based learning, games based learning, Mario Kart, Nintendo
 : Categories Early Years, Renfrewshire

In the early days of the Consolarium a big part of our work in promoting the practice of game based learning involved addressing many of the concerns that teachers had about using such resources and contexts in their schools. Informed reference, we hope, was made to the many folk devils and moral panics associated with games back then but one major concern that was invariably thrown up by schools was - what might parents say about children ‘playing computer games’ in school when they should be learning?! Our experience over the past 5 years of promoting this work has been that parents have been more than pleasantly surprised at how GBL contexts have worked for their child/children. This ‘evidence’ in the parents eyes of good learning experiences may also be complemented by the changing nature of how computer games are now placed in family life. When we first started out the games console was still seen as something that kids did in the shadowy solitude of their bedrooms but haven’t things changed now? How many families do you know that have a console in a main living area and who will use this as part of family play? How many dads out there are red hot at FIFA11, how many mums have a Wii Fit or Zumba game as part of their keep-fit regime and how many grannies have Scrabble on their DS? Times have changed have they not? Are computer games still the folk devil of a few years ago?

At the recent Mario Kart open afternoon at Bargarran PS I saw just how far the practice of game based learning has come in relation to how it is being perceived by children’s parents and guardians. At this event I witnessed a classroom packed with mums and dads, grannies and grandads all buzzing with excitement about what the children had been learning. Some of them were also more than keen to have a go at the game and get their name on the parents’ leaderboard!

I took the chance to chat with some mums and dads at the event to try to get their honest views of the use of a games console in classrooms and what impact the experience of the Mario Kart topic was having on their children.

Have a listen to my chat with Mrs Mavers who has a son is in P.2

The first parent that I interviewed was Mrs Mavers, a mum who was very keen to get the No.1 slot on the Mario Kart Parents’ leaderboard.

As you will have heard Mrs Mavers is of the opinion that this experience has been great for her son. Here are some of the points Mrs Mavers raised:

• my son has been learning about Italy and other cultures which is a good thing.
• my son is not the most enthusiastic about school normally but he has been really enthusiastic about this which is good
• the topic has led to good experience of homework that involved using Google Earth to look at Italian landmarks. This is something we wouldn’t normally have done
• anything that motivates children should be used as a tool for learning…why not pick up on things that children love and bring it into the school environment?

Have a listen to my chat with Mr & Mrs Brown who has son is in P.2

I took the opportunity to chat with the parents of a P.2 boy who were keen to let me know just how good an idea they felt the Mario Kart topic was and how it had had such a positive experience on their son. Have a listen:

As you will have heard Mr & Mrs Brown are also of the opinion that this experience has been great for their son. Here are some of the points Mr & Mrs Brown raised:

• since the school brought in the Mario Kart topic his (their son’s) behaviour has improved dramatically
• it’s had a positive impact at home because he’s doing stuff at home like building cars from junk models to bring in to school
• he can’t wait to get to school when he knows he has topic related work that day
• their son is very very keen to learn about things linked to the Mario Kart topic. He’s even learning Italian words!
• the school has monitored the learning and have managed to crack getting that fine balance between learning and playing the game

In my discussions with the class teachers it was clear that they see links between the school and the home as very important. They set out in the initial stages to ensure that good channels of communication were set-up and maintained and that the opportunity to celebrate and share the children’s learning with their parents was built in to the programme. All of this, coupled with the focused way that the Mario Kart resource has been used has again shown just how good teachers can use good resources to effect good teaching and learning. It’s great to see the parents supporting such practice.

May 27th, 2011

2/4 Driving Learning with Mario Kart: The buzz of learning

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: game based learning, games based learning, gaming, GBL, Mario Kart, Nintendo
 : Categories Early Years, Parents, Renfrewshire

Parental involvement in the life and learning of a school can be an incredibly valuable asset. This is particularly true when parent/carers are active agents in understanding and supporting what is going in their child’s classroom. As we heard in the first of this series of posts the teachers involved had kept parents fully informed in relation to the rationale of the Mario Kart project. To further cement this relationship both classes planned a Mario Kart afternoon to share the learning that had been happening with their Mario Kart topic. Here is a short clip of parents coming in to the classroom. Also look out for the examples of the children sharing their learning with adults. They are so keen to show off what they have been doing. As you watch the clip do you get a sense that there is a real buzz about learning here? as the children excitedly share what they have been doing? A great thing to see in a classroom.

There was so much learning linked with this topic for the parent s to have a look a through. Literacy was something that was addressed quite heavily through this topic and one task that had the children creating their own Driving Licences was very eye-catching and had proved to be very popular with the children. (Unable to share due to children’s details included on their mock licences). Another popular writing activity involved the children coming with a basic character bible for a new Mario Kart character. Have a look at some of their work:

Have a closer look at some of them:

New Mario Kart Character: Holly Zoom Zoom

New Mario Kart Character: Queen Niamh

New Mario Kart Character: Queen Lola

New Mario Kart Character: Transform

I’m sure that the parents who came along to the Mario Kart Open Afternoon were very impressed with the range and quality of work that had been going on. The wall displays around the classroom drew many admiring glances and inquisitive comments from the mums, dads, grannies & granddads.

May 26th, 2011

1/4 Driving Learning with Mario Kart: What’s in the box?

Derek Robertson

Comments: 2 Comments » Tags: Tags: cfe, Consolarium, game based learning, games based learning, gaming, GBL, Mario Kart
 : Categories Early Years, Nintendo, Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire

At the beginning of 2010 the Consolarium team, in their attempts to sow the seeds of innovative practice in schools, announced a competition that was to be held at that year’s Scottish Learning Festival. Based around the game Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii the challenge was to se how fast you pupils could complete a lap of one the Mario Kart tracks. Teacher verified times were then emailed to us to be added to our Scottish Schools Mario Kart leaderboard. We must have loaned out over 20 sets of Mario Karts to schools across Scotland with the expectation that the game play would lead to a range of ways in which curricular activity could grow from the contextual hub ofd this game.

Sometimes when you plant seeds unexpectedly beautiful things can grow…

I was contacted by Wilma Leaburn, a QIO from Renfrewshire, a few months back and invited to a Mario Kart CPD evening at a school in Paisley. Apparently a number of teachers had taken this practice forward and a CPD session to share their experiences had been organised and so oversubscribed that another two evenings were to be delivered. The evening itself was a fantastic example of how creative teachers can be and how, when give the chance, their own idiosyncrasies can lead to wonderful learning experiences that meet the needs of their learners. At this event I met a teacher called Julie Paterson who invited me to Mario Kart open afternoon for parents and carers at her school, Bargarran PS in Erskine. This series of posts will feature my observations at this event.

What’s in the box? Creating the context

The children I met at Bargarran PS were just superb. They welcomed me into their class and were so eager to share with me what had been happening and what they had been learning about. In the middle of our earlier conversations it became clear that the arrival of the Wii into their class had been a bit special. Apparently, a gold box arrived one day and the question being asked was ; What’s inside the box? Lets let the children carry on the story…

The writing activity that arose from this early context creation was featured on the wall. Have a look at some of the children’s writing:

The Teachers’ Perspective

Julie Paterson and Jill Day were the P.2 and P.3 teachers that led this project. I took the opportunity to interview them after the Mario Kart open afternoon had ended.

Some of the strong messages about their observations and experiences with the Mario Kart project are:

“The parents have been incredibly supportive.”

“Sharing information and plans with the parents at the beginning of the project helped build that trust with parents.”

“The initial attention-grabbing context creation captured the children’s imagination and interest.”

‘Some children, who maybe don’t engage as well as the teachers would like in class, showed increased levels of motivation and willingness to engage with learning.”

“The Mario Kart project had a particularly positive impact on boys attitudes to learning.”

“Fun, personalisation and choice should be at the heart of learning experiences within contexts for learning in Curriculum for Excellence.”

Thank you to the teachers, the pupils and parents at Bargarran PS for making us so welcome and for sharing the life of learning with in their classrooms with us,

May 26th, 2011

Addressing Health & Well-Being in the Nursery setting with Kinectimals

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: game based learning, games based learning, gaming, GBL, health & well-being, kinectimals, xbox
 : Categories Dundee City, Early Years

*Second guest post from Judi Regan and Dawn Calder at Menzieshill Nursery School, Dundee who are involved with our Kinectimals initiative. Read their first post too.

The children at Menzieshill Nursery School in Dundee are continuing to explore and investigate Kinectimals and extend and develop through games based learning. This blog update, we are focussing on some Health and Well-being experiences and outcomes and these will be highlighted throughout.

Kinectimals offers a fantastic opportunity for physical movement and skill development within an ICT context. A favourite mini game is using a football with the cub, providing ways to manage and control body movements (HWB 0-21a and HWB 0-22a). Children learn to move themselves to the left or to the right, depending on where the ball is kicked back to them, and are frequently left puffing and commenting “I’m sweating!” This allows investigation into raised heart rates – “Put your hand on your chest and feel your heart beating faster” – “why do you think that is?” (HWB 0-28a)

Turn-taking and co-operation skills are enhanced by Kinectimals (HWB 0-23a) and children are independently working out ways to take turns by themselves. We have been using a 5 minute sand timer as a visual aid, however some children are choosing to swap turns depending on the game or toy the cub chooses to bring to play with.

This style of learning really suits our young digital natives and we have seen many occasions where children are encouraging and sharing tips with their peers. (HWB 0-11a) It’s clear the children love the animated characters in this game, which each group has named. (A challenge in itself, given the noise in the nursery!) The children refer to the cubs by name – “I’m scooting Blacky with the water pistol!” and “I like stroking Spot” giving ownership and different ways to express feelings. (HWB 0-01a)

We made fluffy animal tabards for the children to re-create some of the inside games outside, for example, throwing small balls at targets, and some of the driving games. These have been very popular so much so, we are in the process of making more!

As we have progressed, the staff have become more confident in the start-up sequence and navigating their way around the game.

Now the better weather is with us, as with all nursery schools, the curriculum and just about all the activities move outdoors and we have not been using the game quite as regularly as before, however, as mentioned earlier, the animal costumes have been popular. We intend to use our Beebot (outdoors on a mat) to extend and develop the concept of Kinectimals by dressing up the beebot as one of the cubs and designing a Beebot mat along the lines of some of the games within Kinectimals, for example, when Beebot cub lands on a particular square, the directions may say, “throw the beanbag at the targets” – similar to the gameplay. Our aim is to continue the link with Kinectimals in an outdoor environment.

Check back again later for further updates on our journey into the wonderful world of the Kinectimals!

March 17th, 2011

Land of Me initiative kicks off in Argyll & Bute

Derek Robertson

Comments: 4 Comments » Tags: Tags: game based learning, game design, GBL, thelandofme
 : Categories Argyll & Bute, Early Years

The Consolarium team is currently working with three local authority partners in Scotland to explore the application of The Land of Me in the Early Years setting. Having already started things off a couple of months back with Dundee City and West Lothian Councils we finally managed to kick things off today when we met Maggie Irving (check out her own site that has some great help for CfE) and the teachers involved in this stage of the initiative from Argyll and Bute. It was great to see that the teachers had been funded to take the day out of school in order to come to this initial event.

Maggie Irving had planned for everyone to have a ‘fluid’ day in order for us to tease out and explore just how we might begin to plan for the use of The Land of Me. The consensus of opinion was that the last thing we wanted to create was a set of pre-planned activities that would be used by everyone and so there was a general discussion of how each of the six chapters could be used.

It is fair to say that Maggie Irving was particulalry taken with the The Land of Me so I took the opportunity to record our discussion about just why it was she thought it was so appealing. You can hear our discussion here:

(Transcript to follow)

The main points about the resource that Maggie raises are:

• The Land of Me is more than a piece of software, it is a digital experience for young learners
• there is so much potential for children to develop their learning and creativity away from the 2D computer screen
• the material is perfect to explore the many of the literacy outcomes in CfE
• it offers many opportunties for teachers to ask key questions when working with children

The teachers involved over the course of the day were delight to work with and they seemed to be of the opinion that the resource and the learning opportunities that could be exploited from it was something that they could use to great effect in their settings. Maggie was really pleased with her colleagues response to the day saying, “If this is the response from teaching staff then it will be fabulous to see what the kids do with it!”

In order to suport this initiative we introduced the teachers to the Land of Me area within Glow and this gave us a perfect opportunity to share the forums within Glow with them. CPDConsolarium was also shared with the teachers and we have asked that this becomes integral to how they manage their progress when using The Land of Me in their settings.

Future follow up posts about progress will be published over the next few months.

March 15th, 2011

Kinectimals in the Early Years supporting Numeracy

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: educational games, game based learning, games based learning, gametolearn, Kinect, kinectimals, xbox
 : Categories Dundee City, Early Years, Numeracy

*Guest post from Judi Regan and Dawn Calder at Menzieshill Nursery School, Dundee who are involved with our Kinectimals initiative. Judi, along with her HT LOuise REid will be sharing their experience of using Kinectimals at Game to Learn: Take2! on Saturday 19 March 2011.

We’ve been investigating lots of ways that Kinectimals can develop learning in line with Curriculum for Excellence recently. For the purpose of the blog, we will look at one curricular area each update. This fortnight we are focusing on numeracy and in future updates we will discuss some of the other curricular areas. We have included the CfE code in brackets.

Through various aspects of the game the children have been learning to use number for practical purposes such as counting down using the on screen timer. Although the timer starts quite high, sometimes from 60, the children are able to join in the countdown from a number they recognise. Similarly, there are many other games, which develop counting skills such as throwing virtual soft toy piggies at skittles; kicking the ball, turning the skipping rope and many others. (MNU 0-02a)

Cross curricular opportunities for re-creating patterns, such as stripes, spots etc have been explored in our art and craft area. The children have been printing spots and stripes, and have been making masks of the various animals. (MNU 0-03a)

The children have been able to experience positional terminology, such as on top, behind, under, over and are learning left and right by the variety of movements required during the game. While kicking the virtual ball to burst bubbles, the player needs to move from side to side to receive the ball before kicking it back and when they do the assault course there is a great scope to use prepositions such as over, under, by, past, on, through etc. (MTH 0-17a)

Comments and thoughts from children and staff have been very positive since beginning this project. The children are saying every day, that they want to play Kinectimals and there is always a queue. Sharing and turn-taking skills are clearly being demonstrated here! When asked “What do you like best when you play Kinectimals?” responses included, “I like when you throw the ball” and from another, “I like it when you jump up and down”,(teaching the cub new tricks, such as jumping, star jumps, etc) and “I like it when you throw the piggies at the thingys!” (it’s dominos and skittles being referred to!) There has been lots of discussion around the water pistol activities and the children empathising (or not) with the cub who’s fur gets soaked! Admittedly, some of the games have required a degree of skill and it depends on which child and which adult is there as to who helps who!

Staff opinions have been positive also, despite some feeling slightly apprehensive about using the console, although after a short time, their confidence grows. The whole idea of using your hand/body to control the game has been a learning curve for everyone, and staff and children alike have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to get the hang of.

Parents and students have been quite incredulous that a nursery school is using a games console for learning opportunities, and a number have shared personal experience of using one at home. To this end, we are considering holding a Gaming evening in the future, for parent’s to come and have a go – and to share some of the educational benefits of games based learning.

March 6th, 2011

Land of Me pilot: Dundee teachers’ and EYPs’ early feedback

Derek Robertson

Comments: 5 Comments » Tags: Tags: educational games, game based learning, games based learning, Land of Me
 : Categories Dundee City, Early Years

In March 2010 representatives of LTS’ Consolarium team attended and participated in the Game Based Learning Conference in London. One of the conference presentations that we saw was from a company called Made in Me who were showcasing their as yet unreleased resource, Land of Me. The team found this resource to be instantly intriguing and it’s design, both aesthetic and pedagogic, was such that we approached the company to express and interest in trying the software out in Early Years settings in Scottish schools. Have a look at one of the chapters here:

One of the aspects of this resource that proved most appealing to us was that the designers had worked with Prof. John Siraj-Blatchford who has a long and illustrious record in academic publication and is seen, along with his wife Professor Iram Siraj-Batchford, as expert in the pedagogy of teaching and learning in the Early Years. The partnership between Dr. Blatchford and Land of Me led to a the design of a resource that aimed to immerse young learners in a beautiful and engaging world but in such a way that opportunities for deep learning and active participation could occur within the game but just as importantly, away from the game. This concept is what most interested us about this particular resource as we felt that it most certainly would help address the underlying principles of CfE and offer exciting and purposeful avenues for learning at Early Level and possibly beyond that.

The LTS/Land of Me Pilot

Once the Land of Me was fully completed and ready to be launched to schools LTS negotiated a pilot programme to take place in Dundee City, Argyll & Bute and West Lothian Councils. This pilot is currently in its early stages with schools in Dundee and West Lothian already making great use of the resource with the Argyll & Bute schools due to come on board at the end of March.

As yet we have no firm data in terms of qualitative feedback from out partner schools other than a general feeling of delight and positivity in relation to how young learners are responding to this resource and the learning activities that can arise as a result of playing in and outwith the game.

This was evident in a recent feedback session in Dundee City from the teachers and Early Years Practitioners who working with us on the pilot. Their early feedback was very positive with some insightful observations about its use being fed back. Most of the feedback that was of the ‘wish’ variety focused on the activities that could be downloaded from the resource itself. Even so, the general feeling was that this resource has great potential with Chapter 4: Rythmn & Dance, where the learners/players have the opportunity to dance along with a family of Otters, appearing to be a particular favourite for the children in the Dundee schools! Can you do the crab, flamingo, tiger dance?

I took the opportunity at the event to speak to Maggie Llanwarne who is the Headteacher at Longhaugh Nursery School about her thoughts on the resource. Maggie was very impressed with the resource however her experienced eye also offered some formative fedback in terms of its design and how it can be used. Here is what Maggie had to say:

I also spoke with Bernadette Donald from Wallacetown Nursery School. Again her feedback was very positive but some formative ‘wishes’ were also suggested by this experienced practitioner in terms of the tasks/activities that can be downloaded as a part of the overall Land of Me experience: Here is what Bernadette had to say:

Some of the schools talked of how they were still exploring the resource whereas others talked of how having explored the resource, they were now beginning to embed Land of Me in to the daily life and learning of their children. We look forward to sharing the further experiences and thoughts of teachers and EYPs in Dundee and those of the teachers and EYPs in West Lothian and Argyll & Bute. If you are using this resource in your school please do tell us what your experience has been.

*There is a Land of Me Glow Group to support this initiative and any other teachers who might be using this resource in their particular setting. Please do feel free to contribute to this group.