Consolarium

March 22nd, 2011

#gametolearn – Playful Learning: Geocaching Workshop

obray

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories Conferences, Game to learn, animation, game based learning

As well as dong a lot of work at the Consolarium on Games Based Learning and Games Design we also research and investigate other technologies that we think will have a real impact in the classroom. In the last 12 months this has included 3D printing, mobile Apps, social software, multi-point and tablet technology.

One of the technologies that we see real potential in at the moment is GPS and Geocaching. We will be publishing a whole heap of resources and ideas to help support schools with this sometime before the summer.

As part of the recent Games to Learn Conference we ran a Geocaching workshop to help introduce practitioners into what GPS and Geocaching is and how it might have real education value. The weather was spectacular for the workshop and 30 educators had a great time treasure hunting around Dundee.

Have a look at the picture below:

Can you see the joy and excitement on their faces? This is impact of finding your first Geocache – pure excitement! The video below explains what Geocaching is:

During the workshop at Game to Learn participants had an opportunity to find some cashes from geocaching.com. These were mainly magnetic cashes and hidden around the city. We also hid some of our very own Consolarium Cashes and cryptic questions for people use their GPS to find and answer.

Using a GPS with pre-loaded co-ordinates our Consolarium adventures had to complete the following tasks:

1) Uncover a micro magnetic cache in the middle of the city (who would have know it was there!) -

2) Collect a sticker from inside a false rock in the graveyard -

3) Explore the history of Dundee by taking a crayon rubbing of the historic plaque (also works well with trees, statues and grave stones!) -

4) Find out about Roman Numerals and the height of the water at the HMS Discovery -

5) Take a digital picture of an engraving on the roof of a landmark that you would never normally see unless you stood in exactly the right place and looked up -

6) Record and answer in audio using their mobile phone or talking tin -

As well as the above the groups has to work as a team, persevere and look after each other while they were alone in the city! They all did very well!

@OnTheSuperFly recorded the journey of his group really well as a series of Flickr Images and an associated blog post. Most of the above photos are his as well.

When he got home Andrew McLaughlin re-created the excitement as a Go-Animate Animation! GoAnimate4Schools.com: Geocaching #gametolearn by Andrew McLaughlin

In summary, at the Consolarium we think geocaching and educaching had huge potential in schools to help support learning and we will be writing more about this very soon!

March 15th, 2011

Consolarium Catchphrase Twitter Challenge at Game to Learn

Derek Robertson

Comments: none Tags: Tags: game based learning, games based learning, gametolearn, GBL, ps3
 : Categories Game to learn

What’s in a catchphrase? The shortest, snappiest, cleverest sound-bites can make a star of out even the most ordinary of us and in so doing win a Sony PS3 for your school/establishment at Game to Learn: Take2! on Saturday.

Yes, with one eye on the great Roy Walker (“say what you see”) we’d like to challenge you to the Consolarium Twitter Catchphrase Challenge! Get your thinking caps on, your Twitter account at the ready and come up with the catchiest catch-phrase that will meet this challenge:

Why is Game Based Learning and/or Game Design a success in schools?

If you don’t have a Twitter account then you can sign up for one here www.twitter.com. Once you have set this up and you wish to submit your catchy catchphrase then please ensure that you are within the 140 characters that a ‘tweet’ allows. You will also need to add this hashtag to your tweets #g2lcomp. The Consolarium team will look at this #g2lcomp stream over the course of the day and make a decision on the one that they feel is the catchiest catchphrase.

The most terrific, tastiest and topmost tweet takes home (to their school/educational establishment) a wonderful Sony PS3 with a copy of Little Big Planet AND Little Big Planet2!

Please Note: You must be at the conference venue to claim your prize.

If your tweet does not win then do not fear for there is the chance that you could yet be lucky as we have two desirable Nintendo DSi, a superb Nintendo Wii AND a fantastic Xbox 360 with Kinect to give away at the end of the day….details of you might get your hands one of these prizes to be given out on the day.

We wish to thank our friends at Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft for their support for Game to Learn.