Consolarium

March 16th, 2009

Moshi Monsters come to Stirling

Derek Robertson

Comments: 14 Comments » Tags: Tags: games based learning, Moshi Monsters, virtual learning
 : Categories Literacy, Numeracy, Stirling Council, Virtual Worlds, cross-curricular

Being involved with and leading the games based learning initiatives with the Consolarium is great fun but it is also a great experience in terms of meeting teachers who take some of our ideas forward and then really make the realisation of such projects their own. We are finding that in doing so, these teachers are setting the standard for the use of some of the games. Names that immediately spring to mind in this regard include Kim Aplin and subsequently Ollie Bray with Guitar Hero and Anna Rossvoll, Ruth McDonald and Michelle Law with Nintendogs as well as many others who have taken this on and extended the practice of the appropriate integration of computer games into teaching and learning. I’d now like to add another name to this list and introduce Margaret Young to everyone. A teacher at Port of Mentieth PS near Stirling Margaret has been using Moshi Monsters with her P.1 - P.3 class. I wrote about Moshi Monsters a wee while back due to my interest being stirred when I watched my wee girls using it last summer. It reminded me of Nintendogs in the way it replicated much of what that game does in terms of looking after a virtual creature: ensuring it was healthy and happy as well as managing a budget. However, Moshi Monsters has problem solving, early literacy and numeracy tasks all embedded into the game play as well as the facility to introduce social networking to children via a friends finder and a noticeboard. However, this game was freely available (although an enhanced experience via subscription is now on offer) and can be used by anyone that has an computer with an internet connection.

I have been working on ways in which we could try an extended pilot for Moshi Monsters but while I have been doing that Margaret Cassidy, ICT Development Officer in Stirling decided to try it out with one of her teachers. She introduced the idea to Margaret Young at Port of Menteith PS and since the initial presentation of the idea the most fantastic set of associated rich learning tasks has just flourished.

I had the great pleasure of visiting the class last Wednesday morning and within 5 minutes I was captivated and enchanted by what I was seeing and hearing and I found myself like a child in a sweet-shop in terms of not knowing where to look in terms of the quality learning that was happening.

I had a discussion with Margaret about how she got involved in the project, how she managed it and what added value she feels it has brought to learning in her class and to her continuing professional development.

The game at the heart of the learning experience
The most prevalent method that we employ in our Consolarium initiatives usually involves the game becoming the contextual hub about which learning experiences are planned for and presented to the children. This gives the teacher the freedom and flexibility to combine curricular areas and present learning tasks via the creation of a collaborative story or a process of enquiry. The flexibility of such an approach allows the teacher to accommodate any ideas and questions that come from the children as a result of their experiences and interests arising from the learning tasks. This is exactly what Margaret has done with Moshi. as from the following examples you will see that the game really became the beating heart of the rich learning in the class.

Writing
Very many contexts for writing were facilitated by the game. These included writing adverts to sell your Moshi Monster’s house, writing to explain the desing of flags made to represent Monstro City as well as news flashes about what has been happening in Monstro City itself. I was particularly impressed by the idea of making a tourist information leaflet for visitors to refer to if they were planning a visit to Monstro City. Have a look at how the teacher did this:

…and have a look at some their adverts:

Talking and listening
An engaging debate was cultivated in the classroom when the question of whether or not the children should allow new building work to be permitted on Flutterby Fields: a beautiful fun place to be in Monstro City. The teacher talked about the development of the children’s thinking and their ability to consider and reflect on opposing points of view in this task and even how some children changed their minds as a result of the discussions and arguments put forward by their peers.

Encouraging problem solving in maths
In order to function in the game you must visit the Hall of Puzzles. This is packed full of puzzles that engagement with rewards you with Rox, the currency in Monstro City. The more Rox you have then the more you can spend in the various shops that you can visit. The puzzles are particularly engaging and the children were all very keen to tell me what their high scores were at many of the different puzzle that are available. The teacher has worked with the children to set up the Hall of Puzzles in the class. This became a really appealing ‘den’ in the classroom for the children to visit and explore a range of puzzles and games with each other. Have a look at how this was done:

Design and Technology
The children were asked to think about what kind of shops should be in Monstro City. These ideas were then brought to reality as the children made their own models of their shops from card, paper and other materials. Have a look:

Animation
Children are naturally creative. They have ideas. One of the superb aspects of learning with ICT is that it gives young learners the vehicle through which they can express their creativity and ideas and in doing so develop their ICT skills set. They can also have a positive impact on planning, presentation and awareness of audience. Here we have one example of a stop motion animation created by two 6 year old children. Just look at what they can do….

They also used Crazy Talk to bring to life their Monster characters that had been created in Art & Design.

All of these videos can be viewed at our Consolarium Blip TV channel.

Keeping connected and being safe
One of the benefits of using this resource is that children can keep connected. One child in this class spends six months of the year in Scotland and six months in New Zealand. Currently in her antipodean abode she can keep in touch with the class via her noticeboard. As Moshi Monsters is freely available to anyone (see their safety policy) there is an issue in terms of ensuring that the children are not exposed to any inappropriate contact. The teacher and the class decided to use a special code for the duration of the project and this meant that they could only accept a friend request if this code was in the name of the person requesting to make friends. This meant that the community was kept to the classroom and any worries about unknown people becoming involved with the children in the classroom context were fully addressed.

There has been some concern about children wanting to play with their Moshi Monster for far too long at home. Incentives to jump up the levels and to ensure that your Monster is happy and healthy in the game play need to be maintained and balanced in terms of appropriate time spent on the game. Lessons need to be learned about what the Consolarium can do to ensure that parents are fully informed about such initiatives, what benefits they can bring to their child’s learning but also what the school and the home need to do to ensure that children understand that too much of one thing is not necessarily good for them. Everything in moderation is a lesson that we can help children learn.

Maybe Moshi Monsters also need to consider ways in which children can withdraw from the game for periods of time without their lack of engagement with their monster leading to its demise! Something akin to the ‘dog hotel’ in Nintendogs wouldn’t go amiss here.

A delightful time at Port of Menteith was most certainly had by me. Rich learning, happy and motivated children, innovative teachers and a Headteacher willing to allow informed risks with new ideas and approaches in the use of ICT and games, in this example, to happen in his school.

Superb stuff and very many thanks to all at Port of Mentieth PS and Stirling Council for enabling such innovative work to take place. Now, how do I make an extended study of this work….?

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.

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.

September 27th, 2007

Crazy Talking in Stirling

Derek Robertson

Comments: 5 Comments » Tags:  : Categories Scotlearnfest07, Stirling Council, animation, writing

Apologies to all at Stirling Council for the lateness of this post regarding your presentation at SLF ’07 but I have been waiting to see if I could source some photographs of your session. As yet I haven’t but I’m still looking!

One of the very early adopters of games based initiatives with the Consolarium was Stirling Council. The team came to visit the centre in early 2007 and as a result of the day we had a number of possible projects were discussed. One particular application caught the eye of the team that day and they felt that it had the capacity to really engage reluctant writers so that they would want to write. The application in question is called Crazy Talk and it really has great potential as a learning tool. Their presentation was yet again bursting with life, character and good practice. Margaret Cassidy and Joe Shaw from the Quality Development Team gave the presentation with help of some children from a local school that had been using the software.

The children talked about how they had used Crazy Talk in different topics of study. One such topic was a collaborative investigation of the story and history of the ill-fated Titanic. The kids created their own drawings of people that were on the Titanic and then they brought them to life in Crazy Talk. Have a look at one of these characters created by the kids:

A fiull case study of what has happened with this application and how it has impacted on the teaching and learning will appear on the Consolarium’s sharing practice very soon.

In the meantime have a look at how you use Crazy Talk:

A number of other local authorities are using this application so we look forward to finding out more about how it is making an impact in those schools too.