Another Code R

Last week, we started our work with Another code R and literacy - so far we have only completed 3 days and will also be working on it all next week. The enthusiasm of the children has been fantastic and the level of talk, questioning, writing and exploring has been impressive!
The picture below shows how used it in class



You can read more about what we did here: http://hallyd.edublogs.org/2009/11/22/another-code-r-day-1/

Wii and PE?

Can the Wii be used in a whole class to do PE?



I was really pleased to see this week that some of my ICT Innovators grab hold of the school Wii to try it in class. On our development day we looked at ways that the Wii could be use for exercise and PE, we had ideas, but we weren’t 100% sure about it in a whole class environment.

The PE Coordinator at my school, was interested and said he’d give PE and the Wii a go. So since it was Do Something Different Day, in aid of Children in Need and the weather had rained off outside PE, he had a go.

I helped him set it up in his room and suggested that he use Mario and Sonic at the Olympics since is had a lot of active sporting activities, and to lay them you have to get a lot more active.

The children got changed for PE and then where split into four teams. So very similar when you do team activates where one person does the run and then they tag the next person to go. (Does that have a better name?)

They started with the 100m sprint. So the first child did their race, then the children did a quick swap and the race was repeated and the next person in the team, had a go. This continued till each team member attempted the event and then the event changed. This continued through 2/3 events.

The children had a great time and the teacher said it was a good experience. He was impressed because everyone in the class was able to take part in this, regardless of ability since the controls where easy. Both he and I has a few concerns starting out, we where worried about the down time for others in the group, but in most cases this was very short since the swap was quick and the length of a race is about 30 seconds. The more you do it the quicker that the children would get. Space is an issue and you do need to clear an area to do this best in a classroom.

He was quick to point out that it does not replace a normal PE lesson, which I totally agree with, but it did get the children active in the classroom. The pros far outweighed the cons. I’m eager now to try this with my class the next time, my outside PE lesson gets rained off.

Some New Posts....

Its seems like use of the Wii has exploded a little in our network.

Here are links to posts on:

Mario and Sonic at the Oylmics.

http://hallyd.edublogs.org/2009/11/22/mario-and-sonic-at-the-olympics/
http://npsyear6.blogspot.com/2009/11/do-something-different-children-in-need.html - using it for data anaylsis in maths.
http://redbridgegamesnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/11/wii-and-pe.html - Can the Wii be used used in PE?

Another Code R

http://hallyd.edublogs.org/2009/11/22/another-code-r-day-1/ - Keep tuned in for more!

Finally a nice article from Tom Barrett about Console for Classrooms.

http://edte.ch/blog/2009/11/11/consoles-for-classrooms/

Wii Development Day

This was our day as a network to meet to discuss how we would be using the Wii to promote and enhance Literacy within our schools - and of course to pick up our Wiis!

AIM: The aim of the day was to provide us all with a real context for using the games primarily with literacy.

Tasks:
*To evaluate the games - their ease of use, if they were worthwhile for use within classroom
*To mind map/brainstorm activities and a structure for use
*To look at the thoughts of the children from our classes - we had asked all of them - if we were going to get a Wii, what games would you use in school and why!


So what did we do?

We played - sorry we evaluated the games! We divided ourselves into small groups and set up 3 of the Wiis and had a look at the following games: Zac and Wiki, Wild Earth - African Safari, Carnival fun games, Word coach, Big Brain Academy, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Another code R, Mario Kart, Wall-E, Job Island, Endless Ocean, Wii Music, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.


As we were evaluating them, we were making notes on our initial thoughts of the interface, game play and how we could link it first to Literacy and then across the curriculum. We then sat down as a group and fed back on the games that we had played and potential uses, which we put down in the form of mind maps. See below for photo from the day:

Wii development day on PhotoPeach






Looking at Wall E the game, we thought that the work would come more easily from using the film instead of the game and we didn't really 'get' Wii Music, this may be because of time playing the game? As a group we decided to buy copies of Big Brain Academy and Word coach for every school(6) in the borough, as we felt these would be great as starters and activities that could be sued with small groups. We also decided to purchase 3 copies of the following games: Another Code R, Wild Earth- African Safari, Mario Kart and Sonic and Mario at the Olympics. As well as purchasing at least one copy of Endless Ocean, Endless Ocean 2 is due for release in 2010(North America) so this may be one for the future.


Moving on, we looked at the games that the children had suggested, these included: Super Smash Brothers, Cooking Mama, titles from the Imagine range, Blazing Angels, Legend of Zelda and Sims. We decided that we would purchase copies of Cooking Mama and Drawn to life to add to the titles within the network.

So, at the end of the day, I feel that we met our aims, and all went away with a Wii for the school and a game to begin trialling. We will be posting on here images and thoughts of the use within our classrooms and evaluating the impact is has on the learning of our children. So watch this space!

Dawn Hallybone Speaks....

Dawn Hallybone winner of the Handheld Learning Award this year for here work with DS in the classroom and member of the Redbridge Games Network has recently started her own blog - Check it out here - http://hallyd.edublogs.org/

Mario Kart in the Classroom - Day 2

Today we continued to work with Mario Kart and started to develop our commentaries. The class started by watching yesterdays race and warming up their skills. The class then race that I had done, using the replay function in single player. I did try using the ghost data but that is only useable in a time trial with only one car on the track.

Above is a video of what we used in class. (Just in case it all went wrong) This is what I used as stimulus for the classes newspaper reports. We watched the race 2 times, firstly to record words to describe the events of the race and secondly to record ideas about opinions and other details.

We moved away from the game and talked about who we needed to interview. We worked out we needed to talk to the driver Yoshi. So I stepped into the role and the class asked me some questions. There where so really well thought out questions, based on the brainstorming of details we had earlier. One child asked me about the accident I had, which he had been discussing with his support. It was great to have things coming together so naturally.

We share wrote a opening paragraph and then we started to write, we are going to continue on Thursday. Looking forward to getting some final writing.

Could you use the video we watched to describe the race?

Mario Kart in the classroom - Day 1.

This week is the Redbridge Games Networks Wii development day, it is here that we will work on staring to consider how we could use the newly purchased Wii in our classroom. Since they arrived in my school, I couldn't resist having a quick go, so today in year 6 we kicked of our work with Games Based Learning and Literacy.

We have been looking at newspapers recently. Though this I decided that we could use Mario Kart as a stimulus to promote commentaries and newspaper reports. We used the game to give ourselves something real to comment on. I asked 4 members of the class to play the game while I used a flip to video it, this video I then played back for the children to work in pairs to commentate the events of the race. Some of the ideas where great. We are continuing tomorrow, tune in then.

This is the video we started to use, can you choose a character and give us the commentary of what is going on?

Games Network in the News.... Sort of....

As some of you may be aware one of our members, Dawn Hallybone, Recently won a award a Handheld Learning 2009, she has also appeared in the neswest issue of RedbridgeLife. The games network was also mentioned.

Click on the link below to read the Article.
http://cms.redbridge.gov.uk/idoc.ashx?docid=e1d67d3f-c2b3-469f-9bc3-353a5a96d45f&version=-1