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Posts tagged Games Based Learning
Consoles for Classrooms
Nov 11th
I think that every classroom should have a console.
That is basically what this blog post is proposing, you can read on and find out why I think that, but that is it in a nutshell. You could stop reading right now, but please take away that first sentence, those first 9 words and consider them carefully if you do.
I have made the most of games based learning in my classes over the last 3 years and I passionately believe in the impact on learning it has. We have explored the world of Myst, done stealth written subtraction using Wii Sports Golf and even driven a whole curriculum topic with the sheer joy that is Endless Ocean. I have seen our whole Year 4 year group working with their Nintendo DS consoles and using Maths Training everyday. Besides my own use I am always amazed and inspired by the cadre of great innovators using games based learning.
The children become excited, engaged and wrapped up in their learning. They want to do well, they want to find out more, sometimes they don’t even realise the learning that is taking place because they are so immersed in the places we can take them. They invest in the learning that is going on because the return is something they understand and appreciate.
Radio Daze by Ian Hayhurst
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Gaming on consoles falls into the “Home” bracket and not in the “School” bracket. For some people those brackets need to be separate. Boundaries never to cross. In my opinion, as educators, we need to open our eyes to the potential gaming can have and merge these two realms. We need to leverage the children’s natural engagement and use it to their learning advantage.
Six years ago we installed SMARTBoards throughout the school and I also installed video players. In those six years DVD players have plummeted in price. We wouldn’t be without access to a DVD player now. Broadband in UK schools has become a standard, cheaper, faster and for some countries a basic human right. We wouldn’t be without internet access.
The internet, the DVD player, the class computer are all platforms to deliver content that makes learning fun or more engaging. So why do we not consider a console in that same bracket? They often do a better job.
In many ways I think that console games like Endless Ocean deliver even richer content because it provides a space that can be defined by the learner. The platform that they are delivered on is cheaper – a class Nintendo Wii can be less than £150 (with games). I think it provides amazing value for money in the right hands.
I hope that the Building Schools of the Future project in the UK has found that small amount of money to equip classrooms with consoles. Seems a small drop in the millions that have been invested. Yet that small drop can lead to an endless ocean (sic) of learning. (I nearly deleted that one but it is so cheesy it is staying in!)
Is it suddenly some big surprise that games based learning is engaging our learners? Not to me. If not then why is this type of learning still such a niche. I am going to say it again, I think that every classroom should have a console.
You can take away the first 9 words or the last 3, it is up to you.
Consoles For Classrooms
Using Endless Ocean (Wii) in the Classroom, Weeks 1 and 2: Dive and Discover
Sep 19th
We have been working with Endless Ocean on the Wii for a couple of weeks now as crucial element in our Sealife topic this half term. I thought I would grab a few minutes and return to the surface to reflect on it’s impact so far.
The game has been perfect for our work in class as it is so open ended. There is no specific path or “levels” that need to be completed in a certain order. Once you are through the brief tutorial, which covers some of the basic controls, you are free to explore the ocean depths.
These open ended, sand box style simulations provide great learning opportunities for classes.
The currency of progress comes in the form of fish of course, or indeed any marine life you encounter. During our first week we organised a set of 5 activities in our literacy lessons that were rotated (a carousel) throughout the week. These included a teacher led (guided) reading session, some online research on the species we had already found and a group playing the game to explore it for themselves. It is important to allow children time to play it independently or in a small group.
I provided a simple factfile template (differentiated for a couple of levels) that gives the children some structure to their research and has proven useful for them to collate notes from the game. Here is a little video of some of the gameplay you would experience in Endless Ocean.
Each species that is found is recorded in the game’s Marine Encyclopedia (See 2:05 in the film above) which is proving a useful record. I also have lots of fish shaped card and written the names of what we find for display in the classroom. Children can then choose something from the display to go away and research without being tied to the game. I think it is useful to display your progress of discovery in this way. Taking the game out of the console into your room continues the engagement.
When you find a fish in the game you have to interact with it to learn something about it. In the film you will see each species has 3 facts to discover. The longer you interact with the fish and the more frequently you discover them, the more facts are revealed.
The children have been very engaged with the topic so far – we were using the Wii in our first literacy lesson in Year 5. A pretty interesting start to the year for them, not what they were expecting perhaps.
Many of the children have discovered fish during their time playing the game – you may have seen from our class Tweets of our dives we have been excited to find, amongst others, the Japanese Bullhead Shark, a Red Stingray and the Leopard Whipray. The children take great ownership of these discoveries. After I remarked on a certain type of fish I had not seen before, a boy proudly turned to me and stated, “I found that yesterday!”
Their engagement goes beyond the discovery. It continues onto trying to find out about the species in more detail. I think they make a connection between their simulated experience in the game and the desire to find out more. They want to find out more as they have invested something. With a trip to an aquarium planned for later in the term we will hopefully close this loop of experience with real life examples.
The experience of using the game so far shows me that a rich, games based simulation adds an ingredient that is hard to replicate in any other way.
I said in my last post I wanted an edge to our learning that provided moments of shared discovery and we have had many of those. For example, as a group has found a species like the Scalloped Hammerhead or the first sighting of a dolphin we have all downed tools and just enjoyed that moment.
In one shared dive with the whole class we swam away from the coral reef (which we have been learning about too) and in the murky depths I could see a large grey and white tail swishing away from us. We began to realise what it could be and I had to swim to catch up with it…suddenly we were surrounded by a group of Indo Pacific Sailfish. We thought it was a shark. It was a lovely moment of discovery we shared as a class and one that captures what is possible with these games.
You can probably see that these moments offer some excellent opportunities for narrative or recount writing which we have been exploring in the last few days. There be a story in them murky depths…
Fish Friday and Dancing Turtles – My Sealife Topic Ideas
Sep 3rd
We do so much these days to try and engage our learners within our classrooms, to create content that is inspiring. But what about finding inspiring content for us. Teachers need to be inspired to go on to create great learning opportunities. We mustn’t forget about finding content that inspires us too. With the summer fast concluding concluded I feel energised, excited and inspired to begin our sealife topic. Here is a bunch of my ideas.
When you begin digging into this topic area you soon realise that there is SO much good content, resources and ways to work with it that maybe everyone should be doing it. I can’t wait to get my snorkel on! If you have been following me on Twitter then you have probably been awash with my notes about it all.
Endless Ocean
This is one of the major elements of our unit, and I suppose you might say that the topic is lead by using this game on the Wii. I already know games based learning is a powerful way to engage learners. Innovative work by teachers in Scotland continues to inspire me and I hope that our unit will measure up to their great work.
It is a very open ended game, allowing the player (a diver) to just swim around and explore the reefs, lagoons and open waters on offer. I love the fact that we don’t know what we might found in the murky depths. I began making notes as to the types of fish we discovered. But you know, I think the engagement and hook will be in those moments when suddenly, unexpectedly, someone finds a lion fish or a hammer-head shark. I recall these same moments of shared discovery when we played Myst, and it produces a great community of use in the classroom.
I want our play and our learning to have that edge. To emerge gradually as the map does in the game, I know which direction we are heading but what we find there is an unknown.
Steve Bunce has already used the game with classes and suggested I use a carousel of activities so that smaller groups can use the game on a more intimate level. There also has to be some time when we are sharing the discovery and exploration as a whole class. I will be planning the first week of work to include small groups working on the game and four other independent activities related to our topic.
Marine Guide
We will use the game throughout the whole course of the 7 week topic and most importantly find out more about the species we catalogue in the game. As you discover a creature you are given it’s name and a snippet of information about it, this is then recorded in the game’s Marine Guide.
I am going to ask our kids to do something similar. A drawing, habitat, size, food – all entered into a small paper book. I want to keep it simple so we can update them quickly as we discover different creatures. I would like the children to explore some online resources to help them learn more about the different species. This ties in with the non-fiction strand of the literacy strategy.
There seems to be quite a considerable number of species to find and I am not expecting the children to amass information on all of them. Perhaps on occasion they can choose from a handful of species we have found to record and then there may be those that we all need to record. I will see how things pan out.
Fish Friday
This idea is very much from my RANDOM pile but I think it could work really well. John Davitt has created something called the Learning Event Generator that randomly selects a topic and a way to show it. For example: DO “How to make an omelette” AS “a play by play sports commentary”. The AS list is over 200 ideas strong and I would highly recommend it whilst you are planning.
So take a big list of the species we have discovered and an edited (can we really do that in the classroom, with these kids) list of the outcomes and you get…
Show me what you have learned about the SWORDFISH as a FINGER PUPPET SHOW.
Show me what you have learned about the LUMINESCENT SEA SLUG as a T-SHIRT DESIGN.
I would break the two parts up. Give the kids, in small groups, the species name and 10 minutes to gather what they already know and more. And then reveal their way of showing their learning and 25-20 minutes to work on it. I think it is going to be fun and will challenge our classes in different ways.
And that’s my idea for Fish Friday.
Scuba Diving
As you can tell from the game you take the part of a scuba diver. Apart from actually diving in the local pool I wanted the classes to better understand what scuba equipment is all about. I am hoping to arrange with the local scuba diving club to bring a whole load of gear into school so that the children can not only handle it but get to chat to real scuba divers. Maybe they can have a go on Endless Ocean with us too and tell us how realistic it is!
Google Earth > Ocean Layer
Google Earth never ceases to amaze me and before researching into this topic I didn’t look too far into what was on offer in the Ocean layer. It will prove to be a highly valuable resource for our children, helping them better understand the actual information geography of different aspects of the topic. But as we have seen in the past, Google Earth will just be one way for children to “find out”, others will prefer reference books or websites. The important thing is that the choice is there.
Here is a list of some of the features in the layer, plus my notes.
- National Geographic comprehension quiz – would be good as a paired reading task.
- Animal Tracking – would help to illustrate some shark and whale behaviour.
- ARKive layer – lovely resource of endangered marine life shown in context.
- Using different layers of info for reading text – perhaps creating a few quiz questions of our own.
- Expedition Tracking – active expeditions are shown, such as Roz Savage the ocean rower.
- Shipwreck sites
- Fishing stocks and UK fish factfiles – would be useful to explore some species native to our waters. Tie this in with the work on persuasive writing and sustainability of fish stocks.
- Dive and Surf Spots – adding Panoramio layer to show diving pictures.
There is so much here to consider (there are many more layers I have not referenced) but just knowing that we can direct children to a high quality resource like this is great. Disappointingly most of the embedded video which helps depict the variety of life uses YouTube which is blocked in our Nottinghamshire LA. A prime example of why it shouldn’t be. Although the placemarks in the ARKive layer also use YouTube video, on their own site the video is hosted, and it is a vast collection of images and video too.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is the combination of 3D models, a webcam (if on a desktop or laptop), AR software and a printed symbol. The screen will show what is visible through your camera. The camera tracks the symbol you have printed off and then places the chosen 3D model on that position. Turn the printed symbol and you turn the 3D model.
This is a screen shot of me impaled by the Sydney Tower.
Whilst exploring the topic I saw a tweet about the 3D Top Trumps that have been released. I wish there was a Sealife set to buy! I have played a bit with augmented reality (AR) with our classes last year. It has huge potential for learning. I used the AR Media Plugin for Sketchup and Google Earth to support some of our work on India. Small groups looked at the Taj Mahal in 3D and it helped them get a better idea about the structure of the building.
For our Sealife topic I want the children to explore different 3D models of tropical fish and other creatures from the oceans. I discovered an amazing set of 3D artwork by Max Grueter in the Sketchup 3D Warehouse and in his collection he has some divers too with some lovely depictions of older diving suits. Just looking at the models in 3D is limited in it’s use, it will be engaging I know that – but I want the children to perhaps answer questions and engage more with what is displayed.
I am thinking through and developing some AR Comprehension Cards. Combining text, the 3D model and then questions to challenge the children too. Will be a great way to engage those reluctant readers and to look at reading comprehension in a different, augmented way!
Finding Nemo
This film could be used on it’s own as a central part to a sealife topic but we are going to concentrate on the more open, interactive Endless Ocean to guide us. But we will be using the film to explore some of the PSHCE issues uncovered within it: families, loss, friendship and growing up. I know the children will enjoy it and it is another way of engaging them with their learning.
If you have a copy of the DVD you will know that the bonus disc has some great resources that could be used in the classroom, such as the short film about the coral reef with Jean Michel Cousteau. I like Mr Ray’s Encyclopedia which gives a short narrated film clip about a handful of species from the film. I would use this in a notetaking exercise with the kids, or perhaps in 2s or 3s for a quiz.
My Planning
For what it is worth I have published some of my more detailed thoughts about the literacy involved in the unit in this Google Doc. Let me know what you think. I have thought about the ways I would like to engage the children with the topic and then looked at the Primary Strategy references. If I followed the strategy verbatim we wouldn’t cover information text (Year 4 unit) but I want the children to create exactly that sort of thing, so it’s included.
What you see in the planning is medium term and there every idea I had about the different literacy work. With only 7 weeks we will not cover everything nor do I expect to.
Books
Since being in school I have discovered lots of books that we already have that will support our work and these (with the help of many people’s suggestions on Twitter) will also help supplement the work we do.
- Dougal’s Deep Sea Diary – Simon Bartram (Good for recount and writing from a diver’s point of view)
- Baleen – Josephine Croser (A nice narrative but also would be good for information during “Whale Week” – yes we might have a solid week on learning just about whales. Amazing creatures. This might give us an opportunity to use our Google Sites, encourage the children to build a mini-site about whales.)
- The Hidden Forest – Jeannie Baker
- Commotion in the Ocean – Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz (To inspire some simple poetry)
- The Wreck of the Zanzibar – Michael Morpurgo
- Why the Whales Came – Michael Morpurgo (Would probably use these as a class story throughout the unit)
- Odious Oceans – Horrible Geography
- The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau – Dan Yaccarino (Unique and beautiful picture book)
- First Encyclopedia of Seas and Oceans (Usborne first encyclopedias)
- Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? – Robert E. Wells
- Migration Marvels - Voyage Guided reading set. (More able)
If you get a chance to look at the Dan Yaccarino book you will probably realise why that one gets a special mention from me. There is only a few sample images online of the picture book but I love the tantalising glimpse of the artwork it is made up of.
I contacted Dan about the artwork, which he said was done using stencils and an airbrush, to see how we might recreate some of it in the classroom. Layered tissue paper might work well and I expect we will spend a lovely afternoon very soon with copies of the book in hand and our creative hats on!
Tracking
From the Expedition layer in Google Earth I discovered the ongoing coverage of the ocean rower Roz Savage. This is an ideal example for the children to keep tabs on throughout the next few weeks as she makes progress across the Pacific. The Roz Tracker is a lovely example of real time mapping and social media which gives a great insight into the conditions onboard and the state of mind of Roz.
The RozTracker is an interactive map that you can use to track Roz’s progress across the Pacific, and see exactly where she was when she posted various social media.
One of my favourite Tweets from Roz says so much.
surrounded by sharky feeding frenzies. not the day to take a swim.
It would be good to spend some time with the children doing a couple of things purely based on this short message:
- Find out what type of sharks might be there based upon her location, the fact there are many and their behaviour.
- Based upon that information try and work out what type of shark she may be referring to. Send her a Tweet explaining what we found out. Are we right? Does she know?
- Learn what sort of food the sharks may be feeding on and draw up some food chain information. Why might it be described as a frenzy?
- Use this as a starting point for some descriptive fiction.
- Explore newspaper coverage of shark attacks.
A fine example of how social media can put are classrooms in touching distance of people doing remarkable things.
Another fantastic resource that I discovered via Twitter is Tour de Turtles. The site tracks 11 sea turtles as they begin their migratory journey. Each turtle has a name and is depicted as a contestant in a race, competing with each other. The turtles are being tracked with GPS and you can look at a map showing their ongoing progress.
There is loads of information about the 11 different causes that the turtles each represent – each one impacts on the lives of the turtles in some way. For example there is poor old Chica who is struggling in last place at the moment and according to her map is not entirely sure which way she is going! The cause that Chica represents is “Sea Level & Temperature Rise from Climate Change” and you can even watch a pre-race interview with each turtle and then live footage of them setting off too.
A lovely site that holds stacks of information for the children to explore, the opportunity to raise awareness of real issues affecting these creatures and big slice of fun and humour to engage young learners. We will definitely be checking in with the turtles. I expect I will ask the children to adopt one of the 11 for the next 7 weeks and see how things work out, encouraging them to learn more about them and keep tabs on their progress.
That just about wraps up some of my thinking for this next half term and as I said at the outset I am excited to get underway with it all. Just to finish you could always record your own dancing turtle like I have done. I know that after all the 7 weeks of hard work the dancing turtle will probably be the one thing the kids remember most!
Using Myst 3 for Descriptive Writing
Aug 8th
It has been about a year since I began writing about using Myst 3 in the classroom. The last literacy unit of the term saw our Year 5 classes make their first forays into using the game and the second time we have used it in support of writing.
I love to use games in the classroom to support and inspire learning – at their best they are richly engaging and hugely motivating. This year we repeated much of the successful ways of introducing the game slowly; hooking the children into the narrative well before we switched on any computers. Myst 3 has such a rich narrative and back story this is not difficult to achieve.
One of the major differences in our class work this year was that I decided to take the more conventional route of working on descriptive writing. Last year we completed some great transactional text in the form of game guides. This year I began a simple task of improving on some simple sentences shared in a Google Doc for my students. The kids made such a good start to this that I invested the rest of our time on expanding on what we began.
Here is an example of one of my student’s work in Google Docs – you can see that I added a table of key vocabulary from the Myst narrative.
The smiley face and marking is something I added as the child progressed with their work. I used Insert>Comment in Google Docs for this (Shortcut: Control+M) These comments are useful in three ways:
- Coloured to stand out and be distinct from the rest of the child’s work.
- Timestamped automatically so that commenting and marking can be kept a track of.
- Named automatically so that a comment belongs to a particular user.
Have a look at my Marking work in Google Docs blog post for more ideas about common assessment of work in this way.
The second comment as I am sure you have realised is from the student who has responded in kind and let me know the changes she has made since my comments. Additionally she refers to some peer assessment that the class did in pairs to help review and improve their writing.
Alongside this work we helped the Year 2 children with their Myst unit – similar in our approach to last year but with different outcomes. The Year 2 teachers wanted their children to create some poetry based around their seaside curriculum unit. The Year 5s acted as Myst guides and helped the younger children explore the island in more detail, develop vocabulary and language collections and ideas for their seaside poems. Once these poems were completed we supported them in some simple Photostory work as a performance of the poems.
It has once again proven to be a hugely successful and engaging unit both within the remit of our own writing and in the process of supporting the younger children to engage with the game as well.
Using Nintendo Wii Sports for Addition and Subtraction
Nov 28th
We have had our Nintendo Wii in our class for about a week now and the children have been busy making their Mii avatars. They have truly engaged with it and seem to appreciate and understand the valuable role it can play in our class to have fun and support learning.
One idea I mentioned a few posts ago was that of using Wii Golf for addition, here are some more lucid thoughts and experiences of using it in the classroom.
Wii Golf Subtraction
We had 20 minutes at the end of the day so as whole class we talked about using Wii Golf to help with some subtraction work. The children have been doing the chunking division method (!) which requires them to use all four operations so more subtraction work was going to be valuable.
I started up a quick round of golf and took a shot. I was expecting to get some information about how far the ball had gone and then subtract this from the total yardage for the hole.
Hole Length – Shot length = Distance remaining
However when you have taken a shot in Wii Golf it displays how much further you have to go. There is no information about how far you have hit the ball. Consequently we had to change our sum and I asked the children about how we could work out the shot length – it was a good teaching point. The children at this point had their own small whiteboards to do work on. Our agreed sum for Wii Golf would be:
Hole Length – Distance remaining = Shot length
Soon the children were busy on their boards and were immediately totally engaged with the task. That comes as no surprise to me – about 95% of the class have a Wii at home, this is what they enjoy being engaged with. The shots will always be 3 digits or less and in that way are perfectly differentiated for my year group.
Wii Baseball Addition
Whilst the children were having a break time my teaching colleague Rick and I had a little play on Wii Baseball and soon more ideas for supporting maths were being batted (sorry) around. If you go to the Practice in Wii Sports and then Baseball you get the chance to hit 10 pitches – on screen you receive information about how far you have hit the ball in metres, perfect for generating addition sums.
As a class I showed them what I wanted to do, hitting the ball and recording the length of the shot and then we worked on the addition to come up with the total metres. I asked children to come up and take 10 shots and we all then recorded as they went on our boards. If they didn’t hit the ball we just recorded the metres they did make. I soon discovered a baseball demon who hit about 6 home runs and 10 excellent shots. I asked the class to split the 10 numbers into two groups and then do 2 sums. Again the highest number was 187 metres, which is pretty good for a ten year old by the way, so the addition sums were ideally pitched to the Year 5 age group.
An added bonus was that after you have hit the ten shots the total length of the home runs are added up and displayed on the following screen. So if the children who were batting hit home runs we had to do a second calculation for home run length. i muted the projector display until we had done the calculation, modelled the work and then revealed the answer.
As a whole class I was able to see on their whiteboard the work they had done and picked up quickly on errors with their method or setting out. However this could easily be done as a small group activity during a lesson.
The children in that 20 minutes were happy, engaged, focused, on task and doing 3 digit subtraction and addition practice. It is important that we begin to realise the potential of these gaming platforms to support learning. I look forward to exploring more Nintendo Wii ideas soon.
Wii in my Classroom
Nov 23rd
I am delighted to get our Nintendo Wii installed and setup in our classroom. To get the audio working I used a small jack for the connections and ran it from the Wii into the PC’s Line In and then out again to speakers. We have one for each of the Year 5 and 6 classrooms. Not only will it obviously be lots of fun, I am hoping to make the most of the games to support learning. We have the Sports game and also Big Brain Academy which looks good. Soon I will take a closer look at BBA and see what more it has to offer in terms of classroom use, so look out for that soon.
Here is one sketchy idea already: Addition and Subtraction using Wii Golf (part of the Sports game) Use as a maths starter, an engaging way to generate whole class sums or even a small group activity – children take a shot, we subtract from the total yardage for that hole. Written addition of the yards for different shots. Total yards of shots around a short course. The yardage will only ever be into three digits for a single shot – unless I get a go and it will be less! Perfect 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction for the age group of our class.
So much more to explore!
Next week we will be getting the children creating their Mii avatars and I will try to find a way to export those images for use elsewhere. I wish that back when I was ten my classroom was this much fun.
Emerging from the Myst: Ambassadors in the land of the little ones
Aug 3rd
This post follows on from the first in my series of reflections about using the PC adventure game Myst in the classroom. In this post I will look back on how our Year 5 children worked with the Year 2 classes in supporting their own Myst literacy unit. I also welcome a school colleague Gemma Coleman, one of the Year 2 classteachers involved in the project, who has kindly taken some time to reflect on her own experiences of using the game – you can see Gemma’s contribution a bit further on in this post.
Scotland
As I mentioned previously the inspiration for working with Myst has come from Tim Rylands, however much of the finer details of how we might use the game has come from the exploratory work documented by Learning and Teaching Scotland. In their accounts of the game they give plenty of details about the use of the game in the classroom with much needed reflection. They also present the idea of using the game with pairs of younger and older children together. The older children guiding the early years pupils in their writing and exploring the game together. It was from this exposition that I began planning an element of collaboration in our own project. Through conversation with the Key Stage 1 literacy coordinator we decided to explore the ideas further together – I would strongly suggest looking at what LTS has done and consider teaming up with a younger age class if you can.
4 week 2 week
In order for the children in my year group to feel comfortable acting as an expert our Myst unit ran for 2 full weeks before we began working with the year 2s. This is very important as it gave the children time to explore the game themselves and experience understanding the plot and layout of the different levels. Although we spent 4 weeks working with Myst we only had 3 sessions with the younger children. They conducted their own literacy unit with just a single copy of the game and the visits I have mentioned from us. Our own unit could have continued for much longer and initially was planned for a shorter period but I adapted it as it progressed.
Ambassadors
I had this image in my head of the children in Harry Potteresque cloaks walking solemnly, probably by torchlight, with the laptops in their outstretched arms (carrying them correctly of course) to the classes of Year 2 and arriving with great mystery and intrigue. I know that sounds strange but that’s the way my mind works, seems like the mystique surrounding the game got to me! We didn’t need the cloaks nor the torchlight in the end. But we did travel with the game to the other classes and it worked out far better then we could have imagined.
I split my class into two groups and took 15 or so down to the Year 2 class whilst the remainder got setup with Angie our TA. The children were responsible for getting their set of equipment ready, for a Myst Ambassador needs: a copy of the game, laptop, headphones, mouse and a map of J’Nanin (one of the first Ages or levels the children can explore). Once I arrived in Year 2 and the Year 5s had paired off with the Year 2s, I took the remainder of the younger children back to my own class and their adventure began.
Mantle of the expert
In order for the younger children to make the most of the sessions they needed the older pupils guiding and helping them in the correct manner. It was lovely to see how some of the children in my class reacted to working with the 7/8 year olds. The children were in a different role, perhaps out of their comfort zone a little, and they responded really well. They took on the mantle of being the one with the most knowledge and helped and guided the Year 2s in their use. I spent some time helping my classes understand what the role will entail and how best to approach it, the important sense of taking a back seat to the action and guiding their partners to discoveries of their own.
Speaking and communication
In hindsight I think I will place a greater emphasis on the language, speaking and communication that occurs between the pairs of children as opposed to the primary focus on written outcomes. In much of the work the Year 5s did in support of the Year 2s was towards a written outcome, such as helping them to record vocabulary for the different scenes. But there is such rich evidence of speaking and listening in the encounters between the pairs. I would strongly suggest keeping this in mind if you embark on something similar. I would certainly like to just listen and record some of their responses and moments of supportive guidance or curiosity that occur.That is certainly one big change for next time – it is not all about the writing!
Anyway enough from me as I would like to introduce Gemma Coleman who is currently a Year 2 classteacher at our school and one of the teachers I worked with in this unit. Gemma has kindly agreed to share her own thoughts on using the game in the classroom.
When my Year 2 colleague and I were first told about the possibility of using the games-based-learning approach in the classroom, I must admit our first thoughts were “its nearly the end of the academic year, we have just gone through SATs, it sounds like a lot of hard work!”
However, the more Tom told us about the game – Myst – the more our ideas began to develop and our interest turned to intrigue.
After an initial “ideas” meeting with Tom, myself and Cathy (our other Year 2 teacher) we decided that the game would be a great way of stirring the children’s imaginations in Literacy – particularly as this year group is very boy heavy, and we are always looking for ways to grab their interest and encourage them to focus on the task in hand.
Cathy and I took the opportunity to observe Tom teaching his own Year 5 class, using the Myst game through literacy, and it really helped to see the game “in action”. The children were brainstorming adjectives to describe a scene in the game and it seemed to really fire their imaginations. The breadth of language they used was fantastic and it was obvious to see that every child was on task and focussed on what they had been asked to do – in fact the Year 5’s were so engrossed in the game, they hardly even noticed we were there!
In Year 2 we had already planned on teaching a narrative unit, and an instructions unit in our last term of Literacy. We decided that we would try and use Myst to incorporate both of these units and discussed some initial ideas – however, as this was a completely new approach to literacy, our plans were quite organic, evolving throughout the unit as new inspirations and ideas were generated along the way.
We decided that we would roll out the unit over a 2-week period, allowing for longer if needed. With our ideas flowing, we were ready to bring Myst to Year 2!
We decided to use “Awe and Wonder” as an introduction to Myst and simply provided the children with a wooden chest containing various artefacts. We were careful not to give the children too many details initially as we wanted them to really use their imaginations and generate their own ideas as to what we could possibly be doing/looking at. The children explored the artefacts, which included a pink crystal, a small padlocked box, a map of a place called J’nanin, a letter, a book and a globe stand. These were passed around for the children to feel and look at and they were given a few minutes to discuss with their peers what these items could be for. We did initially intend to introduce the game at the end of this lesson, but the children generated so many ideas that we decided to list some of these on the Interactive Whiteboard and leave it there, ready to lead into the next day’s lesson.
Over the next few lessons the game was introduced – we showed the children the video clip at the beginning of the game – which they were completely mesmerised by – and this was used as a basis for some descriptive writing. We wrote adjectives to describe the setting of the game and discussed/wrote about the characters we had met so far, and what part they might play in this adventure story – we even used some drama, acting out scenes from the game.
As Tom mentioned in his own blog entry, his class of Year 5’s came to Year 2 as ambassadors for the game and each Year 5 paired up with a Year 2 child. They worked together brilliantly, with the Year 5’s showing the Year 2’s how to navigate through the game, giving advice, support and using excellent language – while promoting independence by the Year 2.
Later in the module, the Year 5 children worked with the Year 2’s again to help them solve a “barrel puzzle”. This part of the game was used in line with our work on “Instructions”. The Year 2 children had a written outcome of writing instructions on how to solve the barrel puzzle, using clear direct instructional language. Again, this collaboration between Years 5 and 2 worked brilliantly, with some excellent instructions being produced.
Our grand finale for the Myst module was to inspire the children to write a suitable and fitting “ending” to the Myst story. After nearly 2 weeks of exploring and playing the game the children had really gotten into the story and had a really good knowledge of the settings and characters involved.
As it was nearly the end of the Summer Term we tried to make the written activity as interesting as possible – as i’m sure any teacher will know, children’s interest in academic activities can start to wane at this time of year! – therefore, instead of simply providing a written story in their extended writing books, we provided the children with “zig-zag” booklets, which they wrote in a comic-book style, with colour illustrations and speech bubbles. The children loved these, and took great pride in writing and drawing exciting endings to their Myst adventures.
Since using the Myst game as a module for literacy, my Year 2 colleague and I have been asked many times whether we would recommend games-based-learning, and whether we would do it again. Our answer to this would be a definite YES! It has undoubtedly been a learning curve, and there are probably a couple of things that we would do slightly differently – as there always is with a new resource or approach to learning – but in general this form of exploration of a mythical world proved to be an excellent way of really firing children’s imaginations, and in my opinion, the interactive nature of this approach stirred their interests to a much greater degree than a simple text book might have done. The quality of some of the children’s written literacy work might not have been any higher than the work they usually produce, however, some of them did produce some great writing and all of the children’s imaginations appeared to be much more stretched, resulting in them generating some fantastic ideas, and their enthusiasm at such a late time in the year really was electrifying.
All in all, a very successful module – and we look forward to using Myst (or similar games-based-learning) in the near future!
It is great to hear Gemma’s perspective on the use of the game with her children and her further reflections. I am sure you will join me in thanking her for taking the time to share it all with us.
In my next “Emerging from the Myst” post I will be getting into the details of how we used the game in the lessons, how this effected planning and the balancing act it all became.
