I am not an experienced ‘gamer’ and I was not sure what was in store when my colleague organised a visit to the Consolarium in Dundee. Due to accomodation issues Derek Robertson visited the ICT Staff Tutor team at the training room in Forfar.
Firstly Derek gave an interesing presentation highlighting the many ways gaming technologies can be effectively used in the clssroom. It was inspiring to hear about the cross-curricular projects that are going on by innovative/creative teachers across Scotland.
We were then ‘let loose’ to experiment with the numerous games on offer. I was surprised how many ‘educational’ games were on offer. I spent some time with the Nintendo DS lite? working on my French!
Using French Coach (level 2) I managed to test my level (too embarrassed to reveal my score) then I did a series of different training tasks, new tasks (games) would unlock as I progressed. I reached my daily objective after about 20min. The game advised that I had done enough for today and I should come back again tomorrow. This was a feature I liked as my eyes were beginning to feel strained focusing on the small screens. I can see huge potenial for these style of games to aid pupils for a short period of time each day.
Next I took a turn with the Wii using the Endless Ocean game. The music and graphics were amazing and there was huge potenial with this game to introduce topics and engage pupils.
No Comments
Comments feed for this article