SLF 2007 - Games and Learning

These posts are going to be fairly brief so that I can save battery life as much as possible.

This seminar was led by Derek Robertson, who is working with LTS to advocate the use of games in learning. The technology available and used by children and young people is huge. The impact that has on the way we teach has to be thought through.

Reference was made to the work of Marc Prensky and the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants. The client group coming into our schools are so tech savvy that we as adults tend to talk a completely different langauge.

The Games Based Learning has now gone live at www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/gamesbasedlearning/index.asp

This includes a blog and a variety of information, video clips and links on the subject area.

Derek gave a lot of information about the project and the links with local authorities and how it is having an impact on the classroom. The links with the values, purposes and principles of a curriculum for excellence were expanded on in relation to a number of real life examples. This included the use of braining training software on the Nintendo DS to improve maths skills. Although this was a small scale study it was felt that larger scale research would be valuable to reinforce the study evidence. There were also unexpected outcomes related to calmness, lower levels of agression, an improved level of collegiate ethos, independence, togetherness and enhanced self esteem. The video clips shown in the presentation are all on the LTS site.

The argument about enhanced learning highlights a number of areas:

• powerful motivational tool


• problem solving model


• metacognitive development


• embedded formative assessment


• collaborative contexts


• affective domain targeted


• culturally relevant
  

Other examples invluded the use of Guitar Hero and Myst from Tim Rylands.

Derek is a great salesman for Sony and Nintendo! Our own experience of games and learning has been fairly limited through a few examples in some of schools. The feedback has been very positive and we really want to explore this further over the coming months and years.