The Endless Adventure

This post is based on a Games based Learning (gbl) project, using Endless Ocean 2, that I was able to implement during my recent placement.

Background of placement

This placement was a three week block based in the nursery.  There was a two week block in the same school in February.  As the school that I was placed in had a morning only nursery I was also placed in a primary 3 class in the afternoons.

The school is situated in a deprived area with high levels of unemployment, drug and alcohol misuse and crime.  Many of the pupils have a difficult home life.  The area is undergoing regeneration with support from The Coalfields Trust.  The school encourages parental involvement and is currently developing more ways to extend this.  Parents are very supportive of the school and the local community holds a very high opinion of it.


Consolarium Visit

As part of our ICT elective we looked at the advantages and disadvantages of using games based learning to support and enhance learning in the primary school setting.  The potential for developing motivation that mirrors intrinsic motivation in pupils through the use of games based learning is something that I believe strongly in.  While this is not something that I have always been aware of; I was never adverse to the use of alternative methods to provide children with a stimulating learning experience.  Yet as part of my own learning experience I have discovered a love for the use of technology.

Game format

Endless Ocean 2 follows a storyline with characters searching for the solution to 'The Mystery of the Song of the Dragons'.  The use of a story as opposed to the exploration element of Endless Ocean 1 had both positives and negatives.

Distraction - At times the story got in the way of the exploration.  This caused me more frustration than it bothered the pupils and once passed the initial tutorials this became less of a problem.

Focus - Despite the story distracting from the main focus of my intentions it also sparked motivation in some of the pupils.  Again, for me this highlights the individual learning styles of each child.  Some were simply engaged through the explorations while others thrived on having a structure to follow in a storyline.


Planning

When planning I had the use of the teacher's previous planning and assessment schedules.  This led me to identify a series of appropriate curriculum for excellence outcomes which I then broke down into smaller targets.  Many of these were generic targets in relation to literacy and health and wellbeing.  With the list of outcomes that related to the needs of the children in terms of progression I created a curricular overview for the three week block.  Using the overview in association with the work the children completed I then made both weekly and daily plans.

The reality

With the structure of the placement not being focused on the primary 3 class it was difficult to achieve as much as I had planned.  There are several reasons for this; the class had 3 non contact slots per week during my afternoon sessions; I overplanned in relation to the time available and I had to ensure that the focus of my workload was on the nursery area of my placement.

The pupils did benefit from the project in a variety of areas.  My focus was on literacy, however, the class gained a great deal of experience in group decision making and found that they respected a democratic process when presented with choices.  To begin with they would vote on a decision and argue against the result, after discussing the need to respect the choices of others they began to accept the decisions reached.

The game play was planned for a maximum of two twenty minute sessions per week.  During the game play sessions pupils would take turns reading the instructions and the story, they would take turns using the controller and they would record certain things in their log books.  The use of log books mirrored the use of a log in the game.  If there was a word that they were unsure of they would record this in their log book and research it following the game play session.  They would also record how they were feeling periodically and this was an individual choice task.  The final instruction for recording during the game play was to record details of creatures that they encountered during the game.

The majority of the game play sessions were minimally led and I only intervened to highlight important facts or pose questions for recapping on experiences.  The class were fantastic at developing their own aims and leading their own learning.  This links well to my personal educational philosophy in my belief that teaching is so much more than passing on facts from one generation to another.  A learner who is in control of their own learning is more likely to engage fully and I believe that a teacher has a powerful influence in encouraging this from an early age.

I had concerns that the game play would need to be limited to whole class sessions due to the distraction factor of a group using the wii when others would be doing other tasks that may be seen as less exciting, yet as time went on I realised that this was not the case (at least for this class).  Although I did not have the opportunity to introduce this idea I believe it would have been able to have been implemented after the first fortnight.

In the classroom we set up a display area for art work, log books and other project related material.  The class took the lead again in developing this and created the display themselves.

We had two paradise fish arrive during the final week for a visit.  They now live at home with me.  The children relished the responsibility of caring for them, with many of the children not having had a pet previously.  When the fish arrived they came with a note for the children:

Hello Marine Adventurers

    We heard that you are exploring the ocean for your project with Mrs H and we wanted to come and visit you for a week. 

We need to be given a tiny pinch of food every day and Mrs H will need to clean our tank out on Friday when we leave.

We have never been to a classroom before and we are looking forward to watching you do all of your class work.

We don’t have names but we thought that maybe you would be able to name us.  Mrs H has a blue box for you to put suggestions into for our names.  If you write one name on each piece of paper then put it into the box Mrs H will have a draw to choose our new names on Tuesday.

Thank you for letting us stay in your classroom.

Fish         

The fish were a big success and reinforced my opinions on the benefits of having a class pet.


The surprise

The reading ability of the pupils was highlighted in a different way than had been during group reading sessions with reading books.  Pupils showed a different ability in decoding with some demonstrating an ability above that which they would normally display.  There were also pupils who struggled with the language when it was least expected.  The class teacher commented on the value of the reading activities within the game.  The environmental language also encouraged exploration of language through the recording of words within pupil 'log books'.

What next?

Hopefully my next placement will allow time to integrate gbl into my planning.  The further I progress with the course the more responsibility I will have to implement my own strategies.  I understand there are some concerns relating to the use of gbl on behalf of some schools yet I do believe in the great potential when managed carefully; but this is true of any teaching strategy and resource.

Now if only the Consolarium had summer interns for students ;0)

EM(+R) = L

"Blah Blah Learning" 

The above is a quote from Brian McLaren.  As part of our elective we were able to visit the LTS Consolarium today to extend our experience of games based learning.  Out of context the above quote may mean very little, but for me it says so much.  Brian was talking about games based learning and the point he was making was that it is not about the games that are being used it is about the learning that is taking place.  

In many, many schools throughout Scotland the Consolarium team are working with teachers and their classes on a wide variety of learning activities.  They are using various games consoles in order to do this including as the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 and handheld devices such as the PSP and the Nintendo DS.

These are the projects that excite me as a future teacher.  I have mentioned in my other blog that I was extremely lucky to have been given a great opportunity on a previous placement to try something new.  The project that I had developed followed the concept of games based learning with a class that had no previous experience in this area.  Prior to this I had known GBL was an area that I found interesting but the actual experience put it into a much clearer perspective.  Watching pupils take control of their own learning, showing motivation that I had not witnessed from some of them previously and extending their learning far beyond what was planned really put games based learning and motivation into context for me personally.   The nature of Curriculum for Excellence is a fantastic spring board for what can be done across all curricular areas given the right medium.

None of this is to say that any game would be suitable for education and another fantastic thing to see today was the Consolarium team talking about planning topics using a game.  The process of linking to areas of the curriculum while looking at a resource is something that occurs in my mind most of the time.  The ideas come, the excitement bubbles and you know that this is what pupils will experience if given the opportunity.

As with any planning the learning that will take place must always be relevant to the pupils needs at a particular age and stage.  We need to address progression, no matter how much potential a resource has if the pupils will not progress then we must  leave that resource and find a different one.

The next phase of excitement today was hearing about the potential for Mario Kart Wii in the classroom.  For one of our last assignments we had to create a context for learning addressing the principles of Curriculum for Excellence in a cross curricular nature.  The context that I used was Mario Kart Wii!  The planning that I submitted followed practically the same ideas that Brian discussed.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone is aware of the potential of games for learning and that not everyone is aware of the developments in this field.  Yet in Scotland the momentum is gaining speed and (here comes the biased statement)  Scotland is definitely among the leaders in the development of this wonderful source of motivation and engagement.

Recently I heard someone comment that engagement and motivation do not equal learning and while this is true I would argue that they do make the process of learning both more realistic and more appealing for all involved.  As a teacher it is much easier to spark an interest in your pupils when you yourself have an enthusiasm and passion for what you are doing.

Currently, in our course, we are between two blocks of our nursery placement.  The school where I am placed has a morning only nursery which means I spend the afternoon placed in a P3 class.  I had been planning to use the Nintendo Wii in both areas and had thought that Wii Music would be great to use in the nursery and Endless Ocean would be a perfect introduction to GBL to use with the P3 class.  I have Wii Music but not Endless Ocean so while at the Consolarium today I was very cheeky and asked to borrow a copy of Endless Ocean 2.  Luckily for me Brian agreed to loan me a copy which means you will be hearing much more from me about it come May.



*I apologise for the distinct lack of theory to support this post.  Theory should underpin everything we do yet sometimes I like to post directly from my thoughts and experiences and there is also the fact that I am extremely distracted by the planning for Endless Ocean 2.  Just incase you haven't guessed EM(+R)= L - Engagement x Motivation (+Relevance) = Learning*