Games Based Learning


30
Mar 12

Socrative

Socrative has been on my radar for a little while are it appeared in RSS feed in a few different places. It falls under a category of web based student response systems, and so far is one of my favourite. It was most certainly easy to set up, flexible and functional with the choice of instant response feedback and summarised reports which can be downloaded or emailed. Add to that some nice question variety and random answer sequences to discourage copy-cat answers.

As the teacher, you log in, create  the quiz (and hopefuly share SOC-140292). Student access the quiz via a room key on another device.

This morning we explored self paced and teacher paced quizzing, but it was the “space race” or competitive quizzing that really got their attention. I will have to ask how the scoring sysem work as students found themselves independetly quizzing, as part of a team. (I hope that makes sense).

The verdict, very good. The students certainly enjoyed it.

Like this type of interactive learning, then here are a similar tools.

 

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Popularity: 9% [?]


7
Mar 12

Classdojo and Textiles

For those of you that like to reward positive behaviour, then classdojo.com is an excellent tool and its only going to get better. Now available in IE, I have been sharing it with a range of staff and have received some very positive responses indeed. From a personal perspective, I know it impacts on behaviour as when I don’t use it class I give out more demerits. When I say more, one or two. As for learning resilience, time on task, it has a positive impact, on reading in particular. More specifically, in our lbrary sessions when classdojo is on display. students quizzed more books on Accelerated Reader. A clear impact. And it is clear that the staff that are using it, are already thinking outside the box, connect classdojo to schemes of work and even looking to develop the progress feedback.

Hi Kristian,

Sorry its taken me so long to get back to you. I never seem to get a second to myself at the moment! Please find attached some pictures from the monster project. Along with those I have been thinking (again) do you remember when we talked about the monster possibly getting bigger? I wondered whether instead, the monsters could build…kind of like hangman. Which removes the ‘point’ system and the badge of honour that some kids feel they get from negative numbers.

Eg: positive point gain an arm, leg, eye, nose, tail etc… Negative lose it again. Just an idea

Faye

The benefits or being at the start of a start-up is – anything is possible.

As for the team at classdojo, their thoughts on the 3D avatars and hangman option were very positive.

Faye – great to meet you! I love the idea of monster hangman – we should find a way to make that happen. The photos look awesome, and I’m intrigued – what did you envisage the monsters you are creating ultimately becoming? Will they be used in the classroom?   - Sam Chaudhary

Indeed Faye, I would be interested to know that too.

BTW – great work from the students there too. Let’s not forget them.

Popularity: 18% [?]


30
Jan 12

Programming the Wolfram Way

“Programming is to mathematics what composition is to English.” he said. “It’s how you express your creativity. Conrad Wolfram

There is a strong validation for taking that programming and creativity and combining it with interactive fiction? No?

Reflection on #lwf12 from the NY post here.

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Popularity: 7% [?]


29
Jan 12

Whilst we are on the topic of Gaming…

“You don’t learn because your engaged. You’re engaged because you’re learning.” – Nick deKanter (Muzzy Lane Software)

 

catsMuzzy Lane mane serious education titles. I think I am planning to recommend Making-history to our history department. Surely playing one or all of the game demo’s would make for a fantastic extended learning task? Wouldn’t it? And considering that Making History: The Calm & The Storm is just £3.28 I am hoping some students might fully immerse themselves in their learning.

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Popularity: 7% [?]


12
Dec 11

Platform Wars

I spent most of the weekend reflecting on three conversations, with three respected educationalists to write a post’ Education. Games.’ Some of your will have read the post and thought there is merit here, whilst others will have read the post and discarded the use of ‘games’ as a rigorous learning experience.

Let me share with you ‘Platform Wars.‘ a live, web-based simulation, where participants play the role of senior management of a video game hardware platform producer such as Sega, Nintendo, or Microsoft. Built around a companion case study describing the launch of Sony’s PS3, participants learn about the dynamics of competition in multi-sided markets. In such markets success depends not only on a product’s price and features, but on how many people own it (a direct network externality) and on the number of games and applications available – that is, the size of the installed base of complementary products (an indirect network externality). Platform markets are increasingly common in settings besides video games, including computers, the Internet and e-commerce, mobile telecommunications, and many others.

This simulation falls into the ‘game as the teacher’ category and IMHO appears to be a first class learning resource, along with the additional resources posted to support the simulator. If its good enough for MIT….

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Popularity: 6% [?]