iFarm: Games Based Learning (GBL) in the Classroom

This week, we had pupils (primary 6) from a nearby primary school in at the university, trying out some activities we had created for them using games. After reflecting on the effectiveness of using games consoles in the classroom, we started to think about the learning opportunities different games could provide for children. It was important for us to try out a few of the games and assess what sort of curricular links could be made. As a group, we enjoyed Mario and Sonic Olympic Games and believed this would be relevant to the children, considering the Olympics 2012 is being held in London this summer. The game was from the Bejing Olympics in 2008, however the athletic content within the game was relevant.

We decided to use the game as a stimulus and to help create a context for learning. We chose to use Digi-Blu cameras and get the children to create their own animations of Mario and Sonic at the Olympics.

Digi-Blu camera

Attatched is the lesson plan for the activity. There were 3 groups of children, each with 30 minutes allocated to our activity.

EVALUATION OF LESSON

I felt the lesson idea was really well thought out. The aim of the lesson was to get the children involved in animation and engaging them with the experiences and outcomes of Curriciulum for Excellence (CfE) for ICT. All of the children involved had a chance to use the Digi-Blu camera and the equipment on the laptop to aid the animation making. Every child also had a chance to play the game and talk to others about what they were doing.
The feedback from the children was mainly positive. Some of the children felt the game was 'unfair'. However, this was only an indication of the results in terms of the winning/losing team. Almoat all of the children agreed that the game helped them to make the movie as it placed their learning into a context. Some children felt that using the game as an indication of how far to move the plasticine figures helped, and made it more relevant. Whilst talking to the children, they expressed to me that they would enjoy more GBL in the classroom and they felt that it could help them with activities such as writing.
The board (where the game was played)

Olympic Rings

The track the children used for their animations

Personally, I believe that the children were all very motivated by the game. Every child wanted to get involved and receive support and encouragement from their peers. The children used what they had witnessed in the game to help them create the animation and place this in a context. Many of the children had experience of using the Wii. However, the few that had not were able to grasp the gaming technique very quickly and participate equally.