OllieBray.com

What is this? – How technology changes language…

It is funny how technology changes the way that we think about things and has also redefined what we call objects over time.

Lets do a quiz – what is this?

Question: Do you think it’s a floppy disk? Or do you think it’s the button you press to save things you your computer?

How about this?

Question: Do you think it’s a digital camera? or a camera?

 

Last one, define one of these:

Question: Is it someone you trust with your secrets or a button your press on a social networking space?

 

I think that language and how we refer to things is really important. It is one of the reasons that I get annoyed when we still refer to e-learning, e-assessment and e-safety.

It is 2011 and the digital words completely surrounds us. Is it not time we just talked about learning, assessment and safety. ‘Digital’ and ‘electronic’ can no longer be bolted on if we want to provide the very best for our children in a rapidly evolving and complicated globalized world.

I belive that common language is also one of the keys to keeping our children safe on line. Words like ‘friend’ have been re-defined. We must to talk to young people using new definitions but at the same time explain our traditional and ethical values.

If you want some more evidence of how technology is moving on really quickly. Watch this lovely YouTube Video below – it is sub-titled in English but I loved how one of the young children thought that the kitchen weighing scales might be ‘a bomb!’

Thanks to Anthony Salcito, at Microsoft for pointing out this video to me on his blog.

 

Computer Game Addiction and Young People

There is no doubt about it computer games are addictive that is one of the reasons that games like Angry Birds and Farmville have done so well in recent years. Why? Well, computer games are well made.

A recent report from the BBC references a government advisor (presumably from Westminster?) who warns that adolescent addiction to computer games is set to rise steeply over the next few years. 

There is no doubt in my mind that computer game addiction will rise over the next few years. 

The reasons for this are simple. We will have more games than ever before, greater access to technology than ever before and more teenagers than ever before. But it is important to remember that addiction to gaming is not new – people have been addicted to card games for years (its called gambling…).

However, making these basic comparisons are not really the point of this short article. My point with the BBC story is something that I have been talking about for years and concerns emotional intelligence – lots of people disagree with me on this one.

In the BBC piece it comes across that Jane Whalley (the mother of addicted son, Jack) blames the game for her son’s addiction. Jack who is obviously over 18 because he states that his favorite game is ‘Call of Duty’ where you go around ‘shooting things up’. Everyone knows that Call of Duty has a PEGI 18 age rating on it.

Hmmmmmmmmm, or maybe Jack has been playing games that he is not emotionally ready for? I wonder what we can learn from this? From an education perspective one thing is for sure. We probably need to do more surrounding teaching about games as well as how games can be used for learning.

What ever happens we can not let the media reporting incidents like this in any way impact on the good work that is going on in many schools. Games based learning has huge potential in education as has been demonstrated by the Learning and Teaching Scotland Consolarium time and time again.

If you want to find out more about Games Based Learning in Scottish Schools why not come to our Games to Learn – take 2 Conference being organsied by JISC and the LTS Consolarium on March 19^th 2011.

 

Game to Learn: Take 2 (17th - 19th March 2011) - Free CPD!

Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Consolarium in partnership with the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East have joined together to bring you Scotland’s largest Games-based Learning conference.

Listen to the key speakers in the field, try out some of the latest ’serious games’ or design your own and see for yourself how games can offer more than simple entertainment.  It’s also an ideal opportunity to meet with others to discuss how we can all benefit from the application of gaming technology.

The conference is free to attend and you can register for one day, two days or all three days. All of the games based learning in schools content will be on the 19th March (Saturday) which means there should be no problem with class cover or being let out of school.

Conference Highlights include:

Thursday 17th March

24hr Codebash – we have recruited 10 games developers who have kindly agreed to spend a day working with subject specialists to create an educational game. Teams of 2 (developer & specialist) will be randomly chosen and will have 24 hours to come up with a game and accompanying lesson plan to be presented on the Friday. Prizes will be awarded for the most inspiring examples!

If you would like to put your name forward to develop, then please send an email to: codebash@rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk, with your name, subject area and institution/organisation name.

Friday 18th March

The first day of the conference proper will be hosted by Dundee College – with an exciting line-up of keynotes, seminars and hands-on sessions. The output from Thursday’s codebash will also be on display, with the chance to speak to the teams who have worked through the night on their games (okay, well maybe not the whole night).

The target audience for Friday is staff from schools, college and universities – though others with an interest in games-based learning are welcome to register. For the full programme, visit the Friday Programme page.

Saturday 19th March

Hosted at the University of Abertay Dundee, this part of the conference has been organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Consolarium and focuses on the use of games within schools. A series of presentations in the morning highlights how games have been used to great effect with learners. In the afternoon, delegates can choose from 10 workshops which will get them started on the journey to employing games-based learning with their own students.

The target audience for Saturday is school staff and student teachers. Others are free to register, but preference will be given to delegates from these institutions. For the full programme, visit the Saturday Programme page.

#BETT 2011 - SQA wins 2011 BETT Award Games Based Learning Assessment

I didn’t get to the BETT Awards this year (I must have been to loud last year?). But I was delighted to hear that our colleagues at the SQA along with their industry partner ‘Learn TPM Ltd’ picked up one of the 2011 awards.

The award was for ICT Education Partnership for the work that they have done on Games Based Assessment Products for Skills for Work.

The judges comments were:

“The quality of entries this year has been consistently high, highlighting the tremendous vision of the ICT industry and its commitment to education. The BETT Awards judgements were achieved through lengthy analysis and detailed discussions.”

“The judges thought this was a clear winner because of its partnership working in achieving creative e-learning solutions. The submission showed collaboration in an exciting environment. They were impressed to see a Qualifications Authority treating gaming seriously.”

“The judges felt that this partnership and the resources they Create, bring course-assessment and learning into the twenty-first century.”

Well done SQA and Learn TPM Ltd – If your interested in the work that we are doing on Games Based Learning in Assessment in Scotland. You can find further details on the SQA Game Space Website.

 

Project Based Learning from Commoncraft

I’ve mentioned Commoncraft lots of times before and even had students recreate their own paper animation movies. There most famous movie has to be the one about Twitter.

Commoncraft has recently created a movie on ‘Project Based Learning’ on behalf of the Buck Institute for Education.

More information on the creating of the video can be found over on the Common Craft Blog.

Nice work.

The History of Computer Gaming - [video]

I love this video on the history of computer games and games design. It was made as part of a university project by games design students from Munich. It really shows the progression of devices, graphics and game play since 1958.

History of Gaming from Florian Smolka on Vimeo.

The only thing that seems to be missing is the Microsoft Kinect. There final type of controller is future looking and consists of Augmented Reality Glasses (I wonder how long it will be until we get something like that which is commercially viable?)

The games and controllers showcased in the video are listed below – how many do you remember? 

• Tennis for Two, Oscilloscope, 1958
• Pacman, Arcade, 1980
• Donkey Kong, NES, 1986
• Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, 1991
• Street Fighter II. SNES, 1991
• Super Mario 64, Nintendo 64, 1996
• Final Fantasy VII, Sony Playstation, 1997
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursiut 2, Sony Playstation 2, 2002
• Ecco the Dolphin, Sega Dreamcast, 2000
• Super Smash Bros. Melee, Nintendo Game Cube, 2001
• Wii Sports Golf, Nintendo Wii, 2006
• God of War III, Sony Playstation 3, 2010
• Rock Band, XBox 360, 2008

#BETT 2011 - Moople (one of the most interesting things at BETT 2011)

One of the most interesting things that I saw at BETT 2011 was MOOPLE. Why? because it is trying to do what I hope a future version of a Schools Intranet (eg: National Grid for learning Cymry, SWGfL, Glow etc…) might do. It is using ‘single sign on’ to link a variety of tools via open standards.

MOOPLE - My Open Online Personal Learning Environment - provides users with access to a wide range of tools, technologies and resources. Using Single Sign On technologies via shibboleth.

By doing this MOOPLE allows staff and students to make use of freely available, open source tools and resources as well as those provided commercially. The MOOPLE team work with others to provide users with access to the widest possible range of online tools, technologies and resources that suit their local needs.

Think about this for a minute… The MOOPLE.NET single sign on allows learners to make use of free tools such as Google Apps for Education, Microsoft Live@Edu, MOODLE, Drupal, Wordpress, Aviary and much more.

MOOPLE was launched at BETT 2011 and I look forward to seeing how it develops over the next few months.

 

#BETT 2011 - Microsoft

I liked the Microsoft stage this year at BETT. The presenters were in the middle and the audience was all around them. It looked like they had a good program of talks but I only really got to see part of Stuart Ball and Dan Roberts presentation on ‘Classroom Innovation for Free’.

The tools they mentioned were:

• Flashcards allow teachers and students to build revision resources that can be shared online. 

• Partners in Learning Network supports professional development for teachers and schools through shared resources ,events in the UK and a network of connected teachers.

• AutoCollage , as a member of the Partners in Learning Network you can download this great application, and create a single image collage from up to 54 separate images.

• Mouse Mischief – Connect up to 25 mice to a single PC with this free plug-in for PowerPoint. Allows you to create interactive quizzes and activities.

• Math Add-in for Microsoft Word and OneNote – Create and visualise equations and maths concepts, including 3D graph plotting

• Community Clips – Create and record your own instructional videos  with this free screencast software.

The big talk of the Microsoft stand was their new Education pricing structure and also the release of their Microsoft Office 365 product which is the next evolution of Microsoft Live @Edu. I do really like Microsoft Office Live Web Apps and I saw a bit of Ray Flemmings demo that demonstrated Live web apps being shared and edited across a number of windows enabled devices including the RM Slate 100.

I’m interested to see what happens as more and more schools sign up to cloud based services such as Microsoft Office 365. I just hope that school infrastructure and bandwidth can support such services without everything grinding to a halt!

In other Microsoft news post BETT 2011 – OneNote (which I really like) is now available for the iPhone. I wonder if the rest of the office suite will follow?

 

 

 

#BETT2011 - St. Thomas Primary School in Angus shortlisted for Guardian Classroom Innovation Award

Marie Fenton from St. Thomas Primary School in Angus has recently been shortlisted for a Guardian Classroom Innovation Award. The awards are being run by the Guardian Newspaper in association with ASUS Computers.

I was at the ASUS standing checking out the new ASUS Windows 7 Eee Slate EP121 PC (I would love to do a more robust classroom test on this at some point?) when I bumped into Marie Fenton by complete accident.  

Marie was able to tell me all about her blended learning project which makes use of a variety of technologies including Google Sketch Up and digital video.

 

"The P7 class at St Thomas primary is using technology to raise the level of engagement/attainment across the range of abilities. Language skills in particular are a challenge for some of the pupils. These same pupils have shown distinct abilities and interests in computers and visual perception based activities. For medieval studies, using documentaries allows quick access to necessary information, which the children supplement by referring to search engines and literature. They process the information by creating dioramas and once they have greater spatial awareness of the layout, they use Sketchup8 to create 3D technical drawings of the buildings and furnishings. Making their own videos recording the learning experiences, affords them a further range of skills.

Using technology to communicate their ideas removes many of the inhibitions associated with their learning and promotes the skills learned in the light of skills for work in later life."

Well done Marie - more information about the project here.

 

Google Science Fair 2011

 

Google is looking for the brightest, best young scientists from around the world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world today.

The Google Science Fair seems like a great way for Google to expand their education programme for young people. It will also be really interesting to see how Google manages a competition on such a large scale. I already love the idea that they are asking for judges to help assist on a ‘local’ level.

More details about the Google Science Fair here and the YouTube video below explains the completion in more detail.