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Nintendo 3DS Announcements at 2010 Nintendo Press Conference

Last week Nintendo held their 2010 Press Conference in Japan – as always it’s a time when exciting new Nintendo developments are announced. You can watch the full briefing in English or Japanese over on the Nintendo web site.

As well as all the normal sales stuff Nintendo also reminded us that this year is 25^th Anniversary of Super Mario and a commemorative game is on the way. They also announced that Donkey Kong will be making its return in the new year and that in the not to distant future the wii motion plus will be built into standard wii controls forming the wii remote +.

A big part of the presentation was given over to the Nintendo 3DS – a 3D version of the popular handheld gaming device that was first announced at E3 earlier in the year.

I’ve embedded a YouTube video of the new 3DS features below. I don’t have a clue what it says because it is in Japanese… but I already want one (it’s a huge step up from the DSi).

I love the social aspect of the new 3DS, particularly how it can connect with other devices in the near by area even when it is standby mode. It is also interesting that some games even play themselves with other people around you – even while they are still in your bag (see the Street Fighter example in the video).

The video also shows the Nintendo 3DS being used to take real photos and then having a Mii automatically generated. This new feature is called  ‘Mii Studio’ and enables players to easily make Miis from Nintendo 3DS pictures. Mii Studio also generates a QR code which allows Miis to be easily shared between friends using the 3DS camera.

A number of games are being developed for the 3DS to coincide with launch day. The video below shows the ones that were showcased at the Nintendo 2010 Conference.

As you can see from the video above there are a few titles that will be of interest to education – in particular 3D Nintendogs and 3D Professor Layton. The 3D cameras on the 3DS also screams Augmented Reality (AR) and rumors are some AR games will come pre installed on the 3DS.

One other interesting development is that is that in Japan Nintendo will be doing a test run of offering 3D television programming from Nihon Terebi and Fuji TV through the Nintendo 3DS. I think this development will be worth watching as the company starts to develop the device as a platform (how long until the phone is built in?).

UK pricing is still a little bit unclear but it will be the most expensive DS console yet and around the £200 mark. It also won’t be out for Christmas as originally planned and it looks like it will be hitting the UK high streets around March.

Finally, I love the statement at the end of the presentation that outlines Nintendo’s Strategy in one line

‘Gaming Population Expansion so that anyone regardless of their age, gender and past game play experience can enjoy’

These all look like great developments so good luck to them and roll on March!

Nintendo DSi XL and Mr Gum ‘Flips’ Books

 

I have a Nintendo DSi XL that I am playing with at the moment. The Nintendo DSi XL is basically a larger version of the Nintendo DSi.

Perhaps I am getting old (or at least my eyes are!) but I like the bigger screen and I also like the optional bigger pen that comes with it as well.

I borrowed the Consolarium copy of Mr Gum by Andy Stanton (Illustrated by David Tazzyman) which come from their ‘Flips’ Series.

Nintendo DS Flips are Simple Interactive Books and although the Nintendo DSi is not the best eBook reader in the world it certainly works and I have been enjoying reading Mr Gum during spare moments on the train. As well as Mr Gum there are lot sof other popular childrens titles aviable for the DS via Flips - more information on the Flips website.

As well as reading the different stories I have been collecting different musical notes on my DS soundboard and also collecting items for the ‘Messy Room’. The Illustrations are excellent and obviously appealing for young people. Some of the illustrations also allow fun interaction including movement and sound.

Books are becoming quite popular for the Nintendo DS – I first blogged about the 100 classic book collection back in 2008. Lots of children have Nintendo DS’s, DS Lites, DSi’s and DSi XL’s – I wonder how many school libraries stock these DS books?

Finally if you haven’t heard of Mr Gum before – you should check out his website. It is kind of a combination between Monty Python and The Twits!

Consolarium Vs Moby Dance off at #SLF10

It’s been a crazy week with the Scottish Learning Festival – more about that later...

As well as presenting two seminars this year, with the rest of the consolarium team, we were manning the Learning and Teaching Scotland stand and we had our own games based learning area.

The stand was buzzing and we had loads of children and teachers dropping by to have a go on some of the games that we have been using in Scottish Schools. One of the most popular over the two days was Just Dance for the Nintendo Wii.

It was so popular that we couldn’t stop Moby from Brainpop having a go.

It has been captured as a YouTube video below:

I think my former colleague Brain McLaren summed it up best:

There may be no hope for me!

And by the way the little girl beat all of us!

Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (Sequel to Hotel Dusk 215) [Nintendo DS Game]

 

A few years ago I blogged about Hotel Dusk Room 215 for the Nintendo DS.

It is a great example of a Narrative driven Interactive Graphic Novel. We had some copies of the game in the library of Musselburgh Grammar School and they were regularly signed out.

Learning and Teaching Scotland also did a small-scale trial of the game in Perth High School looking at how it could be used to support English and literacy in the secondary school.

Anyway, the sequel to Hotel Dusk: Room 215 was released yesterday. It is called Last Window: The Secret of Cape West – I’ve ordered my copy to evaluate and hope it is as good as the first version of the game.

Consolarium Podcast 5 - Samba de Amigo

Just in case you don't follow the Consolarium Podcast - Episode 5 is now available over on the Consolarium Blog.

Episode 5 folows a slightly different format than normal as it is solely dedicated to a project from Meldrum Primary School and Slains Primary School in Aberdeesnhire who have been working with the game Samba de Amigo for the Nintendo Wii.

The learning activities during the project included:

• The children created their own samba stars and wrote a biographies about them.

• The children were inspired to carry out research about the Amazon Rainforest as a result of the “plane crash’ scenario and other ways in which the teachers had created the settings in which intrinsic motivation to explore the topic.

• The children from both schools used Glow to begin to explore how they could work together on story start project.

• The children used Crazy Talk to great effect to bring their writing to life. 

For more information, links to childrens work, photographs of the project and video clips see the Derek's post over on the Consolarium blog

Learn Geography for the Nintendo DS

Dreamcatcher Interactive has recently announced ‘Learn Geography’ an educational title for the Nintendo DS. According to the press release it aimed at students between 3rd and 4th Grade in the USA – it doesn’t look like there is a UK version of the game yet?

The game includes the following features:

• Jigsaws - piece together parts of a world map and learn to identify the countries within each continent. There are a number of jigsaw puzzles available for each region.

• Lessons – to help you learn about world geography.

• Timed quizzes and mini games – to test your geographical knowledge.

• Training Mode - to help you practice identifying country names and locations on a world map.

Apparently you work through the lessons as a little green vampire. I think I’ll need to see it before I really pass comment!

(Thanks to the future making serious games blog for the heads up)

Tim Rylands – HHL09 and African Safari

(photo: James Clay)

I’ve heard lots about Tim Rylands and have followed his blog for a long time. Tim is the king of education web links, a clearly a talented teacher, fantastic presenter, PowerPoint Jedi and knowledgeable education consultant. I was lucky enough to meet Tim at Handheld Learning 2009 – I just wish we had more time to chat?

Unfortunately I missed his presentation but I did get a chance to watch the re-run on the Handheld Learning Blip TV channel. The main focus of Tim’s presentation was on the work that he has been doing with the Wii game Wild Earth: African Safari. If you have not played African Safari then it is defiantly worth a look as the education potential of such a resource is outstanding.

Brian McLaren who works as one of our development officers at the Consolarium in Scotland is doing some work with this title at the moment and with time we will get this written up over on the Learning and Teaching Scotland Games Based Learning website.

African Safari is a unique simulation for the Wii based on the PC game from Super X Studios. It is your task to take award-winning pictures of exotic animals in their natural habitats without disturbing them. This includes running with herds of zebra to following hunting lions and scavenging vultures.

The main features of the game include:

• 11 picture-taking missions with both primary and secondary objectives. Inclusding, nvestigating the hyena during a midday thunderstorm, observing giraffes in a hidden valley from a helicopter and meeting a family of elephants as they take care of their young.

• The Wii lets you use the Wii Remote to play from the animal’s perspective in the different games.

• You can come across more than 30 African animals including: cheetah, crocodile, crowned crane, elephant, flamingo, frog, bat, gazelle, giraffe, hippo, hyrax, leopard, lion, ostrich, oxpecker, pangolin, rhinoceros, meerkat, tortoise, trout, vulture, warthog, wildebeest and zebra.

• Multiplayer mode gives players the choice to drive the vehicle or snap photos while playing with anywhere from 1 to 3 friends.

• Photos collected are placed into an animated slide show presentation of informative articles. Players can select their own favorite photos to keep in their portfolio.

• An Impact Meter tracks how much of a disturbance you are to the natural habitat. If you disturb too many animals or get to close to them, your Wii Remote will rumble at varying degrees, making it harder to take a steady picture. If the Impact Meter becomes completely depleted, you fail the mission.

• There are terrific photo opportunities due to the accurately presented flora and terrain from the Serengeti National Park in Africa. This includes shrubs, flowers, kopjes (rocky outcroppings), streams and lakes. The weather also changes through the day

You can view a trailer for the game below (You Tube):

During his presentation Tim games lots of ideas about how he has used African Safari with classes all over the UK. I have embedded the video of Tim speaking at HHL below:

During his talk he mentions the following links, software and web based tools:

• African Safari – for the Nintento Wii (more details here)

• PowerPoint – In particular Tim mentioned how you can write in PowerPoint slides in the 2007 edition, which is useful for note taking within presenations.

• Quotepad - A great tool to take / aggregate  notes from the web or your computer (from anywhere!).

• Vocab Grabber - A great visual thesaurus to get children to experiment with worlds and to improve their language

• Ether Pad - Online collaborative documents – not normally blocked by school firewalls.

• Switheroozoo - A great little website for learning about animals and even creating some of your own – what do you think of my ElicheetaZeb?

• Fighting Maleria - A good website for learning about Malaria and a good example of how very serious citizenship issues can be talked through the medium of computer games.

• Wordle - An old classic but Tim uses it in an interesting way to analyze note taking – watch the video to see how.

The video is well worth 30mins of your time.

Professor Layton and Pandora's Box (Nintendo DS)

A couple of weeks ago a pre-ordered my copy of Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box for the Nintendo DS. I really enjoyed the first game (professor Layton and the Curious Village) which came out last Christmas. At the time I commented on the huge educational potential of such a resource.

Since the games release the LTS Consolarium has supported a number of Professor Layton projects and by all accounts the children involved seem to have had a great time and have been learning loads.

Recently Learning and Teaching Scotland seconded a new development officer for Games Based Learning in the form of Brian McLaren (from Clackmannan Primary School). Brian’s been doing a lot of work with Professor Layton and if your interested in hear more about how this game can be used in the classroom then you can see Brian present his case study at the 2009 Scottish Learning Festival and also at this years Handheld Learning event.

Lets hope that the second title in the Professor Layton series has as much education potential as the first!

Video clip of the game below (You Tube Video):

Handheld Learning Conference – October 2009

In October 2008 I was lucky enough to attend and present at the Handheld Learning (HHL08) Conference in London. My presentation was on Computer Games Based Learning in Secondary Schools.

The presentation seemed to be well received and I have since repeated an up-dated version of the presentation at the NAACE 2009 Strategic Conference. If this is something your interested in I will also be presenting on the same topic at the 2009 Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) and at BETT 2010.

Anyway, this years Handheld Learning Conference is fast approaching and the programme of speakers seems to get more an and more interesting by the day. I’ll be contributing to the Spotlight Scotland Session (supported by Learning and Teaching Scotland) on the Wednesday and I will also be delivering a session on Social Media in schools strand on the Tuesday afternoon.

Here is a brief outline of my two sessions:

Leading the change: social media in schools.

Tuesday 6th October at approximately 15.00h

"Social media is rapidly changing the way that we communicate, shop, live, do business and learn - but many schools still haven’t really harnessed the power of social media to improved their learning environments.

This seminar will examine examples of how social media have been used in classrooms and by school leaders to make their institutes become more productive, open and engaging for their learners? It will suggest tools that can be used by education professionals to help publicise their schools, increase audience for student achievement, contribute to staff professional development and make significant efficiency savings.

In addition the presentation will attempt to define exactly what we mean by social media. After all, until we understand exactly what social media in education is how will we ever promote wide scale, sustainable adoption supported by appropriate strategy?"



Web Tools for Teachers: how Scottish schools are making the most of free web based resources to communicate, collaborate and learn.

Wednesday 7th October at approximately 12.30h

"This presentation will showcase some of the exciting work that has been going on in a number of Scottish Schools who have been making the most of free web based resources.

During the 30-minute session you will be shown examples of innovative practice from a variety of curriculum areas in both the primary and secondary setting. Examples will include on-line comic books, animation, collaborative documents, 3D modeling, web-based games and the creative use of web 2.0 technologies.

Importantly, any of the resources mentioned will be able to be replicated in your own school or education authority."


More information about this years Handheld Learning event can be found here.

Computer Games Based Learning in Scottish Schools – NAACE Strategic Conference, Blackpool, March 2009

Below are a copy of my slides and on-line handout for the break out session that I ran at the NAACE Strategic Conference in Blackpool on the 4^th March 2009.

A slideshare version of the presentation can be found here.

The links that I referred to in my presentation are as follows:

• Wordle – Create fantastic Word Clouds to brighten up your lessons and also analise important documents.
• Promethean Active Expression – A world class Interactive Voting System.

Some examples of web based games that can be used for home learning:

• Classic Sim City – Useful for teaching about towns, cities and settlement.
• Ordnance Survey Map Games – Good for homework.
• Fantasy Famer – Manage a farm for a year
• Stop Disasters Simulator – Can you protect the world against floods, volcanoes, earthquakes and other nasty stuff?
• Sim Sweat Shop – What is it really like working in a sweat shop in a less economically developed country?
• An idea for setting web based games for homework activities

 

Games Based Learning to help Transition between Primary to Secondary Education:

• The Musselburgh Grammar School Guitar Hero Transition Project – Background Information and Timeline
• MGS Guitar Hero Transition Project – Part Two: The Virtual Battle of the Bands
• Guitar Hero Showcase: I love it when a plan comes together!
• Musselburgh Guitar Hero Project Features in the Times Educational Supplement
• Cluster Project that plays to all talents.
• SLF 2008: Enriched Assessment for Enriched Enquiry

In East Lothian we are rolling out this project to all P7 classes across the county. The 2009 version of the project will use Guitar Hero World Tour for the XBox. World Tour is particularly good as their is more than one instument, which provides more choise of students.

Partnership with Parents:

• Internet Safety and Responsible Use: How to set family settings on games consoles

 

The Use of the Nintendo DS

Some of the titles mentioned:

• Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?
• Big Brain Academy
• My Word Coach
• Maths Training
• My French Coach
• Hotel Dusk - A good narative driven game to encorage reading and provide a context for other work
• Nintendogs - A great game to provide a context for learning (Aberdeenshire have been doing some fantastic work using this game in P2)
• Drawn to Life - Being used in P3 to develop writing and storytelling skills

The Use of the Sony PSP

Lots of good information on how the PSP can be used for education on the ConnectEd website. Hot Brain for the PSP is a similar to lots of the Brain Training title you can get for the DS. Also have a look at SUMS Online - they make great software for computers and other handheld devicces includeing the PSP.

Storage Solutions for Games Consoles

ConnectEd have made a fantastic storage solution for the PSP – hopefully they will also soon have one on the market for the Nintendo DS.

The Use of the Nintendo Wii

Some of the titles mentioned:

• Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (currently being used in SfL)
• Endless Ocean (A great game to provide a context for learning)
• Wii Sports
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympics (A great game to provide a context for learning)
• Dancing Stage
• My French Coach

Graphic Novels

• Classical Comics
• Manga Shakespeare

The Play Station:

We are currently using Buzz the Schools Quiz and are looking forward to evaluation Buzz the Hollywood Quiz as soon as we get a copy? I am sure that there will also be Education Version of Buzz for the PS3 coming out at some point?

Games Design

• We have a site license for Mission Maker and will be exploring the possibilities for using this game to develop literacy and International links over the next 12 months.
• 2Simple DIY is also an excellent game for encouraging games Design in the early years. (you can see my efforts here)

Exergaming:

• Wii Sports
• Dance Mats (Zig Zag Dance Mats)
• EA Active Sports Coming Soon

Other Links:

• Learning and Teaching Scotland Consolarium
• Learning and Teaching Scotland
• Ideas Network Scotland: Innovation and Development in Education