There is a great deal of speculation about whether using the Wii is a valid way for students to experience aspects of sport and fitness.
Our specialist PD / health /PE teacher and her Stage 3 students are putting the Wii to the test.
Click The Sport Shed to read all about it and while you are in The Sport Shed check out all the good things our students are doing.
Do you know Alice was originally having her adventures in Underland?
Every student is actively engaged with their learning, pursuing their interests in their unique way. They are using books, computers, the internet to explore The Earth. Some are looking at Natural Disasters, others are exploring ancient creatures. The Dodo bird might even be brought back from extinction.
All are looking forward to creating their own Sack Boy to play Little Big Planet where they will use all their knowledge about growing a planet to develop their own.
Did you read the Sunday Telegraph on the first Sunday of the Easter holidays?
3 Baz featured in an article on using the Wii in the classroom. It was a great photo and the reporter, Lisa Mayoh wrote an accurate account of what we do in our school. However, her editor as revealed in his editorial is obviously ill informed about using any kind of digital games in the classroom and has never seen it being used to great effect as it is in our school.
The article caused such a stir that it was featured again the following Sunday Telegraph and talk back radio picked up on it as well. They were far more informed and informative than the Editor and some of the letter writers to the Sunday Telegraph.
What you see in this video snapshot is a variety of students enjoying themselves. All of these students knew nothing of tennis until it was introduced to them in the PD / Health /PE unit. The students researched the game, famous players and then had to become experts in a tennis skill. Once an expert in their skill then the students had to develop a lesson to teach their peers. The students learned the finer points of striking on the Wii. The class had to draw a tennis court, put a piece of rope between poles as a net and use the $2 shop plastic tennis rackets to put the skills they had learned into practice.
They organised two tennis competitions one on the real “outside” court and the other on the virtual “inside” court. The quality teaching and learning that occurred during this unit across the virtual and the real worlds was remarkable.
Watch this space further because our real world qualified PE Teacher will be developing the striking skills of Stage 3 students. Some will be using the Wii and others will not. She will be exploring the level of transference that does occur between the virtual and the real.
Wii Tennis from BSPS on Vimeo.
Our school uses digital games as part of our students’ learning programs. The Telegraph newspaper found out about this and wanted to include some information and photos about what we do in the paper, especially how we use the Wii as part of our PD / Health / PE program.
Here are some photos of the photo shoot in our school today.
3 Baz and Mrs Pericles showed the Newspaper photographer how they played Wii Tennis.
Ms Dyer and Mrs Pericles photographed the photographer. The audience and the players were enthusiastic and we all enjoyed sharing our expertise, experience and uniqueness.
Inspire, innovate leading digital education 2010 is a conference that was held at NSW Department of Education and Training Technology Conference held at Acer Arena on the Olympic site at Homebush Bay.
Both Ms Dyer and Mrs Pericles were asked to present at this conference. They were very honoured as they were speaking along with a number of distinguished national and international speakers.
The two international speakers were Dr Stephen Heppell from the UK and David Warlick from the USA. They were also fortunate to hear Westley Fields from Sydney.
Ms Dyer spoke about how to get teachers using technology effectively in schools and Mrs Pericles presented a workshop on digital games based learning.
From the feedback from participants at the conference they felt both of Ms Dyer and Mrs Pericles had helped them with their developing deeper understanding of ways to use technology.
Mystery Matters
Why I liked it?
I liked it because it made us think deeply and it had different types of questions that we needed to answer. My brain hurts from figuring out the answers mostly the hard ones. Mystery Matters is a really interesting game because it also gives you information about what happened in the past in Sydney. This game for me not only is interesting but exciting because it makes you feel like a real investigator in real life.
Was It Confusing?
Well yes, it was a little confusing because of some of the words I didn’t understand and well some of the questions, but it was good that they gave us clues of course. If we didn’t have clues at all we wouldn’t be able to figure out the answer.
Who would like this game and who would the game be fit for?
I think this game would be fit for Stage 3 and the age of 10 and up because it has the right amount of questions and words we understand. This game would be recommended to everyone.
Comments
I really like this game because it he teaches me and helps me learn what happened in the past in Sydney. It’s a great game for age 10 and up because it’s a game where you can learn definitions of the words you don’t know. It’s very interesting how you can learn and have fun at the same time.
Mystery Matters
Why I liked it?
I liked it very much because it made us think a lot and there were different types of thinking for example you have to think which way you can rotate the puzzle piece to make it fit with the other pieces to complete the whole puzzle. Another way we had to think was what the missing word could have been. It makes you look for clues and figure out what the word could have been.
Was it confusing?
Yes, it was a little confusing because the clues weren’t really working because every time I clicked on some of the book and clues it just page duplicate the same page as we were on. The other thing was when the clues weren’t working it made it even more confusing to try and figure out what the word is without the clues.
Who would like this game and who would the game be fit for?
I think the game would fit for Stage 3 because some of the words are a bit hard to understand for little kids so I would recommend this game for stage 3’s or for the ages 10 and up. I think the people who like mystery games would be interested in this mystery game as well as everyone else, if you really like playing computer games this isn’t a bad choice because you get to learn about many things and even the law and you can also interact with technology.
Comments
I really like this game and I hope DET can make more games like this for all ages to play it really made us think. Even people who don’t like to think have to think. It makes us get deep into the games and think really well. I also hope that you can add more mini games during the game to make it more interesting and it’s a little boring when all you do is guess the words of the sentence which is kind a boring so if DET is trying to improve the game please add more mini games
I really like this game as well because it teaches me about the history of our own country and it especially helps me too expand my vocabulary, by expanding your vocabulary it can expand your knowledge of meaning and knowledge of history which will eventually help you in high school.
Mystery Matters
Why I liked it
I really enjoyed this particular game because it strained my abilities in some parts of the game and that makes me happy that I got to face a challenge. At the start of the game when I saw the newspapers that talked about the rats I thought this could be interesting. But as I went through the game I had a few hunches that made the game fun for me so yes, I really enjoyed it.
Was it confusing?
Yes it was very confusing throughout the whole game considering the fact that it was sort of hard. It was not clear that you had to look in your inventory for the clue items that helped you uncover mysteries and complete the game. Also it was sort of confusing that everything was really tricky and some people found it hard to understand.
Who would like this game and who would it be suited for
I strongly believe that this type of game would be suited to anyone in Stage 3 (11 years and up) and anyone who welcomes a challenge! Now that is the sort of people I like. This game is really for those sorts of people.
Personal recommendations
I would suggest that you give a little more information about where your inventory is and when to check it. I also think that you play through the game yourself and if you see any other problems that you fix them. Thankyou
A new learning activity being developed by the NSW Centre for Learning Innovation has been trialled by some of our Stage 3 students. They worked through the online activity based on an event of significance that occurred in Sydney’s early 2oth century history; the Bubonic plague. Here are some of our students talking to the researcher from CLI about their experiences.
Mystery Matters … What a great Challenge! from Gail Miller on Vimeo.