Submitted by Anne-Marijke Podt on Tuesday, 21st February, 2012
Just found this old post from Anne Schanz concerning the making of educational games by teachers in Bolivia and I was hoping people here might be able to share some insights.
IICD is just starting up a programme in Kenya and the education programme over there focusses on very remote, basic schools for pastoralist children (Masaai, Samburu, etc.). In this context I was wondering about the possibility of using educational games for basic education. The schools that we will deal with have some quite different set ups:
- We'll have several schools that will actually have ICT in the classroom (basic interactive white boards). In this case we will focus on content development with the teachers with specific attention to the interactive bit (by the way: tips and tricks in this respect are welcome too!)
- We well alse deal with schools that will have a computer lab - in some cases this is a set up with 15-20 seats, but we will also have very small "labs" with only 5 seats. This will mean that we might not have all children in at once and that these students (upper levels) will to a large extend be "on their own", exploring the computer in small groups, which was why we were thinking educational games to begin with.
The main focus for this whole intervention is two-fold: we would like to increase the relevance of education for these kids (they have to adhere to the same curriculum as their Nairobi peers, yet their context is very different) and we would like to improve the quality of the education given. We will therefore also focus very much on the basics: maths and languages, doing as little basic ICT as possible and moving right along to using the computer for these two subjects. It is important to note that these children have Samburu/Maa as a first language, yet they are required to be taught in Kiswahili and English by Kenyan law. Usually the teachers don't do that well in spoken English, so there is a definite opportunity here.
So far for the context...
I was really hoping to get some ideas on valuable educational games - which ones did you find valuable in your context? What are the do's and don'ts? What is there to be said for developing your own games versus using existing ones?
Thanks a lot in advance!
Location
Forums
Comments
English ressources
Isabelle Duston
Friday, 20th April, 2012
http://pbskids.org/
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet/a
and for all sort of resources
http://www.curriki.org/
Any French ressources?
Paolo Brunello
Friday, 20th April, 2012
I was wondering if anyone knows of some good repositories of educational games in French, for example to learn fine mouse movement skills, or the proper use of a keyboard, or similar basic skills.
I'll be grateful if you could point me to them.
thanks
Education Game in French
Isabelle Duston
Friday, 20th April, 2012
http://www.professeurphif...
http://recitpresco.qc.ca/
http://cp.lakanal.free.fr...
And in 6 months Smart4Kids in French (I am French....)
french ressources
Paolo Brunello
Tuesday, 24th April, 2012
interesting pointers, although I was hoping in materials for higher grades.
the search goes on...
Dear Anne and all, I found
Agbenyo John Stephen
Wednesday, 18th April, 2012
I found the following article very interesting and thought i should share.
Much current research in the field of games-based learning demonstrates that games can be successfully incorporated into educational contexts to increase student engagement, motivation, and learning. Academic librarians are also using games as an innovative instructional strategy to strengthen students’ research skills and their understanding of information literacy concepts. This article discusses the development and implemen-tation of Quality Counts, a classroom information literacy game designed to teach undergraduate students how to evaluate Internet sources. After a brief overview of the game’s development and rules, the article describes the process of playing Quality Counts in several classes and presents the results of qualitative assessments of student engagement and self-perception of learning, including data from classroom observations and student surveys. Finally, the article offers suggestions for next steps and future research, both for Quality Counts as well as for academic librarians interested in developing or implementing instructional games.
The link to download the entire article is on http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/182/319
Cheers!
Games
Anne-Marijke Podt
Wednesday, 11th April, 2012
If others have experiences with any of the games described I'd love to know more!
Smart4Kids
http://ilearn4free.org/?page_id=553
The iLearn4Free reading application, Smart4Kids, is designed to be fun and exciting, and to instill confidence in children around the world as they learn to read. The educational curriculum is comprised of about 30 units, depending on the language, with each unit focusing on a specific phonemic skill. Each unit features games and stories that will be easy for children to navigate independently, yet they are not intended as a surrogate for the teacher.
Elearning for kids
http://www.e-learningforkids.org/
Being used in Ghana by 2BWorldwide, games are developed in the Netherlands. All games are online and freely available.
Programs are designed for children ages 5 through 12, developed by leading e-learning vendors and qualified instructional designers, and reviewed by members of our Advisory Board and Quality Assurance teams. Schools can incorporate our tested online courses into their curriculum; teachers can work with their students on specific skills; and children can access the self-paced programs independently. Our programs are designed to engage children at the level where they can perform successfully.
JClic
http://clic.xtec.cat/en/jclic/index.htm
JClic is formed by a set of computer applications that are used for carrying out different types of educational activities: puzzles, associations, text exercises, crosswords...The activities are not usually used alone, but packed in projects. A project is formed by a set of activities and one or more sequences, which indicate the order in which they have to be shown. JClic is developed in the Java platform, is a free software project and works in different environments and operating systems. Two ways of accessing the projects JClic are offered in the library of activities in the clicZone:
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Playing the activities in an applet
An applet is an object embedded in a web page. The projects that are seen this way do not remain stored in the hard disk: JClic downloads it, uses it and finally deletes it.If the JClic applet does not start, probably your computer's Java needs to be updated. It's also advisable to take a look at a page on the process of applet downloading.
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Installing the activities
JClic has a wizard which allows you to download the activities and put them in the projects library of the computer. The library is created the first time JClic is started, or when you try to do the first installation of a project.To see the projects in the library you will need to download and install JClic.
As in the previous case, if the installer does not start automatically you must checkthe Java system of your computer.
JClic has been used by Educatic (Bolivia) – see: http://iconnect-online.org/blogs/how-achieve-efficiency-digital-educational-content-production-anne-schanz )
KhanAcademy
http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard
Note that Khan does not really have games, but they do have interesting exercises in for instance basic maths. They also do nice presentations. Disadvantage is that everything is online…
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.
Anne, Saskia, I think that
Agbenyo John Stephen
Wednesday, 11th April, 2012
I think that there is a very thin line between who to focus on. As a practitioner, what i find is the fact that most of the time, we tend to concentrate on one side instead of striking a balance. For instance, in Ghana, the government of Ghana is supplying computers (mini laptops) to students when teachers themselves do not have computers of their own and do not also posses the required skills. Question is who then will teach the other? Are we empowering students with tools and content to make the role of the teacher irrelevant?
We should at all times try to make a fair balance on both the teacher and student ends. When we look at appropriate ICT4D projects - educational games, it is very important to look at options that will have both the teacher playing the facilitation role and the student having a better way to learn.
Another issue we need to focus on is Local content. This has always been an issue and in Ghana, this is one of the key challenges projects i have worked with are facing.
A lot of efforts are being put into developing mobile apps for educational purposes. In my context, it will be very difficult to deploy mobile educational games in our basic schools because presently, there is a ban on the use of mobile phones by students in both basic and senior high schools. Students are not allowed to use mobile phones so a deployment of a mobile solution might not work in all contexts; the deployment of any solution for now will have to be country specific. Is it not possible to have a generic prototype that can be adapted to suits ones contexts?
I find http://skoool.com/ very useful. They have localised the content for Ghana, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa. The challenge though is the fact that we presently are unable to have an offline version. I could look up some more of these and share in a later post.
Just my thoughts!
Great!
Anne-Marijke Podt
Tuesday, 10th April, 2012
Thank you Saskia (and Mattew) for this very valuable contribution. I have spent some time going over the two papers and it is really very interesting to see the link between traditional games and online educational games. Especially also because most of us tend to focus on teachers rather than students when we think about making educational content more context specific.
I plan to send Mr. Kam a message too, but for now it would be great to reflect on these papers from our experiences as practicioners as well...
Some of the questions that these papers triggered for me:
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What does this mean for our work on the ground? Should we focus more on students rather than teachers when we look at appropriate educational games? Or can teachers be good/adequate "translators" of the students' realities? Is it even feasible for us to work with students (or study students as was being done in these papers)?
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How specific are these contexts really? For languages, such as in these papers, is is quite clear that some applications are bound to be quite specific. But are children's games very specific to one area too, or is it the case that, once you did a study in one area, this would also apply in schools somewhere else in a similar area? What is the practicioners experience in this regard?
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From the papers, it seems that the traditional games are a good start for the development of educational mobile games. But how do you keep the latter interesting for more experienced users? The children in the private school from India already had more experience and understood the "advanced" games more easily than their peers from public schools with no prior knowledge of ICT games. Does this mean that the need of the students (and the exitement) wears off over time?
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It would be really good to also hear more about the educational benefits of these games, from both reseach and practice!
I hope that others will jump in and I will ask around for some more views on this too.Anne
Local content-Local Context
Isabelle Duston
Tuesday, 24th April, 2012
I believe that if we want to deliver educational digital media tool, in a world with 6000 languages, we need to be able to adapt a good tool to different languages, otherwise it wil not be financially sustainable. If you want to build something specific for each one of them in a world where techonogy is changing at rocket pace, it will never work:(
Balance
Anne-Marijke Podt
Tuesday, 24th April, 2012
This is an excellent point and I think one of the underlying issues of my post. I do think most of us try to balance local context and local relevance with practical application on the ground (it is not just sustainability I guess - working with local teachers and students for months just to develop one tool creates enormous expectations and you simply do not have that time). The question: where is this balance exactly probably cannot be answered as easily as I hoped... :)
Anne
Balance
Isabelle Duston
Wednesday, 25th April, 2012
on designing and using educational games in specific contexts
Saskia Harmsen
Wednesday, 4th April, 2012
Your question around designing and using educational games that are suited to a particular context (cultural/geographic/etc.) has kept me searching for valuable answers. In seeking informed opinion on this, I was told to ask Matthew Kam, and he pointed me to two specific research papers which he published related to the subject. The papers are based on research in rural Indian and rural Chinese settings, but I think the approaches, thinking, and findings are very informative for people considering how to design or use educational games in other rural settings.
I hope you find reading the papers useful, and I hope they are inspiring for other iConnect Education members as well who are interested in harnassing the power of ICT-enabled educational games to support education. I'd love to hear what people think, or if there are other experiences and resources out there that we should be looking at!
All Matthew's papers can be found here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ma...