Game Based Learning 10 – Teachmeet

Posted by Brian on April 7, 2010 under games based learning | 2 Comments to Read

On the evening of the first day of Games Based Learning 2010, I attended Teachmeet Game On and spoke a little about using the Lego Wedo Sensors with Scratch in relation to pupils designing and creating purpose built input devices for Scratch games.

However, the nost impressive presentation by far was by 15 yeqr old student @EdithTheGeedith, telling us how most pupils experience games in their learning. Talk about hitting the nail on the head!

Other presentations from the Teachmeet can be viewed here - well worth a look!

Game Based Learning 10 – Game Design

Posted by Brian on April 1, 2010 under games design | 4 Comments to Read

I was lucky enough to attend the Game Based Learning 10 conference at the Brewery in London and was inspired by so many wonderful speakers and met a number of fellow twitterers in real life.  I was down there as part of the Consolarium from Learning and Teaching Scotland, and along with Derek Robertson, Ollie Bray and Brian McLaren.

I gave a short presentation on the work Charlie Love and I are doing in the Consolarium in relation to Scottish education and Games Design.  Here are the slides from that presentation.

Your feedback is appreciated!

Social Networking In Schools – An Alternative?

Posted by Brian on December 30, 2009 under web tools | 3 Comments to Read

While on the train journey back from London, I took advantage of the free Wifi service, courtesy of East Coast Rail and I decided to have a quick look at Stribe. Stribe could be the answer to the ‘should we allow or not allow access to Facebook et al in schools’ question.

Stribe offers individuals, or in our case, schools, to create a social networking site with all the tools you would expect to find. Including user created profiles, chat/private messaging and sharing pages. Your social networking site can then be accessed via any domain(s) you see fit. To get Stribe, you need to request a beta invite and answer 2 short questions. You can do that here.

As I see it, this could offer great opportunities for schools to create their own social networks and provide appropriate social netiquette, safety and privacy awareness. Not to mention the obvious social aspects of it – clubs, departments, teachers, classes can all create and contribute towards school pages.

I’m quite keen to give it a go and host a social network on the blog, however, the free wifi service doesn’t seem to let me do it at the moment! It’ll be a job for 2010!

Please let us know if any of you have used Stribe and share your experiences with us!

You can follow the Stribe team on twitter on @stribe