Games based learning

Games based learning as expected, had a highly visible profile at this year's Learning without Frontiers festival, in London. Take David Samuelson for example. As Head of Augmented Reality development for Pearson Education, he must have one of the coolest jobs in the world. He gets to explore all the latest possibilities technology can offer to education, and to ask the "what if?" questions each day.
In his invited presentation at today's Learning Without Frontiers festival, David emphasised what his audience already believed - for children, video games are an ideal, natural medium for learning. Kids love playing games, he said, and they learn from them without effort or inhibition. They are often 'in the flow' and don't have any hang ups about expressing themselves. He is interested in mashups - where augmented reality can be embedded within games. It's a new generation of games that is emerging, but with the advancement of games console design, the new 3DS Nintendo screens, and the natural gesture controls of devices such as XBox 360, the time is right. The universal appeal of games must be a natural extension to learning in formal situations. What excites him most is the story telling that is seen in the latest games, for example Heavy Rain.

Another invited speaker at #lwf is Dawn Hallybone, the ICT co-ordinator and senior teacher at Oakdale Junior School in Essex, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the LWF teachmeet on Sunday night. She had entered into the spirit of the fancy dress teachmeet and was wearing a luminous pink wig. In a very engaging presentation today (without her wig), she talked about playful learning and highlighted how handheld devices such as the Nintendo DS (used in her school as a brain training tool) and games such as Professor Layton puzzle adventure stories can be used to inspire kids to learn a range of key skills such as literacy, numeracy, problem solving, team working and interpersonal communication.

Dawn uses an innovative combination of tools including the Nintendo Wii, to engage kids in scenarios that take on a 3D immersion effect. They become so engaged in their characters and activities, they forget where they are, she explained. Dawn also eulogised over how Twitter has enabled her and her colleagues worldwide to connect and share their ideas on how they are using these tools in new and exciting ways to enhance learning in formal settings. They have set up a games network, pooled their meagre resources, and have purchased a library of games that can then be shared across all the schools that are members of the collective. Long may it continue.

Games based learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Networked noughties 2003-2005

Yesterday I mapped the significant technological events of the years 2000-2002. Today I continue the retrospective with a review of the years 2003-2005.

The launch of one of the first social networking services Friends Reunited in 2000 paved the ways for a welter of new social networking tools which would revolutionise the way people connected, communicated and shared. The first of the 'giants' was launched in August of 2003. Myspace was to become the trend setter - within 3 years it had signed up an astounding 100 million users.

Just a couple of months later in October 2003, Mark Zuckerberg launched a small scale service for his friends and colleagues called Facemash at Harvard University. It was later to be renamed Facebook. However, we wouldn't see Facebook officially launched until September 2006. The history of both Myspace and Facebook are very well documented on their respective Wikipedia entries. In June 2003 we also saw the inception of a little known 3D multi-user virtual environment called Second Life.

2004 started off with the launch in February of the photosharing site Flickr. Flickr was yet another new concept in social networking, where conversations and connections were based upon the sharing of digital images. Currently it is estimated that Flickr hosts in excess of 4 billion images.

Music fans were delighted in June 2004 to witness the commercial launch of iTunes. Interfacing with the iPod, it allowed users to download just about any music track they wished to listen to... for a small fee. The music industry quickly capitalised, and by December of the same year, online downloads (including iTunes) surpassed physical sales of music for the first time.

2005 was an eventful year for the digirati. In January of that year Bebo (Blog Early, Blog Often) was launched and has steadily grown in popularity, particularly with younger age groups of users. Following close on its heels in February was a video sharing service we now know as YouTube. Launched officially in November 2005, YouTube became one of the greatest success stories of social networking, because B.Y. (Before YouTube) it was not an easy proposition to upload videos to the web. YouTube made it easy, and it is estimated that there are 15 hours of video uploaded each minute, and that Youtube attract 100 million viewers each month. Videos hosted by the site include cult classics amateur clips such as 'Star Wars Kid' and 'Charlie Bit My Finger'.

2005 was a great year for games enthusiasts too, with the introduction of the Nintendo DS (March), The Sony PSP (September) and Microsoft's XBox 360 (December). Each of these games consoles contributed in advancing digital gameplaying to a new level. 2003-2005 were three eventful years for the networked nation. What would 2006 bring? This series concludes tomorrow with a review of the years 2006-2009.

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