Star Qualities Shine On April 25, 2008
Posted by Miss Collins in : Class work, Games-Based Learning Links , trackback
The Adventure Author team have been full of praise for how well each group listens, help each other, and use questions and suggestions to learn and develop their ideas.
I can really see this coming through in other parts of project work and normal class work too!
What a class! 
:) Well Done everyone!
Comments»
It has been great to have so many enthusiastic, observant and thoughtful pupils at my side when I’ve been demonstrating aspects of the game or the toolset. P7 have spotted all sorts of subtle features and made really good suggestions, ensuring that everyone has gained a great deal from these sessions. Thank you P7 for joining in so wholeheartedly!
What a class, indeed! And what a teacher! I love to read each day about your great work and especially to hear how the project is helping with relationship building and group work skills, as well as problem-solving and creativity. What’s wonderful is that there is a flow-on effect from the project to other areas of work in the classroom.
I’m especially interested in how well your literacy skills are developing in narrative writing and other written tasks across the curriculum. Do you see any really positive improvements there, too? Maybe Miss Collins or some of the P7 classmates have some thoughts on that they could share with me. My own little class group in Sydney may be starting Adventure Author sometime this year and your comments will really help us get started.
Wow! How exciting! I thought this was someone pulling my leg at first
Our class did a project on Australia back in November and I am sure they would be delighted to pass on information that could be used in a school in Oz!
We have just started some writing assessments and then we’ll be doing some writing work set in our game worlds, so I’ll let you know how that goes, or maybe, if they will let me, I can scan and send you some examples?
I’d be more than happy to send you the planning I’ve done for this -would you like me to email that to you?
Absolutely fantastic! I’m not pulling your leg
Two lovely ladies from Sydney (Gail and Kim) linked up with Judy Robertson and others using games in education a while back. When I saw the Adventure Author site on the Internet, I emailed Judy Robertson and she passed on their names to me…she also told me to look out for the Campie P7 trial of the software, which at that time was about to start. So here I am!
Next week, I’m actually going to meet Gail and Kim for the first time face-to-face. You might have also noticed them following your class blog and commenting.
My plan is to start working with Adventure Author sometime this year with a small group of students in Year 4 to develop narrative writing skills. (I know they’ll just love the game!) I’m hoping that Gail, Kim and I might put something together and network as we go…your unit of work/planning would be a tremendous help in getting started. So, yes please, would you email me? I’d be interested in the results of the writing assessments, too. Thanks for that!
How fantastic that your class was recently learning about Australia. I think Judy R. would call that ’serendipity’. I’m sure my students would love to hear from the Campie P7’s, too.
Using the games as inspiration, along with careful scaffolding, for writing does work to improve the students’ writing. We have been focussing in this area for the past 2 years and our writing results in the BST are above state average and the improvement in our students writing from Yr 3 to 5 has been as much as twice the state average. With an even more scaffolded approach provided by the Adventure Author, along with the inspiration provided by the game context, the students’ work cannot but improve.
Good tools in the hands of great ‘n groovy teachers equals results.