Digital Literacy and ICT (Fife Council)

Back on the 2nd of February we were paid a visit by four ICT eduactional specialists from Fife council. I found this visit very interesting as they introduced us to a few of the main stream software that is being used in today's Scottish classrooms in order to enhance children's learning as well as their technical prowness. These included Comic Life, Pivot and Sequal. (iright has posted a blog which goes into more depth on these types of software mentioned.)

 What really contributed to my enjoyment of this visit was the hands on appraoch they provided. Everyone in the class was given access to a small notebook which had all the software installed on them. This allowed us to engage with the software the specialists were talking about as well as being told its benefits and possble uses within a classroom. I felt this was a great way to really get us involved and motivated about the software they were praising.

The one part of the visit which particulary caught my attention was that of the use of Games Based Learning (GBL) within a classroom.

"Research is beginning to suggest that computer games can help to stimulate a successful learning environment and provide motivational learning contexts that suit many learners."

(Education Scotland, no page, undated)

Many of todays present teachers and parents are still very critical of the use of games in the classroom as a tool for learning. Prensky (p1, 2002) states that these people belive "that computer and video games are "mindless", i.e that kids don't learn anything beyond hand-eye coordination from the thousands of hours they spend playing video games". However, this simply is not true and Prensky (p1, 2002) himself states "For whenever one plays a game, and whatever the game one plays, learning happens constantly, whether the players want it to, and are aware of it, or not."

We can not blame today's teachers and parents for their skeptical view on the use of games in the classroom as they are themselves are not adapt to the use of such things in the classroom. Unlike today's children "who have spent their lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones and all other toys and tools of the digital age." (Prensky, p1, 2001), modern teachers did not. They are what Prensky refers to as Digital Immigrants. Digital Immigrants did not grow up with technology surrounding them so have to now learn about the advances in technology. As with somebody learning anything new for the first time they will be tend to be slow and less confident compared to those who are more competent. This is possibly the main reason in modern schools why GBL is not more widely used.

During the section on GBL I learned about an "open source" game. This is a game that has no copyright infringements attached to it and it is free to download to anyone. The open source game which was used as an example was Super Tux.

We were given the chance to play the game itself and one of the specialists made the observation that as soon as we began to play the game, everyone was immediately engaged and motivated to try and comlpete the various levels on the game. This would no doubt be the same for the children and would in turn address the principle of "Challenge and enjoyment" of the Curriculum for Excellence as Education Scotland state "Children and young people should find their learning challenging, engaging and motivating." (no page, undated)

After playing the game itself, it was stressed to us that GBL is not used for teaching ICT and that it should not just be used as a reward for comlpeting work, which is very often the case when GBL is used in some schools. GBL is most effective when a lot of planning and thought has been applied and is used as an engaging and exciting context for a range of learning across many curricular areas. We were given examples such as creative writing for language, creating a new level/world for the character to explore for art and various other activities covering many curricular areas. his again address another of the principles of curriculum design. This time "Breadth" as Education Scotland state "All children and young people should have opportunities for a broad, suitably weighted range of experiences." (no page, undated) A huge advantage of using an open source game as the context for learning is that the characters and background world can be edited to suit any particular topic, for example if the topic is the vikings, your character can be a viking and the background image can change to a more suitable environment. This will again engage the children.

In conclusion, GBL does have a huge amount of potential to allow relevant (another principle of curricular design as games are possibly prominant in almost every childs life), engaging and motivated learning to take place within classrooms. The only problem in the present is that many of the teachers are not confident and competent enough in using game technology. On my first placement, one particular meeting after school hours was held to discuss the potential of using a number of Nintendo DSs' in the classroom to enhance learning. This was probably when I first noticed the main issue of today's teachers not being able to use the technology as it was mainly myself, except one or two teachers, who could switch the handheld devices on and start up the games without any trouble at all. I feel that GBL will eventually start to play a much larger role in schools in the near future as newly qualified teachers, who have the skills and confidence required to implement it successfully, begin to take charge of classes.

References

Education Scotland (undated) About Games Based Learning
Available
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/usingglowandict/gamesbasedlearning/about/aboutgamebasedlearning.asp
Accessed 10/2/12

Education Scotland (undated) Principles for curriculum design
Available
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/howisthecurriculumstructured/principles/index.asp
Accessed 10/2/12

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.
Available
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Accessed 10/2/12

Prensky, M. (2002). What Kids Learn That's POSITIVE from playing Video Games.
Available
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20what%20kids%20learn%20thats%20positive%20from%20playing%20video%20games.pdf
Accessed 10/2/12