2 Games for fun and education

In my opinion the best educational games aren't those that actually set out to educate. So many 'educational' games are simply rote learning tools dressed up and although rote learning has its place, it is only fun for a while. Added to that is the fact that if you know a game is supposed to be educational, then that sucks the fun from it before you begin.

A couple of years ago I came across Bridgebuilder

by Chronic Logic. It was created in 2000 and gives you the opportunity to create 2D bridges to span a given gap, and then run a train across it to see if it is structurally sound. It starts off easy and then the levels increase in difficulty to become fiendishly tricky. The creator of Bridgebuilder has since left Chronic Logic and you can get an updated version from his new site. The total size of the game is only 239Kb so it is quick and easy to download and setup.

I have used Bridgebuilder with a senior science class to look at simple engineering principles such as trusses, arches and the importance of triangles. The physics engine in the game allows you to examine where the stress is distributed in your bridge and is great for illustrating the effects of compression and tension forces.

 I have also used it with a year 4/5 computer club as a problem solving exercise. It would be a great game for early finishers in a primary classroom.

Chronic Logic have since released sequels, Pontifex, Bridge Construction set (A.K.A Pontifex II) and Bridge it (essentially a remake of Bridge Construction set with glitzier graphics). All three are available to buy from their site, or you can download a demo. They will do educational pricing if you email them with your needs. The gameplay for these later versions is similar but the bridges are three dimensional and there are new materials to play with including suspension cables and hydraulics for the creation of draw-bridges so that you can make a greater variety of designs. They are brilliant and offer a more involved challenge but it is hard to beat free.

The second game that I feel compelled to recommend is Fantastic Contraption which is similarly themed in that there are levels of increasing difficulty, it is a physics based game, and triangles are king when it comes to stability.

The aim of the game is to move a box or ball from a starting area to a goal area. You have at your disposal two types of rod, self-powered wheels and unpowered wheels with which to move the box or ball. You can fling it with a catapult, build it into a car, send it on a conveyor ride, or pick it up with a crane. There are usually many ways to succeed in the task, and many more ways to fail.

The principles of gravity, pulleys, levers, force, friction and Newton's Laws can all be explored.

Again this is an excellent problem-solving exercise for all age groups. It is browser based so no need to install anything. For an extra US$10 you get access to a gazillion levels designed by the community. You can rate them for difficulty and quality. There is a companion site made by fans that helps to keep track of all of the extra levels. It has been bought by the Fantastic Contraption owners so should become integrated with the main site soon. It also has a wiki that has a page about the physics of the game so you could have your students explore the gravity constant in the FC 'universe'.

I spent waaaaay too much time playing this in during my recent holidays, give it a go.

Mixedink: Write democratically

By now, many people will have used wikis, blogs, Google Docs, Zoho or something similar to get their students collaborating on a task. They all enable multiple editors to work on a piece of writing, be it a poem, a practical report, a letter, a procedure or an essay.

Mixedink also allows people to collaborate but it differs in the execution and is aimed towards getting larger groups to work together.

Anyone can start a piece of work for any purpose. As with other services, invites are sent to potential collaborators. If for example you write a letter to the government of Japan complaining about whaling, collaborators can read and rate your work. They also have the option of writing their own version and while they do, paste in and modify the best bits from your letter. When they are happy with it they publish their version and then other collaborators can repeat the process until there are many versions, each rated by their peers. At the end of a period set by the organiser of the letter/article etc the version with the highest rating is the 'winner'. Below is a demo video:

MixedInk from MixedInk on Vimeo.

Implications for teaching:

Collaboration in all forms is an essential skill and this service could be a great way to inspire and direct students to think about a given topic. The rating system encourages analysis of existing ideas and the drafting process encourages synthesis. One problem that many students have is in drawing on a number of secondary sources to create their own work. We have all had to mark a zillion cut-and-paste horrors. Plagiarism is something that can't be overcome without explicit teaching of how best to stitch together concepts and ideas. This tool has the potential to assist teachers and students to examine the process of writing a good piece that uses other's work ethically.

As with all work involving collaboration online, care would haveto be taken to set guidelines for students re: language, personal attacks etc. but this should be standard for all classrooms anyway. 

The rating system does have the potential to favour popular students and we don't necessarily want the physically attractive yet illiterate students to have their work rated highly. I would advocate having the students set up anonymous accounts that only the teacher knows the true name for. It is a shame that Mixedink hasn't prepared for educational users by allowing educators  to create class sets of numbered IDs like a couple of other web 2.0 services do. Maybe later.

Likewise there might be some hurt feelings for students whose work is rated lowly. This is something that students should be prepared to deal with and it is an opportunity for some real self-examination ie "did I work hard enough?", "how can I improve my writing?", "Why did Jenny's get rated so highly?"

 

Some ideas for use:

Interclass debates: Imagine if the main arguments for and against were assigned to whole classes or even year levels. An interesting way to see what arguments would hold the most weight with a large number of people

Writing an 'issue' letter: Write to government or a company to voice your discontent or otherwise about an issue.

Story writing: Set the class a character, problem, setting etc and let them create.

School newsletter: Crowdsource an article on any topic

Student council: Prepare submissions to the school executive about an issue of concern to students.

You get the idea!

What I'd like to see for educators:

1) The ability to create bulk logins for students.

2) As mentioned above, the rating system could become a popularity contest. I would like an alternative rating system that rates work according to an algorithm involving number of visitors, average time spent reading the article divided by length of article, number and amount of paragraphs copied etc.... but then, I am a maths teacher. 

Sproutbuilder - Grow your Own Widgets

Sproutbuilder is a platform that enables you to make your own flash widgets without knowing a scrap of code. It has an easy-to-use interface that enables you to drag, drop, resize, copy and paste elements on to your project, which can be any size from a micro button to a full webpage. These elements include buttons, text, shapes, images, audio, video (including Youtube clips), RSS feeds, Google forms, Polldaddy polls and more. Whats more, you can embed the sprouts just about anywhere: wikis, blogs (of course) Moodles, Facebook, Myspace, Netvibes etc. or just email them.

When it launched earlier this year I had a play around with it but didn't really have much of a purpose in mind when making my own sprouts. However, I started incorporating them into my wikis: Countdowns and slideshows mainly and when my school launched its Moodle recently I started to see the applications.

A standard Moodle looks pretty boring. 'Nineties in its outlook you might say. So I started using Sproutbuilder to add a little bling, some RSS feeds, slideshows and useful links at the top of every subject. Of late I have started using Sproutbuilder to make little interactive modules for the students. You can see these at a new blog that I have started called Edusprouts where I hope to be able to aggregate not just my sprouts, but the sprouts of other teaching professionals. Not all sprouts will be suitable, forms and countdowns will probably have little use outside the confines of the course that you build the sprouts for, but for general sprouts like the one I have included below, any (science) teacher could find a use. 

Down for everyone or just me?

With our ever-increasing reliance on internet based resources like wikis and blogs it becomes frustrating when the page just wont load. Is it a problem with the school's systems? My computer connection? Is the site down for some reason?

The easiest way to check is to use Downforeveryoneorjustme just type or paste in the address of your online resource and get independent confirmation like in the screenshot below:

Handy classroom organisation tools

I was reading a post on Classroom 2.o the other day and came across a reference to two delightfully simple tools for classroom organisation.

Termites for creating seating plans and
Monkey, for creating productive groups

I have always wanted some tools for this purpose and had toyed around with Excel and just couldn't seem to get it right.

Termites allows you to input 'relationship' scores for your students. That is, if you think that they work well together you give them a score up to +10 and if you'd rather that they didn't sit together you'd give them a score as low as -10. The generator takes these values into account when allocating seats. If you have a student who has poor eyesight you can specify that they are placed at the front of the room. If you have a real firecracker you can even 'glue' them to the seat closest to you so that you can keep a wary eye on them and everyone else will be shuffled around them.

Creating the table layout is also blindingly simple. You are presented with a grid of whatever size you like. You then click on a box to make it a table and click on it again to clear it. Very easy to set up rows or pods.

Monkey works on the same principle of entering relationship values but also gives you the opportunity to input an 'ability' score from 0 to 100. You then have the opportunity to group according to ability as well as taking into account the relationships. Group size and number is customised in the same way as for Termites and so is 'glueing' a student into a group.

Try them out, they are as educational software should be. Easy, simple, created by an educator, useful and free!

It takes the hassle out of making new seating plans and you could choose to have a different plan ever week if you so desired with a press of the button.

Why you need a start page. Netvibes is my pick.

Start page, home page, whatever you like to call it, it is the the page that greets you when you start up your browser.

Many people leave it at he default, which for a school is usually the school website or learning platform. This isn't necessarily a bad place to start, but is it the best?

Many other people keep it simple and start off with the basic Google search as their starting place. Let me tell you: that is sooo 90's.

These days it is all about personalisation of information sources. Why go looking when you can make the information come to you? Customisation is the key. It enables you to make the information come to you.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! all have customisable start pages in iGoogle, MSN and My Yahoo! iGoogle and My Yahoo! work pretty well and both allow you to add and remove different elements like search boxes, RSS feeds, calendars, games and widgets.
MSN is the most restrictive of the three allowing only basic changes to content.

I was a long time user of iGoogle and you can see my start page below:

iGoogle - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: iGoogle

You can see that I had customised it so that I was getting the latest news from New Scientist, Science Daily, Techcrunch and others and that my latest emails were also on hand. For fun I had a pregnancy countdown for my new baby-to-be.

If you look closely you can see the option to add more tabs which means that you can effectively customise any number of pages and have them close at hand.

However for the past few months I have moved over to using Netvibes, which along with Pageflakes, makes the customisable homepage more of a social experience. You can save and share tabs and even your whole 'universe' ie all of your tabs together. You can browse other peoples tabs and add them to your home page.

Here is mine below:

Netvibes - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Netvibes

At first glance it looks the same as iGoogle. But here's why I like it better:

• You can customise the number of columns
• More colour options
• You can fit more information in the same amount of space
• The social side of it, browsing and sharing tabs
• A huge gallery of widgets to choose from
• French people made it, so of course it is magnifique!
  

Imagine using it with your students. You could make a tab with feeds and links to resources for a course or assignment to get them going in the right direction. Students could share tabs that they create with peers. As a minimum, students will be able to group all of their educational links on one page.

If you zoom in on the top left of my example you will see an RSS feed from the discussion forum of a Wetpaint wiki that my students are working on. I have a constant eyeball on what they are doing. My professional reading comes to me. I have all my science feeds and web2.0 feeds on hand.

I would be interested if there is anyone out there using Pageflakes who can let us know its benefits...

Use Widgetbox to embed any web page

You may already know of Widgetbox, it is a great place to find useful widgets to put in your wiki, moodle or other online learning platform. Calendars, countdowns, maps, video, it has it all.


You can make your own widgets without even a skerrick of code and this includes embedding pretty much any web page so that students don't have to open another tab and get off track. You simply follow the links to create your own widget by putting in the URL of the wep page in question and setting the size you would like.

Voila! Then it is simply a matter of copying the code and inserting it in your wiki, moodle etc.

Update: I have to retract the above couple of paragraphs, I got an email from Widgetbox rejecting my widget :( I should have read the fine print a little better, it turns out that they don't allow full page embeds. I guess it would slow down their servers too much.

Instead have a look at the Blidget (Blog widget, isn't that great? A new word made from two relatively new words) I made on Widgetbox. Neat huh?

Make your own newspaper clippings

Comparison: Google Sites vs Wikispaces vs PBwiki

The battleground is set: Google has finally unleashed it's version of what a wiki should look like after buying one of the, at the time, major players, JotSpot, back in 2006.

How does it stack up when compared with two of the current most popular wiki providers to educators?

Read this doc on Scribd: Google Sites vs Wikispaces vs PBwiki

PBwiki: I have used PBwiki on the past, it was my first 'wiki love'. I administered a wiki that was used by 80+ students who created over 600 pages. It was mostly stable but the major problem was that students had difficulty with formatting. They kept expecting it to act like Word and for all that the editor is supposedly WYSIWYG: WYS is not always WYG. In particular they found tables tricky and formatting around images.

I spent quite a bit of time on their forums, there were some helpful users but the prevalence of spam made it look like the support staff were not keeping on top of things. They have since migrated the forums to a more professional looking provider so let's hope that support has improved.

I am now really looking forward to PBwiki 2.0. I received notification of an impending invite to the beta so I'll let you know how it goes once I have signed up and played around. One of the most highly anticipated features is page level access which seems to have been implemented with teachers in mind. It will enable the admin to restrict a student's access to only their pages, their group's pages, or their course pages depending on what you want the wiki to do.

Wikispaces: I have been using Wikispaces more often than PBwiki of late because I like the clean lines, all of it's components seem better integrated and because they give so much more storage space. It also looks a little like Wikipedia so students have that instant recognition of what it is for.

The lack of variety in fonts and colours is a double-edged feature. On the negative side, pages can look downright boring, on the positive side, students spend less time mucking around with formatting and concentrate on the content. Embedding HTML elements has always gone smoothly for me, unlike once or twice when PBwiki did not like what I was trying to embed.

Google Sites: What can Google possibly have to this offer in this already mature field?

1. Seamless integration of Google Apps



2. A huge wealth of expertise in making things just work



3. A nice interface

So far, in the limited time that I have been testing it out, the WYSIWYG editor has worked as advertised. Tables have behaved properly and uploading files has been a cinch. Embedding Youtube videos was, of course, effortless.

But then they have gone and done something weird. Google sites is only open to organisations signed up to Google apps. I can't just sign in with my Google ID. As an individual I can't make my own Google site, to organise a family reunion, say without buying a domain. You need a corporate or education domain so as a teacher I was able to set one up using my school email address and the domain of my school. Its odd but I guess they have their reasons. No doubt the news is out there and I just haven't read it yet.

Screencasting made easy: FreeScreencast

There are many different screencasting tools out there, read Alix E. Peshettes' recent post on Classroom 2.0 for a rundown on some of the best. Sean P. Aune has also created a list on Mashable of twelve of the best with screenshots.

FreeScreencast is a free, integrated software + hosting solution that has recently come onto open beta that shows promise.

After registering you are prompted to make a small download and install the software. It is very quick. Using the software is simple, you have the option of recording full screen, a window or a user-defined region. When you hit record your screencast begins, when you stop you have the option of previewing, saving and/or uploading it straight away. There is a link to the website from the uploader and once there you can manage your screencasts; change the name, description, and tags.

Of course the gravy in all this is that you get to search other people's screencasts and use the now obligatory comment system. Embeddable, my new favourite unrecognised-by-some-spellcheckers word, is what these are; so of course I have included an embedded screencast below... on how to embed a screencast in Moodle.




Part of their getting started tagline reads: "No tech degree required" and it really is true. Its simple, clean and easy.

How you could use it in your teaching:

- Screencast yourself performing a process on an interactive whiteboard e.g. Solving an equation, drawing a diagram, highlighting verbs (your imagination is the limit here) and embed it in a wiki/social network/ Moodle etc for your students' revision or distance learning
- Illustrate how to use an application for fellow staff or for your students

Quizlet: Rote learning can be fun?

Quizlet is an excellent resource for those students trying to remember definitions, dates, conjugations, names, places, formulae….whatever

Put simply is a site where you input questions and answers and it then tests you on those answers after first familiarising you with them using 'guess and check' type strategies. It will keep hitting you with the things you get wrong until you get them right. It tests you in several different ways, type in the answer, multiple-choice and true or false. There is also an embeddable 'Scatter' activity which is my favourite.

Here is one that I whipped up with a measley 3 terms:



There are already many such quizzes that have been entered by other students and teachers. A look at the home page shows quizzes with titles like: French colours, The industrial revolution, Latin Vocabulary and Geometry Rocks. You can of course search for relevant quizzes


Possible ways to integrate it into your program:

- Individual learning: just alert the students to its existence
- Allocate groups to create quizzes on topics that you allocate or they nominate and try them out on other class members
- Language teachers: conjugate –er verbs in French. Pin yin to English for Chinese
- Students evaluate existing quizzes for accuracy and relevance to your topic
- Set up a glossary for the unit you are working on and have the students complete it and send a screenshot to you of their best scores
- The whole class contributes to a quiz on your thematic unit. Have each student add 2-3 terms.
- Make the construction of an accurate quiz part of an assessment task
- Next year, have the students do one of the above tasks and compare it to what your class did the year before. Students can evaluate their ideas as a comparison. Did they miss things? Did they think of something beyond the last class?

Comiqs: Create comics from photos and art

Engaging some students in literacy tasks can be difficult. Comic books have long been recognised as an effective way of getting students, particularly boys, to read. Now, a web 2.0 site in beta, Comiqs, provides a simple interface to create comics from any images that you fancy. You simply drag across the layout you would like for a page, upload and drag across photos and add speech and thought bubbles. Added functionality includes the option to access your Flikr account from within Comiqs.

Making your own comics is nothing revolutionary, you have always been able to make make comic strips using Word or PowerPoint (or pencil and paper!). However, Comiqs includes the functionality of comments, sharing and embeddability. Here is my lame attempt, created in five minutes from one of my own photos, it is only one page, but multiple pages are easy to set up:

It is not the only site that enables you to do so. I should also mention Comeeko, but a word of caution, some of the advertising is not suitable for children.

Educational applications:

- Junior science: Students could make a comic highlighting lab safety; create a
- biography of a scientist
- Primary/Secondary Literacy/English: Create short stories; develop characters for everyday objects; create biographies or autobiographies
- Art/Design: What layouts work; Colour combinations; Scan and upload work
- History: Biographies
- Languages: Dialogue