Wow! What gorgeous children I am lucky enough to teach! They tried their socks off today and achieved masses so well done them!
Today was the end of our African Safari Wii project, we had our special visitor - Dughall - in class to help us through the day. Both of us were interested to use the Wii to aid learning after reading about so many teachers achieving great results through it's use as a teaching tool. If you've read my previous bloggings you'll know what we've been doing....if you haven't I reckon it's worth a read if you are at all interested in using a Wii as a teaching tool!
We started the day with the usual class things, letters brought back, homework books etc etc, Advent Calendar (using the Hat software to pick a name) and our online Advent Calendar about Zac the elf. Dughall then introduced himself etc and then we launched into our special day!
I'd split the class into 6 groups of 5, each child had a job within that group. We've had massive learning this week about what good teamwork looks like and Dughall - as he'd never met a lot of the children before - was to be in charge of the Wii and judging teamwork.
We were lucky enough to have 2 rooms to use - Y3 classroom + ICT suite. This meant that each group had about 20 mins 'uninterrupted' time on the Wii. Everyone else was working hard in the ICT suite. They used Word to type up a previously written animal report in literacy before creating a 'photo - journalist' like report using Ript. Everyone did a good job and the finished Ripts look amazing! They will all be printed off and made into a book that will be displayed in our classroom. I also plan to do a google docs of them so that they can share what they have achieved with their parents via our VLE.
Dughall was thrilled by how well the teams worked together....me too! They have come such a long way in a week and this game has proved to be a wonderful way of teaching the life skill of how to work well in a team... One of the best examples of what has been achieved was that one team applauded each others efforts and made wonderfully positive comments!...Wow!
My evaluation of my first time of using the Wii as a teaching tool would be this....
Today was the end of our African Safari Wii project, we had our special visitor - Dughall - in class to help us through the day. Both of us were interested to use the Wii to aid learning after reading about so many teachers achieving great results through it's use as a teaching tool. If you've read my previous bloggings you'll know what we've been doing....if you haven't I reckon it's worth a read if you are at all interested in using a Wii as a teaching tool!
We started the day with the usual class things, letters brought back, homework books etc etc, Advent Calendar (using the Hat software to pick a name) and our online Advent Calendar about Zac the elf. Dughall then introduced himself etc and then we launched into our special day!
I'd split the class into 6 groups of 5, each child had a job within that group. We've had massive learning this week about what good teamwork looks like and Dughall - as he'd never met a lot of the children before - was to be in charge of the Wii and judging teamwork.
We were lucky enough to have 2 rooms to use - Y3 classroom + ICT suite. This meant that each group had about 20 mins 'uninterrupted' time on the Wii. Everyone else was working hard in the ICT suite. They used Word to type up a previously written animal report in literacy before creating a 'photo - journalist' like report using Ript. Everyone did a good job and the finished Ripts look amazing! They will all be printed off and made into a book that will be displayed in our classroom. I also plan to do a google docs of them so that they can share what they have achieved with their parents via our VLE.
Dughall was thrilled by how well the teams worked together....me too! They have come such a long way in a week and this game has proved to be a wonderful way of teaching the life skill of how to work well in a team... One of the best examples of what has been achieved was that one team applauded each others efforts and made wonderfully positive comments!...Wow!
My evaluation of my first time of using the Wii as a teaching tool would be this....
- Brilliant for PHSCE - great 'current' medium to teach life skills
- Great cross-curricular tool, once you get your mind working about the fact that it's a teaching tool rather than a game, more and more things crop up..art, maths, PHSCE, ICT, geography, literacy, science, could have done music but ran out of time...etc etc
- Allow MUCH more time for children to get used to the game than you think - I had lunchtime & playtime sessions + one whole class session
- I liked that it was a special project, having 1 week in which everything was achieved worked well because the focus was constant
- Use real life alongside the Wii - lots of great utube videos to help the children understand that in this region the animal is the MOST IMPORTANT thing...
- The 'wow' factor it gives is immense...the children love it, it's current, they have them at home etc etc
If you're a bit doubtful, get in touch, I definitely think it is worth using a Wii as a teaching tool!...Just got to decide which Wii game to use next...kind of fancy the 'Goo' one for science but I need more info as to what it's about... :-)
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