Transcript Good Morning

Good Morning
Gaming consoles are the
computers that our students are
using the most.
Though we think of students as being the
net generation, perhaps the term
screenagers is closer to reality. A recent
study confirmed that while most teens
spend somewhere between 20 and 40
hours in front of screens a week, 85% of
the teens reported spending less than
10 hours a week online
Gaming consoles go well beyond
gaming.
Did you know that the Wii has built in
WiFi? That you can buy an Internet
browser add-on via the online store to
surf from your game console? You can
also purchase USB keyboards for text
input. The combination means that
students can be centered around one
computer for their work and fun...it just
happens that the computer is a game
console.
The Wii can turn your whiteboard
into an interactive multi-touch
whiteboard.
Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon
University has been playing with a Wii in
ways that Nintendo never imagined
possible. Though perhaps not for the
masses (yet), the possibilities are there for
using a $40 Wii remote for many other
uses.
Playing the Wii is quite a workout.
From the Wall Street Journal to the New
York Times, Wii commenters always
seem to note that playing the console is a
rather physical activity. In an age of
increased screen time, active screen time
may be one way to push healthy living.
The Wii transcends generational
gaps and disabilities.
People who are wheelchair bound can still bowl, play
baseball, and swing a Wii golf club. Young children three and four years old even - can play the Wii on
even footing with their parents. Like board games, the
Wii can provide family entertainment where everyone is
competing and participating on equal footing. My motherin-law picked up a Wiimote for the first time and crushed
me in bowling despite my practice. I did redeem myself
on baseball where practice of timing is more important,
but since they went out the next day and bought a Wii of
their own they will be practicing more as well.
The physical nature of the Wii's
interactivity makes it a great
candidate for PE classes.
Like libraries who work towards crafting lifelong learners
and readers, PE programs are working to motivate
students to be active throughout their lives. The Wii,
while certainly not a replacement for real physical activity
or involvement in sports, does provide a nice gateway for
getting students interested. And what was our collection
development policy again? Oh yeah...to provide
resources in a variety of media to promote curriculum
standards.
Video games are moving beyond
shoot 'em ups and sports.
New interactive technologies have led to video
games like Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar
Hero, and now Rock Band. Rock Band combines guitar playing, drumming, and singing
- provides nice links to music classes. A console
version of Civilization, that great social studies
game, will be out soon as well. As with graphic
novels, the time has come to see video games
as another format and not a genre.
There is a great deal of research
connecting video games to
learning.
Some of the most prominent books on the
subject include James Paul Gee's What Video
Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and
Literacy and David Williamson Shaffer's How
Computer Games Help Children Learn. For a
more accessible starting point, however, I highly
recommend Steven Johnson's Everything Bad
is Good For You. The real point is, like them or
not, our students are playing video games. First,
find out what it is doing to them. Second, grab a
Wiimote and teach them a thing or two about
bowling a strike!
Video games are a big market.
How big, you ask? Well, think back to last year. What
was the biggest first day release of an YA focused
entertainment item? I seem to recall some hoopla over a
little book called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
But it wasn't the top seller of the year. The biggest
opening day sales went to the video game Halo 3 ($170
million for Halo compared to $166 million opening
day for Harry Potter according to the ESA). Computer
and video gaming as a whole was up to an $18.8 billion
industry last year. Not something we should be ignoring,
in my opinion.
Libraries are about resources, but
also about much more than the
things they collect.
. Libraries are social institutions. The Wii is a
very social gaming system. While some may
think that gaming involves sitting alone in a room
in front of a computer or TV, the Wii completely
demolishes that perception. With four players
involved in a tennis match or taking turns at the
bowling lane, the Wii provides a great deal of
interaction and socialization. It fits into the
broader idea of a library as a place for social
interaction around resources
NINTENDO WII IN BRITISH
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
With childhood obesity rates in the U.K. continuing to
rise, the government recently endorsed a program that
would see the Nintendo Wii employed in physical
education programs across the country.
The move follows a pilot project at five Worcestershire
schools that used Wii consoles to bring inactive students into
"virtual PE." The project found that students would line up
over their lunch hour for a chance to play games on the Wii
that included tennis, baseball, bowling and golf, all of which
required physical effort in order to play. Heart monitoring
conducted as part of the project determined that regular use
of the consoles led to a greater level of fitness among the
students.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/81028-U-K-Government-Endorses-Wii-For-Physical-Education-Programs
BONUS
Don't forget that games of all types align
quite nicely with the new AASL
Standards for the 21st Century Learner.
Mission Oak High School
The Nintendo Wii and the Wii Fit add-on are for special needs
students at the high school.
Physical education teacher Dina Da Silva raised the money to
purchase the Wii from a local business, family and friends.
Students also helped raise money.
A parent donated the television it's attached to, she said.
"We were approached at the beginning of the year about allowing
students with special needs to enter our PE department," Da
Silva said. "I thought, what can we do to help these kids get
exercise?"
Da Silva had the idea for the Wii and Wii Fit.
Some kids who cannot participate in regular PE can use the Wii Fit,
she said.
Student Jayne Mattingly, 15, is one of the users of the Wii. She has
spinal bifida and is in a wheelchair.
"It's awesome. It's fun," she said. Before the Wii, Mattingly was
participating in P.E. but was taken out because she was
getting extremely tired, she said.
"It's good exercise for me without being painful," she said.
Her father, Phillip Mattingly, said he was impressed with the idea of
a Wii at the school.
"I thought it was incredible," he said. "It's very advanced."
Special-needs students play the Wii inside an area of the gym while
other students are doing cardio exercises, Da Silva said.
http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/article/20081108/NEWS01/811080310
Where are Wii Headed? Bringing Physical Education
into the New Technological Age
The Wii also presents interesting points concerning physical education in terms of
simulation. Many students today have little desire to participate in Phys. Ed and it can
become difficult to find alternatives so that there is maximum participation in all
classes. The Wii may be a good option for certain students to get their physical
activity and participate with the class. It would be interesting to see how the students
would react to having a unit or even one lesson with the Wii and I do think it may
enable some students to get over their phobia of physical education. I think that it is
important for students to feel safe and comfortable and like they could have fun if
they just try and participate. A part of the new literacy's is preparing the students for
the future and the outside world, in terms of learning and getting familiar with the
newest technologies.
The potential for learning new skills with the use of programs to help the students
understand the new technologies is an important aspect of the school curriculum. In
respects to physical education the two aspects which I feel are probably two of the
most important are play, and simulation. They both can be fun and present new
opportunities for teachers and students to progress academically and physically. The
Wii is a technology which could accomplish the building of a foundation for the
students and could be a good alternative for the textbooks and assignments in
physical education. I am excited to see the way technology will develop in the
classroom and more specifically the gymnasium.
http://blogs.mediaeducation.ca/3754/?p=226
Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming
Technology to Engage Students
For those who've been under a rock (or buried in a busy classroom - trust us, we understand), the Wii is today's hottest gaming console,
vastly outselling the PlayStation and garnering gobs of media
attention with its inventive and easily understood games. More than
twenty-four million Wii units have sold globally, according to its
maker, Nintendo.
Here's a thought: Why not take a tech platform that kids are already
nuts about and put it to use? That was the thought at Cumberland
Elementary School, in West Lafayette, Indiana, where first-grade
teacher David Brantley used a parent donation to buy three Wii
consoles. Brantley integrated some of the Wii's games and online
channels into lessons on weather and geography. The result: "A
great virtual map and globe activity," he says.
Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming
Technology to Engage Students
Ongoing research shows that students learn more
quickly and easily with instruction across multiple
modalities or through a variety of media. So educators
are eager for new tools, especially ones that are a hit
with students.
Brantley also began using Wii games with his students,
including the console's golf, bowling, and baseball
offerings. These have players standing and swinging like
in the real sports -- minus the ball that could go crashing
through a classroom window. Using scorecards he found
online, Brantley turned the fun into an opportunity to
practice data recording and charting.
Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming
Technology to Engage Students
Brantley's colleague, kindergarten teacher Mary Ford, has
also used the Wii sports games in a joint activity with an
older class: Ford and third-grade teacher Laura Smith
paired up their students for a game of bowling with a little
real-world math practice thrown in.
"As the children took turns bowling, we asked them, 'How
many pins did each bowler knock down?' and 'How
many more do they need to knock down to get a certain
score?'" explains Ford. "The third graders were able to
add double digits and use mental math and estimation to
determine a bowler's final score."
http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-wii-gaming-technology-classroom
Teaching with Wii: a medical school
explores
A British university is using the Wii gaming device to train
surgeons, according to the Guardian. The Banner Good
Samaritan Hospital (Arizona) is exploring the Wii to
teach fine tool manipulation.
"The surgeons develop an increased efficiency, less
errors, more fluid movement - basically they're just
better," says Dr Mark Smith, director of the hospital's
Simulation Education and Training (SimET) Center. To
be precise, the doctors who regularly played on the Wii
scored 48% higher on tool control and performance than
those who didn't.