Gaming in Education Research/Information

Chris and I have a presentation coming up to some of our fellow teachers who are interested in using the Wii in the classroom. So, besides just playing with the console, we wanted to provide some research to back up the use of the Wii in the classroom. We don't just use it as a reward or even as something fun to do before the kids go home on Friday afternoon (although we do sometimes play on Friday afternoon and the students do have fun)! There is a lot of research (including our research on this blog) that shows the benefits of using the console in the classroom.
While this isn't an exhaustive list, and they are not all specifically about the Wii console, it should give anybody interested plenty of ammunition to bring to their principals when asking if they can bring a "game" into their classroom! And, if you want to leave a comment telling us how that conversation went, please feel free! Good Luck!

Software and Information Industry Association has info on Best Practices for using games and simulations in the classroom: http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=207:games&catid=159:education-articles&Itemid=190

Value of Games in Education: a Case Study: http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2010/1/21/the-value-of-games-in-education-a-case-study.html

Games in Education: http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2010/10/20/games-in-education.html

Education and Simulation/Computers and Gaming: http://seayj.people.cofc.edu/cb/simgames.html?referrer=webcluster&

Drill Down: Gaming in Education: http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/01/11/drill-down-gaming-in-education.aspx

Wii Standards at the Primary Level: http://primarypete.net/wii-foundation-objectives

Gaming and Education: http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/gaming_and_education/

Learning by Playing: Video Games in Education: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19video-t.html

Are Video Games Educational?: http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Video_Games_Educational/

Video Games in Education: http://socialstudiescentral.com/?q=content/video-games-education

Wii in School for You and Mii: http://www.examiner.com/education-news-in-national/wii-school-for-you-and-mii

Government Backs Wii in Schools: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/29447/Government-backs-Wii-in-schools

Why Wii in a School Library?: http://ashworth.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/why-wii-in-a-school-library/


Big Brain Academy: http://mimanifesto.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/big-brain-academy-cathkin-learning-community/

Wii in the Classroom: http://www.teachhub.com/news/article/cat/14/item/607

Wii Debuts in D.C. Schools: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/031209_wii_in_dc_school

Wii Love Learning: http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-wii-gaming-technology-classroom

Educational Wii Games for 2010: http://www.squidoo.com/Educational-Wii-Games

50 Ways to Use the Wii in your Library: http://oedb.org/library/features/50-ways-to-use-wii-in-library

What are the Benefits of Gaming in Elementary Education: http://www.ehow.com/about_5048410_benefits-games-elementary-learning.html

The Many Benefits of Video Games: http://www.sandradodd.com/videogames/

Report Touts Educational Benefits of Computer Games: http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2009/06/23/04games.02.html

Edte.ch Blog: http://edte.ch/blog/category/wii/

Arcademic Skill Builders Site with games that use the Wii controllers: http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/wii/

Amazing Race Game

The newest game we have utilized with the middle school students is the Amazing Race game for the Wii. The students really enjoyed this game and I was impressed with the amount of critical thinking skills needed to play and the increase in cooperative skills the students showed as the game progressed. Listed below are benefits I found inherit in the game (I am sure there are more, these are the ones that popped out at me the first time through) and a step by step guide to play in a classroom setting. This game seemed to be able to use competition in a positive way to encourage students to excel and work together to the team's best advantage.

Benefits

a.. Great for cooperative learning/ skills

b.. Students learned quickly to work together in order to improve their scores/time/performance

c.. Worked on student oral communication with peers

d.. Students thought rapid fire challenges were exciting

e.. Challenges encouraged students to use critical thinking/ higher order thinking skills

f.. Some challenges were physical in nature and allowed students the ability to utilize kinesthetic skills

g.. Possible geography/research extension activity in reference to destinations in the game

h.. This is a very quick moving game which allows it to maintain student attention throughout game play

Game Play

1.. You can choose two ways to play: individual players against each other or teams of two working together against computer or other teams

2.. You can also choose how many legs of the race you want to play, the more legs the longer the game play.

3.. We played with teams of two working together against the computerized teams

4.. This method got more students involved at one time; however with the amount of people per team, it took some time for students to figure out the best system of working together.

5.. Teams choose female or male faces and then the type of team they want to be; for example, sporty, couch fans, military, gothic, etc. Students had a great time in this part of the game.

6.. Next there is an introduction to the game and some brief instructions.

7.. Teams are given an allowance of money for each leg of the race and then given four options of transportation. Students need to evaluate the best option based on time and money available. The objective of the game is to take the least amount of time to arrive at the chosen destination, so students need to decide which mode of transportation to take and how much money they are willing to spend on it.

8.. Once the mode of transportation is chosen, the teams watch as their virtual teams makes their way to the given destination and see in which order the teams arrived.

9.. There is a brief introduction to the place in which the teams have arrived (some places we have encountered so far: Rome, Rio, New Zealand), accompanied by images from the area.

10.. After each challenge of the game, the teams are listed in order by the amount of time they have taken up to that point. This order also lets the teams know how they are ranked in the game.

11.. There is a challenge, either physical or mental, at each destination. Students work together to accomplish the tasks in the least amount of time as possible. Some of the challenges involve both teams at the same time and some have the teams work individually.

12.. At the end of all the legs of the race, teams are put in their final order. The last team to arrive to the last destination is eliminated from the race.

Ratios with the Wii

Today we decided to give another pre and post test to see if we could recreate our success with the Wii and numbers on the number line (see this post for more info). Chris wanted to do a lesson on ratios. All of the students came into the lab and took our pre test using Google Forms.

Here are the questions and some of the answers from a group of students.
As you can see, the answers were all over the place. She began by discussing ratios and the vocabulary involved. She talked about the relationship between the first number and the second and the format which ratios can take (using the word "to", posted with a semicolon or as a fraction). We made a point to remind the students that the relationship that you are asking for will dictate the results of the ratio. It will be wrong if you put the correct numbers, but in the incorrect order! After this discussion we used the Wii to bowl.

We had 4 players registered and each student was able to bowl one frame. This way we got all the students involved in game play. After each throw Chris would ask for a different ratio. For example, the ratio of pins hit down to total pins. Or pins hit down to pins remaining. After a few frames we increased the difficultly a little and asked questions like the ratio of odd numbered scores to even numbered scores. Each time the students had to write the ratio in multiple ways. We were able to complete several frames (but not a complete game in the time allowed). Bowling lended itself to lots of ratio questions. We were able to stop play in between each bowler and ask a different question without interrupting game play/learning. There were plenty of numbers and plenty of options. Later that day (you can see the timestamp in the first column) the students took the post test (the same exact test). Here are the results (again) of some of our students.

While there are some formatting mistakes (some of which can be attributed to Google Spreadsheet trying to "help" with the formatting) you can see, we had much better results, but still have some students who didn't get all aspects of the concept. We are working on that!

We had good feedback from the students. They enjoyed bowling and seemed to do a good job with the ratio options.

Follow up on negative numbers with the Wii

A few weeks ago we gave our students a pre-test about putting numbers in order from smallest to least (including negative numbers - you can see the post here). After the pre-test we played the Wii game Brain Age, specifically Balloon Burst.
Then we gave the post test. If you look at the original posting, you can see the great growth that our students showed (from 4 students getting the correct answers to 18 students getting all correct answers). Today, we opened the form again and had the students complete the same post test, just to see if what we did stuck with them over time. Success! A little over 90% of the class (91.3%) had no problem and received a score of "A" on the post test. Chris and I couldn't be happier.

Wii, day 7 - setting up the wireless information

It has been a while since we used the Wii in the classroom. With our short week from Spring Break and then the Spring festival we had, there just hasn't been much time to get it all together. So, this week Chris and I worked at getting back into the swing of things. During Spring Break, I was able to get the wireless access points (Cisco 1000 series - older models which are end of life, but still work great) up and running throughout the school. So, what's the first thing that I need to do with them? Well, get the Wii up and running on the Internet of course! As with everything in technology, it should have been a cake walk. Just double click on the wireless adapter, auto find the SSID, put in the password (of course there is a password!) and cruise the web. And as with everything in technology, it just didn't work out that way! Here is a page with directions from Nintendo for setting up a wireless connection(BTW, the Nintendo site is a pretty good one with info on errors and pictures/videos to help with the install). I wasn't able to just double click and go for whatever reason. When I did a scan for the SSID, the console would see it and give me the correct security settings. However, when I tried to put in the correct password I would not be able to get on the web. It kept coming up with different error codes that had to do with wireless connection problems. So, after some conversations with a friend who is very knowledgeable with Cisco equipment (thanks Chuck!) we wound up creating another wireless SSID that didn't have the same level of security. I turned off the broadcast feature and created all the settings manually. If you click on the Manual Setup button (shown here) you can enter in all the settings.From here you add the SSID (again, I turned off the broadcast so I had to add it manually).

Then choose the type of security and put in the encryption password.
From here we manually put in the IP address and DNS address (if you don't know what these are you should be able to ask the tech person at your school).

The last setting is the easiest. Don't change it! Just leave it set at 0 and hit save.

At this point I was able to run the connection test and see it hit the Access Point. In just a few seconds I was talking on the Internet. The first thing the console wants to do is download the latest firmware from the web. You get the warning that if you have modified the console any that it may become unusable when the upgrade occurs (at least it gives you a warning/reminder). We did the upgrade at that point and it seemed to be steady connection and it worked the following day when we were playing a game. The next thing that we did was download the Internet browser for the Wii. Here is a page on specifically how to do this but I will give the highlights.

1. Select the Wii Shop Channel from the Wii Menu. If you have not previously accessed the Wii Shop Channel, you will need to read and agree to the User Agreement.
2. Once the welcome screen is displayed, select "Start Shopping."
3. Select "Wii Channels" from the Wii Shop main menu, then select "Internet Channel." Select "Yes" if you agree to the amount and to confirm the download. THERE IS NO COST to download the browser.
4. After the Opera Browser finishes downloading, the "Internet Channel" will be added to your Wii Menu.

Follow the directions on the link above to learn about the different icons on the browser and how to navigate around. It is pretty simple if you give the article a quick once over!

One thing, we did occasionally lose the connection for a second or two. I hope that this is just because the wireless lost signal (some kind of interference) for a moment. It did come right back but I did have to reset the game settings once it lost the wireless so it is a inconvenience, but certainly not a deal breaker. I think the reset was just because I was on a web page through the browser. If I had been playing a game I don't think there would have been the same reset problems...

Wii - Day 6

Today we finished up with the same game that we used the last time we pulled out the Wii, Internal Clock. We wanted to make sure that all of the students who didn't get a chance to play last time (we just ran out of time) were all able to have a remote and try to keep time in their heads. Before we began Chris orally went over what we did last time and had the students answer questions about what operation we were using (subtraction) what the difference was between the negative and positive numbers, and seconds and milliseconds vocabulary. We brought the students up again 4 at a time and had them use the same people that were created last week (all of that same work was already there from the last time we created them all). This time we decided to concentrate on the 2nd of the 4 rounds that the game plays. During the 2nd round each of the 4 players have a different time they are trying to get the closest to so it means 4 different math problems. We put the students name on the board and put the times they were trying to hit and had all of the students write down the same info in their Math copybooks. Then the 4 began playing. At the second round we had this:
Player - Total time - Time recorded
1 16 18:18 2:18 over
2 21 25:81 4:81 over
3 22 30:78 8:78 over
4 20 20:80 :80 over

After the times were posted on the board, Chris asked the questions - Was anybody under time? Was anybody over time? Would that be positive or negative numbers? Who came the closest to the time they were trying to hit? Then the students all had to do the Math problems and tell us how far over they each were from the target time. After we checked a few answers the students were able to finish round 3 and 4 and declare a winner for that group. We switched the group of 4 and began again.
The procedure was the same, but this time the results and the questions we asked were a little different:
Player - Total time - Time recorded
1 16 15.81 .19 under (-)
2 18 18.96 .96 over (+)
3 23 17.15 5.85 under (-)
4 15 17.51 2.51 over(+)

Again, we asked the same questions but added the directions to now put the recorded time in order to closest to target time to furthest away from target time (not making a difference for positive or negative numbers).
Then we asked the students to put the results in order from least to greatest. Now they had to take the negative and positive numbers into account when they placed it in order. This was a bit of a review from the last game we played with them on Big Brain Academy which was popping the balloons in order from least to greatest. Again, we checked a few and moved on to let the students finish the game. We switched out the kids two more times having them take down the numbers for the 2nd round each time and doing the Math. We made only one slight change during the last round which was a bit of a bump in the road. During the last round Chris asked the students to order the numbers not from least to greatest, but from greatest to least. We had 4 different students who said it was harder for them to group them that way then it was to group from least to greatest. After we went around and made sure that we were all together we let the students finish up the round and then have the last groups go. We worked out the Math problems and answered the questions after the 2nd round again. By the time we were finished each of the students had played the game (either this week or last) and they all had at least 15 math problems completed.

A few notes:
1. In an effort to give all the information, today was the first day of our Spring Break. We did have school, but it was only a half day - students out at Noon. So, the group was a little more wound up then usual. Not a surprise for anybody who works with students! All in all they did a good job working the Math problems, but it did take a couple of reminders from Chris that all of the students should be doing the Math work at their desk, not just the people that were playing.

2. We asked the students why they thought it was more difficult to go from greatest to least instead of least to greatest and while we didn't really get a complete answer, a couple of students just said it was easier to start with the negative numbers and move up to the positive ones...

3. One or two of the students made the observation that if you were having a problem with the greatest to least ordering, just do least to greatest and reverse it. This helped some of the confused students, but not all.

In future posts, I will make an effort to see if we can get some screen shots of the games and the math problems that we are completing during the process!

Wii - Day 5

This week Chris and I continued to work off of last week's negative number work with the Wii. On Friday we worked with another game called 30 Great Games Outdoor Fun for the Wii. And yes, while the reviews are not that favorable it did have some redeeming qualities for the classroom. The benchmark we were covering this week was MA.5.A.2.3 - Describe real-world situations using positive and negative integers. The game that we used was called Internal Clock 2. Basically, each person gets a time that they have to count up to. The clock begins counting but after about 5 seconds it goes off and you have to continue to count in your head. When you think you are at the time you push the button. The person closest to the time wins that round. The time is presented in decimal format as seconds, with both tenths and hundredths of seconds. Maybe not the most exciting game around, but the students did like to be able to be faster than the others (and we actually had one student who hit the time dead on). What we did was have them subtract their time from the requested time. The students that hit the button quicker than the requested time were in the NEGATIVE because they were slower than the timer - they still had the amount of time left to get to the correct time. The ones that were over the requested time had to subtract their number from the requested time and they were in the POSITIVE because they were longer than the requested time - they held on too long. For example, during the first round, the student all have to hit the button at 11 seconds. The results were:

• 10.90
• 12.45
• 11.73
• 11.18

With those numbers, the answer were:

• -.10
• 1.45
• .73
• .18

In the next round the times are different for each person and in the later rounds the time will change during the actual count up so the students have to pay attention. Also, you can distract the other contestants during the game by waving your controller which causes your person to jump up and down and/or say something. The screen also moves around to other views so you have to make sure you are counting while you are looking at the other things.

Just a couple of pointers:

1. We created the character the day before we played in the room - this game doesn't use the Mii's so they have to be created and named ahead of time. There are only limited options for looks. Also, there is one girl who could be considered a little inappropriately dressed (has a low cut shirt on).
2. We found that the students sitting watching the others actually playing started trying to distract the players by yelling out numbers (while the players were trying to count to their number) so we had to nip that in the bud quickly.
3. We asked the students for other real world situations where negative numbers could be a factor and we got money issues and (with some help from another adult also in the room) sea level.
   

Wii - Day 4

Today our lesson on the Wii was on negative numbers. The specific standard that we were targeting was MA.5.A.2.4 - Compare and order integers, including integers shown on a number line. Chris and I gave a pre-test to the 5th grade students before-hand because it is a concept that they don't have any experience in. The test was simply to put a set of numbers in order from highest to lowest. We had a total of 4 students who were able to get the sequences correct (on a side note, we used Google Forms to create the test). From there, we did an introduction of negative numbers and how they run away from the zero point on a number line. How, even though the number is bigger, it is actually smaller in value. To emphasis this point, we used the Wii game Brain Age - more specifically the game Balloon Burst. The point of the game is to burst the balloons by clicking on them with the controller. You want to click on the balloons in order from smallest to biggest. If you choose the hardest level, the numbers will come in both positive and negative forms. As you can see from the picture, the balloons are all different sizes and colors and they even will move around (rotate) on the screen. We gave each student a chance to come around and pop the balloons in order from lowest to highest. While the student was popping at the board, the students at their seats were all writing the numbers down and putting them in order as well. Chris and I went around the room to check their seat work and make sure that they were working on the math. Everything went well.
Later that day we gave the students the same test as a post-test. We went from 4 students get them correct to all students passing and 18 of them that receiving a perfect score. Very exciting results. The other thing that is nice about the lesson is that this concept is not one that we normally get to in the classroom setting (due to other Math issues that we are working on). So, in one class period we were able to not spend a lot of time but cover a topic that doesn't normally get covered in our 5th grade class, all thanks to the Wii!

Wii - Day 3

So yesterday (Friday) Chris and I did another round of Wii in the classroom. This time we used the baseball game (in Wii Sports) to review averaging. It is actually the training portion of Wii Sports, not the game itself. The pitcher throws 10 pitches and the computer will add up the total of all the home runs hit at the conclusion. If you don't hit a home run then you don't get any distance added in. But, it is always 10 pitches.
First Chris did a quick review of what averaging was and how to get an average (did this orally). Once she had the concept reviewed we brought each student up to get a swing. If they hit a home run then she marked down the distance on the board and the students each did it on their papers. If they didn't get a home run then we marked nothing. After each hit the student would pause the game so the next student could come on and take a swing. At the end of 10 swings we have a total (the game gives it to you so the students could check their addition on their papers) distance hit and we averaged that by the number of home run hits to get an average. Then the teacher did the math on the board to have students check their average work. We played 4 rounds which was enough to let each student get to bat twice. As before they were interested and excited about getting to play.

Some Notes:
1. The students really like the music. When we put the overhead speakers on you should see them all start bobbing their heads up and down. They can keep the beat and some of them even hum/sing along with the tune (just a music beat).
2. The hardest part for the students was remembering to hit the pause button after each swing! Especially if they hit a home run, they were too busy jumping up and down or giving their neighbor a high-five to remember! :-)
3. We were able to reinforce the idea of a repeating decimal (instead of a remainder) when the average didn't come to a whole number.
4. One student realized that he was able to do the math quickly in his head just by moving the decimal place over 1 spot since we were always dividing by 10.
5. Interesting to see some of the students timing when the ball is pitched. Some are right on, but some have very poor hand-eye coordination. Of course, this would probably improve with more practice with the console.
6. We are still using guest Mii's to play. That means none of the scores or information gets saved. We will have to begin to have the students make their own Mii's to play some of the other games. We are also going to need to make a Class Mii for when we are playing these whole class events (that way 1 student's Mii doesn't get an unfair advantage -either positive or negative -from all the others)!

Nintendo Wii - Day 2

Well, the 5th grade teacher (her name is Chris) pulled out the Wii today for the first time. We just did a little practice with the students so they could see it in the room and in action. One of the games that was purchased was "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?" (based on the TV show showing on Fox). One of the options is called Flashcards where the players (we used 4 different students) have a question and then get 4 choices. Each of the questions is worth a different amount of money depending on the grade level. If the student gets the question wrong they lose half of that amount. If they get it correct they get the full amount and if they are the first one to answer the question correctly, they get bonus money (which appears to be an extra 20% - although I am not certain about the exact amount). We had all of the students who did not have a controller writing down their answers on paper at their desks. So, it should have been a review for all students and we had several do well. We only had time enough to play two rounds (involve 8 students) but all in all I think the first installment of the console went well.
We have decided to create a full lesson plan on using the Wii Golf game (in the including Sports disk) focusing on averaging scores. The students will have the distance to the hole divided by the number of strokes to get the ball in the hole to figure out their average distance. We will use all four controllers and rotate the students around for each hit until they put it in the hole. The math problems should be different since, while the hole distance won't change for any of the four players, how many strokes it takes to put it in will (or at least has the opportunity to change). We are planning a pre-test and post test to see what kind of results we can record. Leave a comment and wish us luck!