wii - day 7 continued - playing the game

So, after the last post about getting the wireless up and running it is time to talk about playing a game! So we have been using a website called Arcademic Skill Builders (www.arcademicskillbuilders.com) for a little while now to work on our Math facts. It is a great site based in flash where the students can play against each other in the classroom (or anywhere for that matter) in various Math skills (as well as Grammar skills). Well, the site also has a Wii page where you can play a handful of the games on the Wii. The first suggestion I will make is to save the page in the favorites. Then it is only 1 mouse click away. From here you can click on whatever game you want to play and get started. We chose the Meteor Multiplication game. Basically, you are the gun in the middle and there are meteors coming towards you. You have an answer on your gun and you have to choose which meteor coorespondes to the number on your gun. But be careful, some of the meteors have the same answer but are at different distances. If a meteor gets too close you blow up. Shoot the wrong one and you blow up. The round goes for a while (there is no specific number of correct problems - but there is a time limit which you can edit somewhat) and then you complete that round and move on to round 2. Each round they move a little closer and move a little faster. It was just a review, but a review that the students enjoyed more! Each student came up and played either one round or played until they got blown up. Plus, Chris decided to jazz it up a bit. We wanted to make sure that everybody was involved in the class, not just the people playing the game. So we had the students at their desk get out their Math notebooks and do something different each 6 people.
The first 6 people we did Fact Families for each problem. So if the answer on the gun was 12 then the students had to write down 1x12, 2x6, 3x4. We had 6 students come and go and kept track of the students answers on the notebook.
The second 6 people we did Multiples. So if their gun said 7 then the students had to write down 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 (we capped it at 5 numbers so they could work on each one).
For the third 6 people we did Factors. So if their gun said 14 then the students wrote down 1, 14, 2, and 7. At this point we had a little review about Prime and Composite numbers vocabulary.
For the last 6 people we chose to do Prime Factorization! Do you remember prime factorization? It is the tree branches to take the numbers down to prime numbers. So, if they got the number 32 then they had to do this
We didn't get a chance to go through all the students so we will continue to finish up the next time we get a chance. More to come!

Just a couple of notes. Things I heard during the game- "This is so awesome". A lot of "don't die"! when the asteroids were coming towards the guns. A couple of students were saying how hard it was but they were trying to get it done.

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...

ubuntu update

So in the last two weeks I have been working on trying to get the Ubuntu computer up and running with the NComputing boxes attached to it. First things first, getting Ubuntu installed. This turned out to be more difficult then it probably should have been because of the equipment I am using. The first machine I was trying to install the OS on to was an older computer without a DVD player (it was a Dell Pentium III - like I said, an older computer). The latest version of the OS (Ubuntu version 9.10 as of this writing) can be downloaded as a bootable image, but it is over 3 GB in size so it has to go on a DVD disk. So that was problem #1. Of course, there is always the USB key option, but the BIOS on the machine was sufficiently old enough that booting to the USB drive isn't an option. So, the answer to that little quandary was to install the older version 9.04 (whose bootable image fit on a CD) and then update to 9.10 (the update is available via either the internet update within the software or you can download the update-which also fits on a CD disk).
Then on to problem #2, trying to put Edubuntu on the machine. In case someone isn't familiar (and up to about a month ago I didn't know what I was talking about either!), Edubuntu is a derivative of Ubuntu which has all of the educational programs already installed on it. While you can get them each as individual downloads, it is easier to get the whole version at once. They have it broken up into primary, secondary, and tertiary modules and including all kinds of different pieces of software, all free. Again, version 9.10 is too big to fit on a CD so I had to use version 9.04. Well, I guess that once I updated to version 9.1 Ubuntu, I couldn't put the 9.04 version of Edubuntu (I kept getting an error saying that it wouldn't install). So, I had to wipe the machine, install Ubuntu 9.04 from the CD and then install Edubuntu 9.04 and then upgrade to Edubuntu 9.10. Not too big of a deal, but time consuming. With the older equipment, an install takes about 40 minutes. And then another 30 minutes for the Edubuntu install. Ahhh, but that falls right into problem #3.
Once I had the 9.10 Edubuntu software installed, I completely lost my ability to open the My Computer option on the computer OR use the CD-ROM drive! For whatever reason, I could not use the graphical interface at all (nor could I get the CD-ROM drive to do anything else but eject from a DOS prompt). My assumption is that the older hardware was a problem. So, to review, at this point I have the latest version installed on the computer, but I can't do any of the graphical interface things that make it work like Windows. Needless to say, not a great showing. So, I am going to have to find some newer hardware and see what happens. And so that is where I will end for now. More to come!

open source ongoing project in classroom

One of the issues that I have to work with is budget. Just like everyone else in the world, our budget is tight! I like the challenge and we are lucky that there are many different companies that give their products to schools at reduced prices or free of charge! Of course, there is also open source software which has been around and used in different organizations for years. I am looking at beginning to use the open source software operating system Ubuntu in our classroom. Ubuntu is a form of the Linux kernel and there are many different "flavors" of the software. The interesting part of Ubuntu is that there is an add-on called Edubuntu which has all kinds of educational software added into the OS. They are broken up into 3 packages- primary, secondary, and tertiary and add all kinds of functionality to the program for a classroom. It also includes a completely free version of an office productivity suite called OpenOffice. It has a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, a presentation software program, a database program and a graphics program. I am going to be working on installing the software on to some recently donated machines and try to get them up and running into one of our classrooms where the teacher has requested she have more machines in the room then the 3 that are already there. The programs that she will need to be able to access in the classroom are all web-based or using the Office Program. The web browser is called Firefox (which is also available on the Windows side and is very popular) instead of Internet Explorer so there will be a learning curve for both myself, the teachers, and the students.
The plan right now is to get Ubuntu 9.10 (the latest "stable" version as of this post) up and running. Then I hope to add the Edubuntu add-on and get that working. From there I hope to add another piece of hardware into the mix called NComputing. This is an add-on card which allows me to break 1 machine up into multiple machines (virtual computing). According to their website, the Ncomputing software/hardware is compatible with Ubuntu. I will continue to post updates on my progress as I take the next steps. Any helpful hints or suggestions would be welcomed!

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!