Update on The Wii Project

If you were at Games Based Learning Conference 2010 in London you may have heard Dr Jo Armitage, adviser for e-learning in Hounslow, speak about the Hold On To Sport project (HOTs2010).  Click here to watch her presentation and  here to see the slides of her presentation.

It was in order to enter this that I first started the Wii project with my class.

I received an email earlier this week with an update on the HOTs Project.  The great news was that it was now officially a London 2012 project!

Over 20 schools from across the borough had taken part from Primary, Secondary and Special schools and submitted entries for the first stage of the HOTs competition.

The judges are now looking at the work submitted and in each category: physio, trainer, dietician and Public Relations, bronze, silver and gold prizes will be awarded.

The last part of our project will be the HOTS Big Weekend running across the 3^rd and 4^th July at the Civic Centre in central Hounslow. At the beginning of the project each school had to select a team of athletes. These athletes will compete against each other during the Big Weekend on Nintendo Wii’s to win prizes for the best virtual gamer in the Borough. As Jo has said, “It looks to be a fast, furious and fun weekend!”

If you would like to view some of the entries submitted you can see them here. You can also find out more about the competition, their partners and how you might be able to get involved next year.

If you’d like a direct link to the work my class has submitted then click here.

An Important Visitor

Earlier this week the creator of the Wii project, who is  the adviser for E-Learning in the Borough, came to visit the class and was very impressed with the work that she saw the children had done. Unfortunately the visitor from the Institute of Education was unable to visit on that day but may come in another time.

She is going to one of the speakers at Games Based Learning and asked if she could show some of the work we have done in class ;o) WOO HOO!!!

One of the other things we found out was that the project has gained the 2012 Olympics inspired mark which is great news!

The children enjoyed sharing the work they had done  and showed off their table tennis skills on both the real table as well as on the Wii. They were able to talk confidently about what they had been doing which can be a very difficult skill for EBD children. Often children with very poor self-esteem find it unsettling to be complimented…. sad but true.

Letter Writing

Today we looked at letter writing and discussed some of the different reasons people write letters and the types of letters they write. There was some discussion about whether people would in fact write letters rather than send an email, which is a valid point. After accepting the fact that in fact people DO write letters at times we began to look at different types.

We looked at Informal Letters, Business Letters, Letters of Complaint and other Persuasive Letters. We talked about the language used in each type as well as looking at their layouts.

After looking at each of the types, the class decided that the letters they wanted to write to Darius Knight would be a persuasive letter because everyone wanted to persuade Darius to come for a visit, if he could.

I was very impressed with their first drafts and the focus that they had throughout the session. They were ALL happy to either read these first drafts out to the rest of the class themselves or else have me read them aloud. For anyone who has worked with children with poor esteem you will understand what a big thing this is!

To take advantage of the roll they were on we decided to carry on our writing into the second lesson and after making some quick edits and reminders of punctuation (again!) the children started to type up their work.

What quickly became evident was that they all were making further edits to their work as they went along. They were adding and adapting things that others in the class had put in their letters.

Whilst they wrote I had various videos playing on the IWB of interviews with Darius and clips from tournaments. The children started adding little bits from these, as well, into their writing. Some even enquired in their letters about the way he held his racket/bat.

They all thought very carefully about their word choices and what they might say to persuade Darius to maybe come for a visit and if that wasn’t possible then to have him send them his autograph.

I’m pretty sure that it is because Darius is a person that the children can relate to and the fact that they now know quite a lot about him that they are focussed and motivated to write. They can see a purpose to what they are doing.

The Wii arrives

On the 1st day back in 2010 our class set up the Wii to the IWB with great excitement and anticipation. Setting up the console caused some small problems but a knight in shining armour came to our rescue and fixed it (thanks Chris).

Later in the afternoon we each created our individual mii characters. We also used an online avatar maker to make ones we could print off to be annotate and use in a future lesson.

During Literacy we watched the Wii Sports Resort Table Tennis advert starring Darius Knight and began to learn who Darius Knight is and why he was chosen to advertise the game.

I think Darius will be a FABULOUS role model for my kids and will hopefully inspire them to set goals and help them understand how to work towards them.