2012 HOTs Wii Project by Oak Class

 

 

 

 

The HOTs project (Hold onto Sports), originally called the Wii-lypmics is the London 2012 Inspire Project for Hounslow.

It was first started in 2009-2010 by Dr. Jo Armitage and Sarah Hoyle from Together We Create and was created to get young people involved in sport through the use of  technology. The aim of the project was to help children learn how people become top athletes, how they prepare their diet,  look after their bodies and present themselves in the media.  The children would research different areas of the athletes: life as the trainer, dietician, physiotherapist, the PR Manager and the athlete itself.  They then present to the judges their project for judging and the children also learn how to play their given sport on the Wii.

This is the third year that my class has taken part in the The HOTS project. Here is our 2010 project and our 2011 project.

This year we again focused on Darius Knight, a London born 2012 Olympic hopeful in table tennis.

We will find out in the next few weeks if we make it to the finals. Fingers crossed!

HOTs 2010 Final

The finals of the HOTs Wii Project took place on Saturday 3rd July at the Civic Centre.

Schools had already submitted their work in a variety of forms including photos, videos and websites and the day had arrived for the athletes to compete in their chosen sport (Cycling, Basketball, Bowling and Table Tennis)

Four of the seven boys from my class arrived full of excitement to take part in a number of Wii Table Tennis matches against the other schools which had also chosen this sport.

Tensions ran high as one match after another was played with some being won and some lost. It was great seeing ‘my boys’ show outstanding sportsmanship with one boy even telling his classmates to cheer his opponent as the boy didn’t have anyone with him!

After the matches there was a musical interlude while the scores were added to find the results of the days play in all the Wii Sports Resort competitions.

The organisors of the Wii HOTs project, Dr Jo Armitage and Sarah Hoyle (Together We Create) were introduced by the Borough’s Director of Education and medals and certificates were presented by the Mayor of Hounslow and a special guest.

Prizes were for both the matches on the day as well as for work done throughout the project.

Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded for each of the roles: trainer, dietician, PR manager, physiotherapist and of course the athlete.

For the work completed by my class they won GOLD in each catagory! Loud whoops echoed through the room as time after time they went onto the stage to collect their medals!

and then the greatest surprise of the event happened. Dr Jo Armitage took to the stage again and said that there had been one group of pupils who had been outstanding in every aspect of the work both prior to as well on the day itself. She then called to the stage the four boys in my class and they were presented with an iPod nano each for their sportsmanship and great work!

It was particularly great that their moms were there to watch them collect their prizes.

I was hugely proud on two counts during the day… one for all the fabulous and hard work that the class did and also bursting with pride as it was my daughter who had been asked to present the medals as an up and coming Olympic Rowing hopeful!

There is private view at the Watermans arts centre, Brentford planned on Wednesday 21st July between 6-8pm of all the work done at the HOTS 2010 project.

A selection of the brilliant work created by the children who took part this years HOTs will go on display at the Watermans from the 21st – 24th July.

The private view will provide a great chance to talk about this years project and share ideas for next years project, over a glass of wine or orange juice and a tasty samosa !

I can’t wait to hear about the plans for next year!

Finals Day of Wii-lympics

At 10 o’clock registration opens for the schools who took place in the Wii project to meet head to head for a competition to find the top Wii Sports Resort Champion.

Four of the boys in my class will be coming.

The children from all the competing schools will play against each other on the Wii and then at 3:00 medals will be awarded for the work they have done for this project.

Click here if you’d like to see the work my class has done.
http://tinyurl.com/39e2t7s

Much of it requires you to have Flash.

I will update with the results!!!

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.

More about Letters

Letters have been completed, signed, sealed and about to be posted! We have also created a secure area for Darius Knight to sign in and see the class’ page about him on the school’s Fronter MLE (Managed Learning Environment)….(what do I call this as it seems quite a mouthful at the moment!!!)

We did this because in the email Darius had originally sent me,  he had said that it might take a few weeks for him to respond as he might be competing in Table Tennis tournaments outside the UK.

The children discussed whether we should just attach the letters to an email but they came to the decision that it would be ‘Way cool to get a bunch of letters telling someone that we thought they were famous!’

By sending Darius both he will have a link to ALL their online work about him which he can see anywhere as well as getting physical copies of their letters.

Off now to post the letters and send an email to him with the instructions of how to sign in. ;o)

Wii Table Tennis

On Tuesday I will be starting a project with my class of year 5/6 EBD boys using the game Wii Sports Resort www.wiisportsresort.com

The borough is running a ‘Wii-lympics’ and each participating school will be putting forward a team of which there will be a Trainer, a Physio, a PR Manager, a Dietician and an Athlete. The teams will research and produce media presentations that are specific to each role with the winning teams competing in the Wii-lympics finals in July 2010. I am waiting to hear more about the exact specifics of the project.

I then started thinking that this could be expanded and used as my Literacy unit for this half term as a means of revising non-fiction reading and writing for example recounts, reports, instructions, explanations, persuasion and discussion.

This will be the first time that I have ever used a games console as a teaching tool and I hope that it motivates and encourages my class to want to write. Everything is going to be based around the game Table Tennis and they will be learning to play real Table tennis as well as on the Wii.

I now just hope that the Wii that was ordered at the end of last term has arrived. ;o)