1. Game On!
Liz Kolb
@lkolb
Clinical Assistant Professor
Laura Blanco, Elizabeth Pierce, Jami Sala, Erin Streyle, Jennifer
Visscher, & Sarah Zakem
University of Michigan Teaching Interns
3. 84% of children between the ages
of 8 to 10 have a video game
player in their household
4. Doctors who spent at least 3 hours a week
playing video games made about 37%
fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery
than their counterparts who did not play
video games.
9. Most Popular Video Games for
Kids Ages 10-12
Playstation Nintendo DS &Wii
10. Most Popular Video Games for
Teenagers
Playstation Online & Apps Nintendo DS &Wii
11. Why Everyday Video Games?
Games teach skills that employers want: analytical
thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-
solving under duress.
Unlike humans, the games never lose patience.
They are second nature to many kids.
There's already an audience; more than 45 million
homes have video-game consoles.
At-Risk students have shown to benefit from building
their own video games
26. Why African Safari?
Real experiences are more interesting and
exciting to write about. Students will get to
experience a “real” event by going on a digital
safari through the use of the Wii game system.
…it worked!
31. Adventure Journals Unit
Lesson 5:
How do writers choose a focus and
include relevant information?
- Playingthe game
32. Adventure Journals Unit
Lesson 6:
Writing our journals
Lesson 7:
How do writers choose a
title to hook the reader?
Lesson 8:
Illustrating our adventures
39. A little bit about Minecraft
Essentially a digital 3-D ―Lego‖
world!
Single or multi-player
2 possible modes:
survival mode
creative mode (we used)
Not free - $26.95 to download
41. Why we chose Minecraft
Student interest
Rave reviews in an informal class poll
A chance to engage in what our
students know and love
Accessible
Runs on desktop computers available
in almost every school
Open-ended teaching tool
Teacher guided – concepts
Student centered – task based
Can integrate CCSS
42. Our lesson: procedural writing
with Minecraft
What we did:
• Phase 1: Students
explored Minecraft and
chose a procedure
• Phase 2: Teacher
modeled how and when
to take screenshots
• Phase 3: Students went
through the procedure
and took screenshots
• Phase 4: Students wrote
procedural texts using
screenshots as a
framework
44. Student Reactions
• Students engaged in the material
The activity enhanced students’
learning of procedural writing
techniques
Hands-on completion of procedure
Students took ownership of their
work!
Authentic purpose extended students’
learning
People learn to play using others’
tutorials
45. Implementation and Management
What we did that worked:
Materials
Choice of project (accessible to us)
What we might change:
Centers
Timing/pacing/# of students per computer, etc.
47. Background: Selecting the Application
Selected this application because I enjoy the board
game
Wanted to find an application that would be age-
appropriate for upper-elementary students
Interested in finding an application that would
engage, enhance, and extend students’ learning
about social studies
Impressed by the audio/visual features of the
application, especially the accompanying music
48. Rationale: Educational Affordances
Pros:
age-appropriate for upper-elementary students
learn the basic rules of the game relatively
quickly, but developing a game strategy (problem
solving) takes additional time (this could help
students stay engaged with the iPad application over
a long period of time)
students can play against others who are present in
the same physical space or against computer robots
interdisciplinary connections across the curriculum
(mathematics, reading, science, social studies, and
writing)
49. Rationale: Educational Affordances
Cons:
the game takes some time to play
the instructional applications that I created take
some time to implement (e.g., it was hard to
generate quick tasks with which students could
engage)
only five players can play at one time (both the board
game version and the iPad application)
50. Using the Ticket to Ride application:
Can engage, enhance, and extend students’ learning about
geography—spatial understanding, places and regions, and
human systems
Spatial understanding: children need to understand
space and relationships between things in space
Places and regions: children need to understand
characteristics of places and regions, as well as the
distinctions of these areas
Human systems (made of up people and their cultural
and settlement patterns): children need to understand
three forms of action—movement, cooperation, and
conflict
51. Planning with Ticket to Ride: Unit and
Lesson Planning
Instructional Application 1: ―Tour Books‖ of American
and Canadian Cities (social studies and writing unit)
Instructional Application 2: Creating a Map Scale for the
Ticket to Ride Map Game Board (inquiry-based
mathematics lesson)
Instructional Application 3: There’s a Train a-Coming!
(interdisciplinary thematic unit)
54. Congratulations! What Worked Well!
Establishing clear behavior guidelines
Co-constructing rules and expectations with students
Make it clear at the beginning that everyone will have
an opportunity to experience the game (ie. Playing at
recess)
Authenticity of purpose
Model processes and give examples
Letting students explore the game before they engage
in academic material
55. Game Over…What did Not Work Well!
Time limitations made it so that we focused more on
using the technology than on the writing process
Not knowing what we were getting into (some games
are more challenging than others)
Expecting too much or too little of our students
56. Hints and Tips for Implementing
Everyday Games…
Find out what students already know/use
Set up and practice using the game system in the
classroom before the lesson
Know the aspects of the game that are likely to be
accessible to all students as well as what could be
challenging before introducing it to students
Consider your resources and what is reasonable for your
students
57. iPad Resources iPodiTouch Wii Games Computer
Games
Ticket to Ride The Lorax African Safari Minecraft
Garden Adventure
Sock Puppets Matching with Wii Baseball
Friends
Playtime Recording sight Frisbee Golf
Theater words into
Garageband
Bejeweled Weather.com Endless Ocean
App
Dot to Dot Wii Bowling
Listening to
grade level
books
Play a clip of the accompanying music (entrance music and game music)
Spatial understanding, places and regions, and human systems are all elements of geographic understanding (Lee, Visualizing Elementary Social Studies Methods, 2008)
Have a game set up for four players (Erin, Jami, Laura, Liz, and/or Sarah), and model some of the features of the game and the language that you can encourage students to use while playing the game (this shows that it does not need a lot of set up, which is not a feature of the Instructional Applications that I created), such as cardinal directions in which they are moving and the approximate distances they are traveling.
