LWF11 - David Samuelson, EVP, Director of Games & Augmented Reality

Learning Games

About a third of the company's revenue now comes from electronic/online sources. Talked about the company's history in ePublishing and stressed that the were trying to much more than create pdf versions of print books.

There was a brief mention of Flow - the focus and single-minded dedication often seen in gaming.

Poptropica - a virtual world where 320 million avatars created since its launch. Some of the islands are more overtly educational than others. Children also make movies of what they do- they are keen to show what they know and share what they know.

The generation that grew up with video games in the 80s and 90s are the ones that are now "in charge". "If children can't learn the way we teach, perhaps we should teach the way they learn." - Ignacio Estrada. Link with statistic from the Nintendo presentation because not only are females are in the majority as gamers but often they are the primary educator in the home too.

It's about mashups. Can great games be mashed up with great education. Mashups can be messy but important to experiment. A good example is Quest To Learn.

Ladybird ebook app. Story telling is an important part of learning.

LWF11 - Ray Maguire, MD, Sony Computer Entertainment UK

Games Industry

Emphasised that the games industry are in the business of entertainment. But teachers can take the products of the entertainment industry and use them to support effective learning.

Teenagers use technology to organise their social world - facebook to plan, text to arrange, YouTube to record, and ... Yet almost without exception, they are prevented from using any of this technology in schools.

How can the ICT curriculum support the creative industry and break away from office/applications focus. {A button pushing curriculum. - DM} This sounds depressing but it depends who is looking at the problem and what is being done about it. The speaker thinks that there is a move from "Should we?" to "How do we?" but thinks that evolution is more likely than revolution.

Equipment etc. is costly and in the current economic climate this seems unlikely but why not use the equipment that is already out there?

A National Digital Curriculum - is this an aspiration or are the components already there?

LWF11 - David Yarnton, General Manager, Nintendo UK

Why shouldn't learning be fun?

Speaker talked about how he was a athletics coach - specifically throwing activities such as javelin, shot put etc. Sometimes he would get children to throw wet sponges and have water fights to practice their throwing skills.

Long history of computer games - first patent filed in 1940's based on radar displays. Speaker suggested that the iPhone was originally conceived as a games machine. Went on to talk about using different machines for different purposes - no one machine can do everything.

Games are good for us: socially, culturally and economically. Image of gamer as socially isolated, spotty-faced, teenage boys is outdated (if it ever had any truth). Statistic - 60% of Wii users are female. Target audience for Wii was aged 6-60 but know there are people much older and younger using games machines.

Fun centres in children's hospitals with video games. They found that children talked to each other more because of the games area and that they recovered faster. Similarly, they found hospitals for service personnel - service people completing on Wii Fit recovered faster than others using state of the art fitness equipment.

Games are a great way to develop pupils because they don't realise they are learning. One pupils said, "The learning is in my hands."

Games in learning are often complimentary rather than a replacement for other activities.

Good cartoon to finish with that took six panels to describe an accident caused while a child's grandfather was playing computer game that resulted in the house being burnt down. Great detail was given of sequence of events that led to the disaster. Punchline in final frame was comment from the child who had been listening: "Amazing! Someone over sixty playing a video game? Alert the media!" ... Well it amused me!

LWF11 - Derek Robertson

Games Based Learning

What can we learn from games? Games profiles - assessment for learning in action!

Do we always have to intervene? Can we leave children to get on with it? Is peer assessment a more natural way to go with games based learning?

Promoting learner engagement:

• Involvement in reflection, setting goals;
• personal learning planning;
• ongoing active engagement;
• assessment is embedded in the game;
• nurtures confidence;
• encourages mastery learning;
• automatic and dynamic profiling;
• celebrating success
  

Games celebrate achievement - give awards and unlock new levels. How could this type of feedback be built into education.

LWF11 - Ed Vaizey MP

The creative and digital economy

A disruptive thinker is someone who recognises change and embraces change. Learners are embracing permanent Internet, tablet computers, ... new and exciting technology is disruptive and we should recognise and embrace this disruptive technology too.

How did people in current gaming industry get into games development? Many in the UK developed an interest because they were exposed to BBC Micro, Spectrum etc. They could hack about on these machines and this encouraged and inspired them to get into the industry. {How are children hacking the new technology available to them?}

How do we get children engaged with industry? Is one way to develop Freelance Apprenticeships? Or Golden Handcuffs - people get taken on and trained by a company and in return agrees to stay with that company for a set time. There is a need too for education to look at the courses that they teach.

Games are not the "root of all evil" but can make a huge contribution to learning across a range of disciplines. Digital inclusion and eAccessibility are important too.

Question Time

Q: Why is there no one from Department of Education here?

Probably "Cock up rather than conspiracy".

Q: Is exam system holding back innovation? How do we transform the assessment system?

Exam system can be more agile thanks to technology.

Q: Why was technology/computing not mentioned by Gove?

Ed said he would speak with him. :-)

LWF11 - Tim Rylands

Tim Rylands talking about telling stories: talking, writing and asking questions. Games like Myst and Epic Citadel create a great context for developing creativity. Variety of ways of showing this creativity - saying what they see, creating videos, using Zoo Burst to create a 3D pop-up book, Comic Life, 2Create...

Creating and generating - what apps exist to allow children to create. Demonstrated Brushes to show how pictures can be used as a basis for children's own work (and produce time lapse of the creation process). Colour Splash - isolate one aspect of a picture to highlight. Phyzios Sculptor - make boxes and models. Let's Create Pottery - virtual potters wheel. Voxel - A 3D Sculpting app. Geared - combining and creating.

Dropbox makes it easy to share items. Bump - fun way to share info.

Puppet Pals - stick puppets without the sticks. Granimator. iDough - make 3D virtual clay models. Greenscreen in iMovie. Voicethread - children record their stories inspired by the picture.

Sometimes it is worth pretending to pupils that we don't know how to do something so that the pupils will teach us - some great learning can take place in those situations.

LWF11 - Professor Rose Luckin

Redesigning learning contexts with the iPad

Microworlds. Learning is made up of billions of interactions that we are having and have had over time. Learners build connections through their interactions. The history of these interactions include topics of interest, people that help us learn, technology/resources that support and the environment where the learning takes place. It is a complex web of interactions.

How do we simplify this web of Knowledge & Skills, Tools & People, and the Environment? What stands in the way of learning? What filters sit between us and the learning interactions? The filters can be negative or positive. It can be helpful to have someone identify the most useful out of the vast range of possible.

The speaker gave a practical example of herself as a learner. She asked us to help her learn about time management using an online questionnaire and shared the results in summary, in a table and as a cloud. She then talked about how she will use these interactions to develop her own understanding of Time Management.