@derekrobertson's...

Can Dr Kawashima impact on maths? LTS extended study suggests it can

I have just returned from a meeting with my colleague Dr David Miller from the University of Dundee. I went to David some time ago with my Dr Kawashima idea along with a rough sketch of the methodology that I hoped to use. Those early meetings led to David coming on board to partner me on the work that I have been doing in putting Dr Kawashima for the Nintendo DS into schools.

We carried out a small scale intervention last year and this had such a dramatic impact that it was decided that Learning and Teaching Scotland would fund a much more extensive study in terms of increasing the sample size. As a result we put 16 class sets of Nintendo DS into schools across Scotland and used 16 classes as control groups. Pre and post tests were used to gather the data and since the project finished David has been doing the number crunching as well as beginning to tutor me in the art of SPSS!

This post is just a wee announcement to say that the results so far appear to be very interesting and significant. I don't want to say too much at this stage because we are sharing the results at a seminar at the Scottish Learning Festival on 25th September but what I would say is that the initial study received a wee bit of criticism due to the small sample, however, this extended sample size will undoubtedly allow us to make a much more solid case for what we have found. And what we have found is most certainly of interest to teachers, schools, education managers and even higher I believe. Oh, the games industry might want to take note too....

It'd be great to see you at SLF '08 and even better if you can get along to hear how Dr Kawashima CAN make an impact on children's learning.

Big Brain Academy: Battle Style!

If you have a Nintendo DS then you may have access to a game called Big Brain Academy. If you do and you have a circle of friends or family who own DSs then you are in for a treat. Have a look...

In case you didn't know you can share a demo of this game with other DS users and once this is done you can go into 'versus' mode. This allows you yo play in a group with up to 8 players where you are all wirelessly connected and competing to reach  the agreed brain weight before everyone the other players. Each player gets to choose a game from one of the 5 areas and there battle commences. We were playing it today and it was fantastic. It's superb playing on your own and wanting to beat the game but the added competitive element really added spice and an extra degree of focus to the game play.

I have recently began a small scale research project that is looking at Doctor Kawashima's Brain Training in a P6 class in Dundee (more of this to follow). I was always taken with this game because of its content but the game design offers a degree of structure that I believe could work with teachers in Scottish classrooms. I was torn between choosing Big Brain Academy and Kawashima but chose the latter because of the structure issue.

I am still happy with this decision, however, the group competition aspect of Big Brain Academy is opening up my eyes to new possibilities about how this game can be applied in schools. The school who are working with the Kawashima project also have 4 copies of Big Brain Academy and they are thinking about using this with their learning support teachers and children. Cognitive development, self-esteem raising and group affirming, some ways in which this game appears to be able to make an impact. This is yet another 'commercial off the shelf' game that has real scope for use in our classrooms...and, they are bringing out a version for the Wii. Can't wait to see that.

Game City Conference

Going to the Game City Conference in Nottingham this week. There is a nice summary of the events from the Edge site. I look forward to blogging about this.

More Brain Training...but free!

I am still hooked on Professor Kawashima's Brain Training and have managed to keep my age at 21! But here is a great wee game that is similar to some of the Touch! Generations games for the Nintendo DS. It's called Zyrx, it's free and before long you'll be hooked.

It's amazing when you start to become aware of how you are thinking in the problem solving context. I was visualing patterns and group without even realising I was doing it.