Consolarium

January 16th, 2011

LWF11: Skateboards, graffiti artists and large white gloves

Derek Robertson

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: game based learning, games based learning, GBL, lwf11, open source, skate it, steve bunce
 : Categories Conferences

When the Consolarium team talk about the use of games in schools they always talk about the benefits of creating learning opportunities that are situated within the cultural framework of learners. We feel that this is one of the main reasons as to why our ideas in using Guitar Hero for example worked so well. This game initially built for entertainment has become very popular thanks to the initial ideas and practice that showed how ‘traditional learning’ such as writing could be made even more appealing, relevant and purposeful to learners.

Steve Bunce shares this view. He currently leads CPD for teachers in England through his work with Vital and has been a major player in building understanding,  practice and capacity for game based learning in schools in England. One of the projects that Steve has been working on recently has involved a skateboarding game that works with the Wii, Skate it. Have a look:

This video review shows the game and the controller in action.

I managed to grab a few minutes of Steve’s time at the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London earlier this week where he gave me an explanation of what he has been doing with this game. Have a listen

Another speaker at this event proved to be incredibly interesting and much of what he said gave me some food for thought in terms of the riole that  open source software can be used in schools. Evan Roth is an artist who works in Paris. work is in the permanent collection of the MoMA (NYC) and has been exhibited widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including the Pompidou (Paris), the Kunsthalle (Vienna), the Tate (London), the Fondation Cartier (Paris) and the front page of Youtube. Roth has received numerous awards for his work, including the Golden Nica from Prix Ars Electronica, Rhizome/The New Museum commissions (2007, 2009), the Future Everything Award and Brit Insurance Designs of the Year (1, 2).

He is also a co-founder of Graffiti Research Lab and the Free Art & Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab), a web based, open source research and development lab.

Have a look at how they have subverted this Michael Jackson performance using open source software:

Evan Roth provides full access to all the materials and code associated with this clever piece of work from this part of his site.

Some of these ideas might be just outwith the boundaries of education in schools for some but the more we see how contexts that engage learners due to the experiences and content being something that sits within their cultural framework, is something that resonates with them, excites them – then maybe we should be exploring the practical application of these so that we can really meet learners needs and help them grow and flourish.