Do they have schools in Funkytown?

Would you like to play a game? When asked, most children answer "Yes." As teachers, we should take advantage of this, and get them involved in gaming software like Kodu, a virtual toybox packed with game-making tools and pre-made games, so the kids can see how it's done. By creating and manipulating environments, characters and objects to respond differently to various situations or controls, children can adapt and even produce their very own game-worlds. Further lulling them into a false sense of comfort with machines. 21/12/12 is coming, people. Using the provided tutorials, even simpletons such as I could quickly transform small bobbing robots into tools of destruction/apple-picking. Try it yourself! Having said that, it can be fairly tricky to get to grips with, and many of my fellow students agreed that it really only hits the sweet spot with high KS2 or KS3 pupils. If you try it any younger, you risk running into frustration, and burning ICT for some children. Pace yourself.

Next on the list we have my favourite, Dance to Advance.This software can also come with dance mats, the likes of which you'll see in any modern arcade or discotheque. With Dance to Advance, teachers or children can prepare a pop quiz on any subject, with the possible answers corresponding to a particular dance step or button push. This could be used to assess knowledge across the curriculum, or even for children to test their friends, and become more comfortable with the villains of I, Robot. Plus, if you're lucky enough to get your hands on these dance mats, you've handily incorporated a little indoor P.E. into your lesson! Congrats! With plenty of software like this enabling children in expressing and testing themselves, you in turn enable endless possibilities for self-assessment and peer review, and they may even go home and play these games on their own time. You've just nurtured a love of ICT! Good job, buddy!

If you can't do it, fake it

Pop quiz - what are we looking at today?

That's right, it's modelling. In schools, we can use modelling to test scientific theories, or attempt to see in practice processes which would otherwise be unavailable. Certain sites such as Poisson Rouge, or 2Simulate act as virtual resource boxes, giving kids the opportunity to make their own fairy-tale story with puppets of all shapes and sizes! Of course, this can lead to misconceptions about the physical or multi-dimensional aspects of the resources in question, but a good teacher can explain these away, perhaps with other, more readily available resources. These modelling toolboxes can be really helpful to schools which would otherwise struggle to produce practical examples to accompany learning.

Leading on from that, once the children are into the swing of testing things out on the web, they can start writing their own programmes with their own purposes! Logo, for example, is free software wherein children can learn simple programming code to tell the turtle (more like a triangle) which way to go, eventually plotting gradually more complex shapes or patterns. This software in particular ties in well with maths, requiring children to apply their knowledge of rotations and degrees to build the shape they desire. It's all about turning our dreams into reality, and I think that's what we should be telling our classes.

 N.B. This is a turtle, Logo. Look it up ------------->