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This post tries to pull together a couple of things I have been thinking about recently. The first was a post I saw on the 21st Century Fluency Project blog a few weeks back. The title of the article ' How I Turned My Classroom into a ‘Living Video Game ’ caught my eye and before I even had time to read it I started thinking about how the factors that create motivation in computer games could be applied to the classroom. The article is well worth reading, although this is only one element it touches on. The other thing I have been thinking about recently is time management and distraction as it is one of the more significant objections which teachers often raise to having students using computers and mobile devices in the classroom, so when I saw ' HabitRPG ' I thought it could be a useful tool to help deal with the problems and implement more of a gamified approach to the  classroom. HabitRPG is a time and task management tool which overlays motivational elements of comp...

In a recent digital skills survey I carried out using Urtak I discovered that more than 50% of digitally skilled teachers don't feel able to utilise 2D and 3D computer games to achieve pedagogical goals ( See survey ), so I've been looking around and exploring some possibilities. The first of these is the Spore Creature Creator. Spore is a game which allows you to create creatures and evolve them along with their environment, all the way through to a space traveling society. The free trial creature creator that we will be looking at allows you to create creatures, take snap shots of them and make videos of them to see how they move. Here's an example of a video I created to get students interested. I added the captions and text using i-Movie though you could just as easily use a free online video editor such as Video Toolbox or Windows Moviemaker if you are using a PC. The creatures are very easy to create, you just drag and drop different features onto a body and the add ...

For a long time now I've really admired and been fascinated by the work of Amanita Design . They have a really unique approach and I love the way they blend photographic textures with cartoon images. I also find their games quite addictive and that's I quality I always look for when trying to find stimulating materials for students, so I've been looking at how these games could used for language development. The two games I've chosen for this posting are Samorost 1 and Samorost 2 Samorost 1 is based on the scenario of an asteroid heading towards a planet. The player has to click various elements of the screen and find out how to help Samorost change the direction of the asteroid and save his planet. In Samorost 2, Somorost's dog is stolen by aliens and the player has to help Samorost rescue the dog. So why use these games with EFL ESL students These games are fascinating and very engaging. They are quite mentally challenging and help students to develop analytical...

I spotted 3B Village about a year ago and initially I was impressed, but some recent developments have, I feel, put this on the map as a really useful educational tool. What is 3B Village? 3B Village is an amazing cross between a 3D virtual chat room and a web browser. Using the free software you can visit or create your own 3D rooms which have walls lined with webpages that you can click on to visit. You use an avatar to wander the rooms visiting various websites whilst text chatting with other virtual visitors. Watch a demo here: Exploring 3B Village (2.4Mb Flash) The learning potential for this software is huge and I can see how it could be especially useful for creating webquests or web based treasure hunts and other collaborative tasks for groups of students working virtually / at a distance. The software has none of the versatility of virtual worlds like Second Life, but partially due to that it seems like a much ‘safer’ environment to take students into and a much simpler one...

This is something that caught my eye last week. I just couldn't resist adding a feature about it here, though I think this does come with some warnings and reservations. Pictogame.com is a website which enables you to create your own games very easily with just a few easy steps. All you need to do is: upload a picture, select the part of it you want to show choose a game type add in a title and description. Then you simply click to see the completed game. You need to register to upload and save the game, but it's free and very quick to do. There are quite a few different game types to choose from, but there are lots of examples on the site that other people have made, so you can look at those to help you decide which type to make. Here's a rather annoying game that I created in less than 5 minutes Make a game | Share | Free games | Pictogame So how do you use this with students You could just create a game using a picture of yourself and use it; as a filler for those s...

In this article I’d like to look at how we could use two computer based RPGs (Role playing games) as the basis for language development. The two RPGs that I’m suggesting you use are both very similar and very different. They are very similar in that they are both simulations of everyday life scenarios and involve day to day ‘survival’ type choices. They are very different in that the situations they are based around are a stark contrast between life in a rural developing nation and life in an urban developed nation. The first is called Stick RPG and features a small blue man living in a hotel. The player manipulates the man and makes choices for him whilst helping him to survive life in the city. The player has various options each day including fining a job, studying, eating various foods, gambling etc. The player has to maintain health and keep his finances in check and see what he can achieve within the cycle of the game. You can see how the game is played by watching this 'Stic...

For a while now I’ve been a fan of the virtual 3D world There.com . Although it isn’t as developed and hasn’t had a fraction of the publicity of Second Life I think there are a few things in its favour and for anyone wanting to take some steps into teaching in virtual worlds or for students who are interested in finding others to chat to or practice their language skills with, they could do far worse. What is there.com? It’s a simple 3D online virtual world where multiple players can create avatars, create worlds, build and interact with each other. The interaction is mainly through movement gesture and text chat, but voice chat is also possible too if you opt to pay for a premium membership rather than free. Have a look here if you want to see the maker's description. If you want to see what it looks like, there is a video here created by the company, but it's quiet a big download (30Mb) What I like about it. There are a number of attractive features within There.com . The ...

Over the past few weeks I've been pretty busy teaching my first English students on a Business English course I have been developing for Second Life. The experience has been pretty daunting with myself and the students having to come to terms with the complexities of the user interface and I have felt at times that my fifteen years of 'real world' classroom experience and the subconscious habits and reflexes that I developed over that period have totally deserted me. The introduction of voice within SL has certainly made a huge difference, though there are still problems and bugs to be ironed out. Though to my surprise I did find myself drilling a group of advanced learners to help them with their word stress, something I rarely do in the 'real' language classroom. To my relief though, the number of students in the class seems to be steadily increasing rather than decreasing and they seem keen to come back for more. As part of the course I've found it necessary...

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to give a presentation on course and materials design for Second Life at the SLanguages 2007 virtual conference (June 23rd 2007) which took place on the Edunation Island in Second life. The conference itself was a fascinating event and the experience of presenting a conference paper within a virtual world to an audience of avatars was certainly a new and novel one for me. I was asked to give this presentation because I have been working over the last few months on designing a Business English course for Second Life. As part of putting together the presentation I came up with a list of lessons I’ve learnt while going through the process of designing the course. The list is by no means finalised and I’m sure it will continue to grow and change as I learn more about developing materials for this world, but I thought I’d publish it here for anyone who is interested in designing their own materials for language teaching in SL. For anyone who ha...