Science Teaching v 2.0

The Consolarium is the Scottish Centre for Games and Learning in Dundee. It is an offshoot of Learning and Teaching Scotland. I first heard about these organisations from Ewen McIntosh who was the keynote speaker at the Ulearn 07 conference in Auckland NZ. Ewan speaks regularly on the impact of emerging technologies on organisations, on education, on young people and on society in general.

That one keynote was the catalyst for a complete rethink of my attitudes to teaching and learning in secondary science education. Since then every time I look at classroom practice through the lens of emerging technologies opportunities arise that challenge traditional assumptions.

Blogs provide communication opportunities with and between students and stimulate collaborative learning. One of the key posts on Ewan’s blog Thinking out of the (X) Box alerted me to the potential of gaming in education.

Which brings me to my good friend Derek Robertson who is currently in charge of the Consolarium and hence the professional development in the title of the blog. Derek is passionate about lots of things including his football team Dundee United ( blinded by unrealistic optimism ). His infectious enthusiasm for the potential of gaming in education has attracted a big following. I was fortunate to spend a morning at the Consolarium in January while on holiday from New Zealand and catch up with his latest ideas. I have watched him on a number of videos recently arguing the case for gaming in schools and politely rebutting traditional methods that placed the teacher firmly in the role of the expert who had all the knowledge. Education by transmission is severely limited if the receiver is switched off or the paper storage system has been screwed up and and on a collision course with the back of the teacher’s head.

The second guest on the show played to the fears parents have of kids transfixed to a computer screen for hours. He also seemed to be concerned about the authority of the teacher being undermined . In secondary science the distinction between a gaming environment and working physics simulation has become blurred. As Derek comments good teachers have always used appropriate resources to open doors to the curriculum locked to many. The traditional Victorian classroom many of us still teach in restricts us to a limited number of learning styles and exclude many, particularly boys.

Deconstructing games and teasing out the science underneath the skin is a good start for secondary teachers. The Nintendo Wii Sports game allows you to simulate motion in a realistic way. For instance playing a round of golf you can hit the ball hard enough to land on a particular spot. You still have to judge how far the ball will carry if it is on fairway or the rough. A cross wind will also affect the trajectory of the ball. Similarly you can lob a tennis ball and observe the effect of spin. These are games but Newton’s laws of physics lurk underneath the graphics.

Cars, bikes helicopters and people move around in games like Grand Theft Auto 4 with slick realism.

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Objects that move around in the real world follow Newton’s laws of motion. To develop software that mimics the real world you need to understand the physics of motion.

Rockstar North is the developer behind Grand Theft and they are based in Edinburgh Scotland. They are currently advertising for a physicist and people to test their games to check that they are realistic! The boundary between games and scientific simulation through a physics engine blurs.
I am currently trialling the use of “Phun” an addictive piece of software for designing and exploring 2D multi-physics simulations in a cartoony fashion. It is proving popular with boys in particular. It can be downloaded free.

Thanks again to Ewen and Derek for some of the best PD to come my way in years

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 11:18 pm and is filed under gaming, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.