My past six summers have been overshadowed by attempts to use the holidays as time to cram in as much progress as possible on my Doctoral thesis. The thesis is now with the examiners so it can no longer distract me from what summer holidays are for: lazing about reading. The long absence from this joy made me nostalgic, and I decided to return to the summers of my childhood and adolesence for my recommended reads.
Last summer I gave you some recommendations for things to read, watch, or listen to on the theme of “games for learning”. You can find last year’s list here.
By John Huria
By Jo MacDonald
For my summer recommended reading list I’ve selected five recent projects from The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) that have important findings about literacy learning — from early years to tertiary.
Do you want to get inspired and looking for some great reads to fit in before the new year? Our NZCER researchers have their top recommendations for your summer reading, listening and viewing.
Do you want to get inspired and looking for some great reads to fit in before the new year? Our NZCER researchers have their top recommendations for your summer reading, listening and viewing.
In this blog Sue McDowall explores the perplexing question of why students are prepared to tolerate failure when playing games but not at school.
By Sue McDowall
One of the teachers in the Games for Learning project described a conversation she had with the students in her class about how they might transfer into their school work the resilience and perseverance they showed when failing during gaming:
In this blog Sue McDowall takes a look inside games as an engaging learning environment from the point of view of players and wonders about how we might harness that sort of motivation for other types of learning in our classrooms.
One of the questions that we, and the teachers we work with on the Games for learning project, are fascinated by, is what makes games so engaging. As one teacher observed, “Something happens when students start playing games and I want to understand what that is.” Game designers know what makes digital games engaging and there is a tonne of literature on how games are designed to hook in and motivate players.
In his new blog post Elliot Lawes explores how teachers and students view student expertise in games in the classroom.
By Elliot Lawes
Meet Bob. Bob is a floating eyeball with a hard luck story he's dying to tell you. Are you willing to listen?
Welcome to the world of games in the classroom. Bob is the creation of a Year 7 student who wanted to build a digital game examining empathy – a concept he and his classmates had recently been exploring with their teacher. The game featuring Bob was designed and coded (using the Scratch language and platform) over a few weeks in late 2015.
Following on from Rachel Bolstad's last blog post on "Games OR learning", this post flips the script with a different question “How are New Zealand learners and teachers using games for learning?”, drawing on early findings from the Games for learning project.
My last blog post , “Games OR learning”, asked whether digital games might be viewed by some teachers as distractions or intrusions into students’ learning time. This post flips the script with a different question, “How are New Zealand learners and teachers using games for learning?”, drawing on early findings from the Games for learning project.
In this blog Sue McDowall explores what students wished their parents and teachers understood about gaming in light of the persistent moral panic in the media about digital games.
Many of my friends who are parents, and especially those of teenage boys seem mystified or despairing about the amount of time their children spend in darkened rooms playing digital games. “I never see him”, “What is she doing in there?”, “He only comes out to eat”, “I’m worried he’ll get a vitamin D deficiency”, “He has no friends”, “He’s up all night”, “Who is she talking to?”, “He has no interests”, “It’s all that shooting”, “He gets so angry when I tell him to turn it off”. These are the sorts of things I hear them say.
