It’s time to get up, pull on the school uniform and the tie with that dreaded knot – the special knot that would otherwise show you up. Downstairs you eat the breakfast your oblivious parents have prepared on automatic drive, grab the school bag, say goodbye to “Frazzle” the dog who looks back with those large caring eyes, head slanted and tail still.  He knows; he is the only one who really knows.

You leave for the longest journey on earth. It lasts a lifetime but takes only 15 minutes. Goodbyes are muted and you force yourself out of the car and through the front gate for the day ahead. You have arrived at school, the place you dread more than anything.

Being bullied and suffering from low self esteem is an awful predicament. It’s there as a constant, like toothache it pervades every thought. The trip home the only relief, the chance to recover suffer in silence and hide from the outside world. And your performance at school is well down compared to your real ability.

A recent survey in Northern Ireland shows 22 % of all children have been physically attacked by school bullies, 39% bullied in other ways and thanks to modern technology 10% percent had been bullied by Internet.

Bullying takes many forms; name calling, rumours, being pushed threatened, belongings stolen or damaged.  But these are the outward signs.  Internally the physical and psychological damage can be immense and long lasting.

Pip Jaffa, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Parents Advice Centre explained “The impact depends on the kind of bullying and the resilience of a child. This can include not sleeping and not wanting to go to school, as well as physical symptoms like having a sore stomach or headache as a way of showing they are upset.”

In the clamour of family life these subtle changes can go unnoticed for some time before the child opens up or you spot a growing reluctance to go school or join in. Bullying has a knock on effect, it lowers self esteem and the defence mechanism is breached.

Bullies need help too, often compensating for their own problems or influences. Parents can sometimes induce bullying. Their children mismanage advise that to succeed you need to dominate other children or push them around.  Such advice can be given by parents who were themselves bullied at school or suffering from issues at work.

There are many ways to support bullied children.  Diligent observation of a child’s behaviour is the start.  Changes in routine and demeanour, a reluctance to participate are just some of the outward signs.  A routine child’s “health check” needs to be completed subtly by parents. If a parent is concerned that bullying is taking place in school, they should contact the school and ensure something is done. They need to be persistent and remember that they are the voice for the child.

Help is also available for the home. It is important a child – like us all have positive self esteem. This essential ingredient can help build up a positive attitude that will last a lifetime.  The foundation work can be achieved through playing educational games in self esteem. Played at home, as well as school, the benefits are something to consider as 25% of children will come across some form of bullying during their schooling.

The big players in video games are looking closely at developing new educational games to be played on games consoles and Pc’s. We look at the top 10 aspects we feel should be considered in the next generation of learning games. This list is just the start, please comment on what you feel would be included in the ideal format.

1. Interest.

I found school, 40 years ago already, to be boring; my excuse for poor performance.  The use of one dimension low-tech teaching resources did little to help. To get kids interested they need a challenge that is fun and absorbing.  The subject area needs to be dynamic; “Explosive maths games – 100 things you never knew about quadratic equations” would hold more interest that “Maths Text Book Volume 3.”

Practical applications and realism help improve the relevance of the subject.  In physics; what happens when a jet engine goes into goes into reheat?  Massive increase in thrust and acceleration, plus a massive increase in fuel usage! How far can you fly on reheat? What vehicle weighing 20 tons can accelerate from zero to 175 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds? Eat your heart out “Top Gear” it isn’t a car – it’s an aircraft being launched by the catapult on an aircraft carrier, but how does it work?

2. Fashionable

Got to look the part.  Needs great product name, impact packaging and user benefits. Games that let kids “beat up” their parents in a game whilst improving and testing their knowledge and dexterity.

3. Street Cred.

Needs to attract friends, relatives and schoolmates in a must-have game to let them collectively join a particular challenge. Must be reasonable cost so not to exclude kids in low income families ( or funded by the educational authority) and offer a challenge with a purpose. Could replace some of the £20 billion spent in the UK every Christmas on plastic junk toys and games that are played once.

4. Modern Technology

Develop educational games that can be played on host of equipment: Cell phones, MP3, Netbooks, Mum or Dad’s last years Blackberry, Pc’s, Mac’s. Ideally all platforms should all have access to the same game title.

5. SCORM

Include SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, is a technical specification that governs how online training (or “e-learning”) is created and delivered to learners. Developed by the US military it forms the basis of a common monitoring system that can be used by a school and parents to check progress by children using educational video games linked to the system.

6. Parental Support.

Getting parents involved by setting them to support or even spar with their children. Eighty percent of a child’s academic success is influenced by what they do at home! Get parents interaction by resetting the game, increase the challenge rating or add extra facilities. Parents could also monitor performance using an in built appraisal of the child’s achievement.( More in item 10)

7. Subject Area

The curriculum needs constant adjustment to capture changes in technology, global developments and career opportunities. The internet, email and many careers didn’t exist when children now entering the job market first started school. Similarly many careers have ceased to exist. The world needs more engineers and scientists. Some good scientific games can stimulate and develop interest tailored to future career prospects.

8. Peer Support

Children learn a huge amount from other children – who else taught them to use a mobile phone?  Interactive educational games such as math games can attract great support from other children. We  just need to give them the focal point to encourage this support. Email, MSN and text can provide an almost instant help desk.

9. Feedback.

Create spirit of competition through educational games linked to class, school, district, county, regional and national league tables.

Update the challenge, create new ideas and gain feedback from other users.

10. School Interface

Replace the report card, or annual parent’s night with dynamic performance feedback linking parent, child and school. Using technology to measure homework performance without the teacher having to laboriously mark assignments. Spell checking, grammar, maths checking can be automated and feed into a summary report with performance graphs giving immediate assistance to the child.

Summary:

Teachers are constantly being pulled from pillar to post. Compiling reports and marking homework consumes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. Streamlining the job using technology to interface with the next generation of educational games will encourage learning outside school. It will also allow teachers more time to get creative.

Isn’t it amazing how targets get in the way. Any target driven organisation seems bound to play games with the figures  to maximise the score, why wouldn’t they?

We have the police that did not report serious crime properly ( pushed the crime detection rate up) banks that astounded everyone ( how long have you got?) doctors  reduced waiting time but made it tricky to see the doctor so you aren’t counted, planners who deal with as many of the easy applications first.
And the educational games; SAT targets created test to test and drill to kill and limited teaching freedom.

Seems all targets seems induce quantity not quality. There must be an alternative surely. What do you think?

Alistair Owens Keen2learn

We accept the ideal that the education of children attempts to follow a similar format throughout the world. It comes a shock that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)  recently banned an advert promoting  Horlicks which claimed that Horlicks makes children “taller, stronger and sharper”  after it mistakenly was screened on British television. The ASA has also banned an advert for a brand of Nestle noodles which claimed to strengthen muscles and bones. Both adverts were meant to be shown on TV in Bangladesh.

The Horlicks advert said the malt drink had been tested on pupils at a boarding school, and included a voiceover saying, “Children have become taller, stronger and sharper. The Horlicks challenge – now proven. See for yourself.”

GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Horlicks, said the version of the product sold in Bangladesh was fortified and its health claims were supported by clinical studies done by the National Institute of Nutrition in India. Horlicks sold in the UK, however, is not fortified and GSK said there was no intention of advertising it as such here. Nestle made a similar point about its Maggi Noodles which in Bangladesh are also fortified.

The educational game being played out by the manufactures does have one good learning point for children and parents in the UK and Bangladesh – never  believe what you read in adverts.

At last a breakthrough. Headteachers are now able to recruit bursars to run the school finance’s and administration – and leave Headteachers to do what they do best  – TEACH

Already applications are arriving from Deputy heads seeking promotion after years of stagnation. Maybe we can see numerous schools start to move forward, but lets hope the payroll for the bursars is allocated from the teaching resources.
Alistair Owens keen2learn

The role of parents in the schooling process is of growing significance. Not just in the educational games and toys used at home but also in the make-up of the family. There are similarities between the UK and USA where a detailed  research project has just been completed. The following extract is published in cooperation with the the author Christine Kim (photographed right) of the Heritage Foundation.   September 22nd 2008.

Christine is a Policy Analyst, with the Heritage Foundation in the USA. Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute – a think tank – whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom.

American taxpayers invest heavily in education. Last year, spending on public K–12 education totalled $553 billion, about 4 percent of gross domestic prod­uct (GDP) in 2006. For each child enrolled in a public elementary or secondary school, expenditures averaged $9,266 that year—an increase of 128 per­cent, adjusted for inflation, since 1970.

Despite this increase in public spending, student achievement and educational attainment over the last four decades has remained relatively flat. In 2007, a significant portion of students, disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds, scored “below basic” in reading and maths on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Sadly, in many of the nation’s largest cities, fewer than half of high school students graduate.

While academic research has consistently shown that increased spending does not correlate with educational gains,  the research does show a strong relationship between parental influences and children’s educational outcomes, from school readiness to college completion. Two compelling parental factors emerge:

1. Family structure, i.e., the number of parents living in the student’s home and their relationships to the child, and

2. Parents’ involvement in their children’s schoolwork.

Consequently, the solution to improving educational outcomes begins at home, by strengthening marriage and promoting stable family formation and parental involvement.

The Erosion of Family Stability in America

“Perhaps the most profound change in the American family over the past four decades,” writes sociologist Paul Amato, “has been the decline in the share of children growing up in households with biological parents.”  In 1960, 88 percent of all children lived with two parents, compared to 68 percent in 2007. In 1960, 5 percent of all children were born to unmarried mothers. That figure rose to 38.5 per­cent in 2006. Demographers have estimated that, overall, one child in two will spend some portion of his or her childhood in a single-parent family.

Studies show that children raised in intact families, i.e., with two continuously married parents, tend to fare better on a number of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural outcomes than children living in other family forms.  Not surprisingly, the changes in family structure over the last 40 years have affected child and adolescent well-being. In 2002, nearly 7 million children between the ages of 12 and 18 repeated a grade. Based on this figure, Professor Amato estimates that if the share of two-parent families had remained unchanged between 1980 and 2002, some 300,000 fewer teens would have repeated a grade. Some 750,000 fewer students in 2002 would have repeated a grade if the share of two-parent families remained at the level it was in 1960.

Social science research over the past decades suggests that family structure affects children’s school outcomes, from preschool to college.  Some of the variations in school performance could be explained, in part or in whole, by the differences in family resources such as time and money, family dynamics and parental characteristics that are asso­ciated with the various family forms. These are mediating factors, or mechanisms through which family structure affects schooling outcomes. Family structure may also exert a direct influence, inde­pendent of mediating factors. Thus, depending on the outcome, family structure’s total effect may con­sist of one or more mediating influences or a com­bination of both direct and mediating influences.

Though various methodological research issues— e.g., data quality, inconsistent definitions of family structure, the selection effect (e.g., are individuals who possess better parenting qualities more likely to choose marriage and stay married, or does marriage per se bolster children’s well-being?)—limit the findings, the evidence, nonetheless, is strong: Family structure matters.

School Readiness. A number of early-childhood outcomes contribute to children’s eventual school readiness. The evidence suggests that potentially important early-childhood outcomes vary by family structure. One study, analyzing 1,370 mothers in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who were continuously married or in cohabiting relationships from the child’s birth to age three, found that three-year-olds born to cohabiting mothers tended to exhibit more aggressive, withdrawn, and anxious or depressive behaviour than children born to married mothers.  For aggressive and with­drawn behaviours’, the association was explained by income differences. For anxiety and depressive symptoms, even controlling for income, the cohab­itation effect remained.
Parental Involvement

Parental involvement emerges as another robust influence on educational outcomes. It is multi-dimensional. Examples include monitoring children’s activities outside home and school; setting rules; having conversations about and helping children with school work and school-related issues; holding high educational expectations; discussing future planning with children and helping them with important decision making; participating in school-related activities such as meeting with teachers and volunteering in the classroom; and reading to children or engaging in other enrichment or leisure activities together.

A meta-analysis of 77 studies, consisting of 300,000 elementary and secondary students, found that parental educational expectations are a particularly important aspect of parental involvement. Parenting style, reading to children, and, to a lesser extent, participation in school-related activities appeared to be influential as well. Furthermore, parental involvement is associated with multiple measures of student achievement, for the entire student population as well as for minority and low-income student populations. Overall, “the academic advantage for those parents who were highly involved in their education averaged about 0.5–0.6 of a standard deviation for overall educational out­comes, grades and academic achievement.”

Parental Involvement and Family Structure.

The level of parental involvement varies by family structure, and the relationship between parental involvement and educational outcomes depends on the family context as well.  One study, for example, found that compared to high school students from intact families, those from single or step­parent families reported less parental involvement in their school work, supervision, and parental educational expectations, which, in turn, affected school outcomes.

Studies show that reading to young children aids their literacy development. Toddlers and preschool-age children in married-parent families are read to more often than peers in non-intact families.  One study of 11,500 kindergartners living with two parents or parent figures reported that, accounting for parental education and income, children living with married parents averaged higher reading achievement test scores than peers living in cohabiting or step parent families.

To read the full report see http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2185.cfm

Matching subjects at school to career aspirations is a bit of a lottery. In the past careers were mapped out virtually at birth. Sons and daughters were heavily influenced by the jobs held by their parents. Now many jobs have emerged that didn’t exist when a child started school. Subject selection and specialisation have become educational games in their own right.

At best a child has the ambition to go to university. Prompted by parental, sibling and peer pressure this activity allows a little more time to decide. Many children still have no idea of the final career even when they graduate. This is not necessarily lack of ambition but the result of a bewildering element of choice. The emergence of global markets and the phenomenal pace of technology have changed the job scene immeasurably in the last ten years.

Many jobs now open to graduates never existed when they started their degrees. Traditional safe havens have disappeared. Manufacturing, the backbone of Britain since the industrial revolution, has shrunk to a shadow of its former glory. Even if it is “made in the UK” inevitably it contains components made in the Far East. But the dynamics of the world economy could reverse this. China is also suffering. 67,000 companies have become bankrupt in the six months to September 2008 with two million Chinese workers becoming redundant as a result. It is predicted the downturn in world demand will see 33% of the small to medium sized companies remaining go bankrupt in the second quarter of 2009. Manufacturing in some form could return to the UK!

And who could have predicted the staggering collapse of the financial market and the implications of the follow through. With hindsight we claim we should have spotted the likelihood, but some clever people made a catastrophic error of judgement despite their motivation and experience. Perhaps the maths games involved need redefining.

The regulatory control needed for the future may even see an emergence of a new career as international financial regulators or greed invigilators! The world is changing so rapidly we need to perhaps rethink educational routes to give our children the best option. Universities can help to provide advice to overcome short sightedness in subject selection. Universities criticise that many children are selecting soft options to maximise points.

The rush for media studies etc needs replacing with more resilient options and avoid specialism’s that quickly evaporate. Similarly we need to service areas currently starved of resource, such as the sciences.

Teaching resources needs retuning. Uncertainties over career choice cloud the subject selection procedures. Points that were planned to open doors may not now open the ideal door. Jobs open at the start of the equation may have disappeared during the schooling journey. Perhaps we need to give children a better and more flexible deal. The international baccalaureate seems to be more relevant but not favoured. We need a more relevant, far reaching option that can withstand the dramatic changes we will undoubtedly see over the next 20 years.

Alistair Owens Keen2learn

The lifestyle of any busy mum can impact on the schooling of children.  Ruth Kelly, Minister for Transport, and ex Educational Secretary packs in parliament to give more support to her children.

Every mother suffers from guilt!  It’s natural, goes with the job, is very difficult to overcome and causes considerable angst.  Fathers as a rule, preoccupied with their latest bout of man flu do not suffer from this syndrome quite so much. Ironically a father’s contribution to support a child’s schooling can have a dramatic effect. This is in addition to any conventional help with their child’s homework.  It is all about spending regular quality time with children and having educational fun. At least it should be the essential bedtime story, and ideally extended to give support through maths games, literacy, ICT games and science games to cover the curriculum where any problem exists or where their child just wants to have some support or fun with Mum and Dad. These educational games – used in school are designed to improve understanding through fun games that can turn the classroom lessons into practice at home.

The advent of computer games and online services add a significant new dimension to the range of educational games now available.  Even the bedtime story can be accessed online where animated reading resources add entertainment in developing reading skills.

Why then has Ruth Kelly, the ex Secretary for Education and high flying cabinet minister, quit her post to devote herself to her children and their schooling. A courageous move, yet the undertone raises concern.  Is the modern pace of life, ideals and social environment at odds with raising children?  Are parents becoming distant from the bosom of their family? Long hours, pressure of work and stress take their toll on the relationships at home and children often miss out.

If the hugely resourceful ex Minister of Education sees such a flaw in the system that can only be resolved by leaving a focal role in government, is this a condemnation of our schooling system? Is there a disconnect between the state educational provision, the needs of industry and commerce coupled to a modern lifestyle.

Clearly the state education system is not firing on all cylinders.  Billions spent in the UK, and likewise in the USA and Australia (the problem has international dimensions) have failed to improve standards in literacy or numeracy.  Yet this is 2008 and these are first world countries who excel in many areas, banking accepted, so why are we falling short of our standards in school? In this age of extraordinary technical achievement, rapid communications where we can text or email virtually anyone in the world in seconds, do we fall behind in basics of effective schooling?

Perhaps Ruth Kelly has the answer. It lies at home. Instead of abandoning our children when they go to school maybe parents, both mum and dad, should be coerced into providing a minimum period of schooling time with their children.  This could be measured and even incentivised through some payment or tax relief. The substantial effect of parental support in the schooling process could be supported through the educational budget. But would this work ? Research in the UK and USA show the 80% of a child’s academic success of relies in what parents do with their children at home.

I imagine that Ruth Kelly also spotted this fact. As an ex minister for education and parliamentary high flyer perhaps she should be given a new role as minister for home educational support – working from home of course.

Alistair Owens Keen2learn

So at last Sat’s for the 14 year old are to be scrapped. Likened to the MOT test where some cars are “cleaned up” just before the annual test, the test to test syndrome associated with the Sat’s tests can at last disappear. Instead let us hope teachers are allowed to enrich the teaching process and use their skills to teach outside of the box. To do this they need time that hopefully will not be consummed by the online reporting system to be introduced.

Educational games played at school along with the child’s overall performance can be logged in the dynamic report, allowing parents to see promptly how their child is performing and where they can help. This is a huge step forward, replacing the annual historic report when valuable time has been lost. It will allow  parents to use common educational games at home to reinforce the teaching process and provide the essential practice that helps improve performance.

If only we could relax in the knowledge the software to manage the reporting process will not follow the debacles seen with the SAt’s marking, MOD, NHS, Inland Revenue, Passport Office and CSA. The last we need the budget to be consummed in sodware fees for  an infficient soltuion.

Alistair Owens Keen2learn

A recent survey in Northern Ireland has revealed that 22% of all children have been physically attacked by school bullies, 39% have been bullied in other ways, and thanks to modern technology 10% have been bullied by internet or text.

A sad indictment of the control that some children seek to impose on others, and the torment suffered by the targets. The best defence is through  positive self esteem. Perhaps we need to put all kids through this educational loop as a standard procedure and ensure no child who is suffering has to try and hide it. As the survey highlighted the bully often needs help as well.

We have some great educational games to help improve the self esteem in children. No need to take my word – they have just won a silver prize at the good toys awards for the Feel good Faces Board Game

Alistair Owens

Just when you thought it was safe and had come to terms with PC’s, Mac, Vista, networks and miniBooks the world is shortly to start turning the other way. Welcome to the wonderful world of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). We asked Brian Kerslake, Managing Director of Toplogika Software Ltd, one of the ‘oldest’ educational games software developers (he’s been ‘at it’ since the mid-eighties) for his views.

“Not sure what a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is? There are 10 different government-recommended ones, some free (like Moodle) and some commercial (like Kaleidos and FrogTeacher). Think of them as the World Wide Web, but smaller. Operated by your local school or LEA to encourage pupils, teachers and parents to keep in touch and to run educational and other software at school and home. The snag is, most tried-and-tested software that schools already have won’t work on VLEs without a lot of ‘tweaking’, so publishers like us are trying to decide whether to rewrite ‘old’ software and/or to focus on new ones. We’re dipping our toes with Stig and Sellardore – more later – but standard Windows and Mac versions are, of course, still available.

One challenge is adding Shareable Content Object Reference Model code (’SCORM’) to software. Its history is based firmly in the US Department of Defense’s need for learning materials to be able to ‘work’ in many different platforms for online training. SCORM features allow the software to store and swap records of what kids did with the software, when, and how they performed. Although the government’s aims to improve kids’ and community learning via VLEs are laudable (a recent study showed a SATs gain of 4%), the jury is probably still out. But every UK school must have a VLE by 2010, so teachers are having to learn some more new skills and schools are having to move from stable Windows and Mac platforms to VLEs that arguably aren’t as compatible as they could be. I hope it’s not one step too far, like many government IT initiatives.”
If your school has a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) you can use these new VLE software resources from Topologika  available from www.keen2learn.co.uk

Sellardore Tales is a magical Literacy adventure which pupils complete by giving instructions e.g. GO NORTH, thinking their way to rescuing villagers from starvation. Presented in a grown-up style to meet the needs of older pupils, the software keeps to a reading age of  7-8, and a 56-page illustrated story sets the scene.

Stig of the Dump assumes some knowledge of this classic reader and puts KS2/3 pupils in Barney’s shoes and Stig’s cave. Pupils need to solve problems by locating objects such as MATCHES and usin them to LIGHT FIRE.
The VLE (from £239) or standard packs (from £24.99) include worked solutions to keep you one step ahead, ideas for cross-curricular work plus maps for pupils. They work best when tackled collaboratively, and that’s where VLEs come in – pupils can be challenged to work at home via the VLE, saving their positions to continue back at school. They can also use ‘chat’ and ‘forum’ facilities to discuss/write about what they did and why.
For schools that don’t yet have a VLE, both packs are still available in standard Windows or Mac versions.

Teaching four-year-old children to write is nonsense says literacy consultant Sue Palmer. “As useful as teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs.” So why has the National Curriculum in the UK adopted new assessments to measure handwriting skills in the first year at school?

Concerned opinion asks why the government introduced a scheme which is immediately openly criticised by a leading expert. How does this happen?  Surely Palmer is the one of the key people to assist or review the development of a new school policy in literacy before it is launched.

Setting targets that are too easy seems pointless; too hard and those not in contention become demoralised. Sue Palmer believes the long-term effect of the new policy would do more harm than good. The scheme, part of a four billion pound investment into early learning scheduled over the next two years, is therefore questionable.

It is an unfortunate start. The scheme has the right motivation but perhaps lacks the accountability which may have ensured it was thoroughly tested before launch. If government departments could be measured on results the efficacy of many schemes would be more closely reviewed.  The problem starts at the top. Ministerial appointments are inevitably transitory. The tenure of the secretary for education historically has lasted around 18 months. But the measure of the effectiveness of educational policy takes a generation of children to measure its impact. Historically it was always a predecessors’ idea – unless it worked.  But is Sue Palmer right this time?

In an age of computerised communication; e-mails, texts, technology with built in spell check and predictive text, the need to write anything may seem to be superfluous. Cheques are virtually obsolete, even the signature on credit card slips has been replaced by a pin number. Mind you we do get to sign the back of the credit card every two years, and a passport application every ten years. But do you find you have to practice your signature before signing the secure strip that makes it unreadable anyway. Hardly a burdensome task, so do we need to write anything?

Shopping lists could shortly be replaced with bar code scans, or even the fridge could order online for you. Purchases are made more and more on line requiring typing skills and the deft control of the mouse. Even the mouse could be replaced by a touch screen.

Obviously handwriting skills intermesh with spelling. This leads us to another quandary. Teaching children to spell and write words as they sound involves the definition of “phonic.” Where the P and H of phonic of course being pronounced as an  “f.”  But no worry, as the device the kids will ultimately use to communicate will be a cell phone, with camera, spell check and predictive text – assuming that text abbreviations don’t completely take over.

If a more complex message is required then one of the new mini laptops, or knee tops is ideal. These incredible devices incorporate all the functions of the PC in a case weighing 1kg and a screen of 7inches. Highly portable they could tuck into a small backpack – or even a hood. Not as daft as it sounds. I once met a Berber in Morocco who wore the long traditional cloak and used the hood as a vast pocket.

If handwriting and spelling skills are an essential form of communication they are under attack, but they have one great defence. They work when the powers gone, the battery’s flat, the pc has crashed and credit is exhausted. Yes, in this rapidly developing technical world we still need to learn how to read, write and spell!

Alistair Owens http://www.keen2learn.co.uk

Recent trials of a Nintendo maths games in Scotland have proved to be very successful. The key benefit is the format is seen as an educational game by children that is fun. This invokes a natural element of practice to improve the score or move to a new platform. It also allows peer assistance ( who taught kids to be so adept at mobile phone usage but other children).

Computer games are a form of “learning in disguise” and we need to develop this as a base to future learning. Good news are the number of future computer conferences around the world themed with the role of educational games . We will see a number of the big boys incorporating  educational content in future games.

Alistair Owens Keen2learn

The world is smaller than we think. Apart from the financial crisis that has become global, the issues concerning education seem remarkably common between the UK USA and Australia. Barack Obama made the following comments yeserday on his education policy.
In a major policy address and later in an interview with the editor of The Toledo Journal and two others, presidential candidate Barack Obama said the success of his education initiative will depend largely on the people most often not in the public schools ‚– parents.

”In the end, responsibility for our children’s success doesn’t start in Washington,” the Democrat said in Dayton earlier this month. ”It starts in our homes. It starts in our families. Because no education policy can replace a parent who’s involved in their child’s education from day one, who makes sure their children are in school on time, helps them with their homework after dinner, and attends those parent-teacher conferences.

”No government program can turn off the TV, or put away the video games, or read to your children,” Mr. Obama, the father of two school-age girls, said during his Sept. 9 speech on education. ”So yes, we need to hold our government accountable. Yes, we have to hold our schools accountable. But we also have to hold ourselves accountable.”

To see the full report look here. Obama: Parental involvement critical to education
By: Journal Staff
The Toledo Journal
Originally posted 10/1/2008