Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
Scottish Minister Micheal Russel had thrown his hat into the educational games debate. Amidst the controversy that maths and English games etc are concerning some teachers, Michale Russel believes these teaching resources have been proved to have Real and tangible benefits”
He added: “Computer games are often perceived as solely a distraction to learning, however, alongside traditional learning aids, they can help make learning more engaging.”
“And parents and teachers across the country are starting to see the benefits they can have.”
We throughly agree, and the doubting brigade need only to watch how often the games are played to realize how this modern teaching resource is encouraging learning compared to, say, a boring text book!
See the BBC article
Tags: educational games, English games, maths games, Michael Russel, Scotland Educationlal Minister
Posted in News | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Many of us look back on our schooling days and wonder if we received the ideal educational support. How much did our performance in the classroom, SAT’s, 11 plus, GCSE and GCE materially influence our lives and careers. Do the teaching resources really mould our destiny or merely steer us to explore other latent talents. We have been granted permission to reproduce an article by Bill Whiting, retired CEO of B&Q International and main board director of Kingfisher, that explores this dichotomy. It’s a fascinating read of a boy from a very ordinary background, the schooling he endured, and his progression through a career that took him to the high echelons of global commerce. The article “Does School Help or Hinder the Road to Success of a Chief Executive” will be serialised here over the next 8 weeks.
Tags: B&Q, Bill Whiting, GCE, GCSE, sat's, secondary schools, teaching resources
Posted in Opinion | Comments Off
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
At last a feint glimmer on the horizon. The age of the computer is to enter into school exams which should end the annual GCSE marking fiasco and improve the options for many school children and teachers.
Children entering secondary school next year should be able to take their GCSE exams on a computer. Wow! children won’t be penalised by examiners not being able to read scripts. Children who needed help with handwriting may be judged more centrally on the subject knowledge. Corrections will not look a mess, and with spell check, grammar corrections and internet access children should get great marks! Well no, those nasty examiners will turn all the extra facilities off in the exams. The software can even detect if your answers look mysteriously similar to the guy sitting next to you. Of equal horror it will track ability traits in a subject area down to a particular teacher. This could be good news to the following year where corrective guidance can be far more targeted. Maybe it could form a precise means to influence bonus payments to teachers.
Good typing skills could surpass handwriting ability. This dilemma has perplexed some teachers and keen2learn. Previous articles “Is it still the Queen’s English” and “Will Technology Supersede Handwriting Skills In Children” voices opinion that despite its depleted use handwriting may survive so we can communicate when the power is off and sign the odd cheque, although this won’t be much use in couple of years now the banks are withdrawing cheques, sorry thats’ an awful pun.
There is an upside. The cost of equipping schools with sufficient terminals to sit exams could be offset by a massive reduction in exam marking costs. Costing around £65m a year, the manual marking has been recently scorned for inaccuracies and critical delays. Technology may be the answer to streamline the process and automate marking so the candidate could have an instant result. Ctrl +P and print out your GCSE certificate as you leave! The scary bit, just imagine if results were trending too high and the questions could be adjusted to make them harder during the actual exam. Could be done, just as the budget airlines increase the prices depending on the number of people enquiring about a flight.
Computerisation is the way of the world. We need to move with the times and capture every element of the benefits this can bring to education. Inventive ways to interest children through educational games on a computer, and immediate feedback on performance to teachers, parents and children can only be a good thing. John Durnford, general secretary of the Association of School Leaders said ” In five years’ time this will seem extremely normal”
Posted in News | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
These popular teaching resources allow children to see a new classroom calendar and the main structure of the human heart. Fabric panels allow velcro panels to be added, hopefully in the right place. Designed to be big enough for front of class use these robust panels are a great addition to the popular range of Active Designs already on the keen2learn site
Tags: front of class resources, PSHE, teaching resources
Posted in News | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Stem projects in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths have probably the greatest educational interest and employment potential for children. The UK is rapidly changing direction and over the next 20 years we will see a change in our culture comparable to the dynamics of the industrial revolution. The National Curriculum must keep pace with these evolving demands and associated educational needs of our children to capture the opportunity this presents.
Manufacturing has clearly migrated east notably to India and China. But this, however, does not completely exclude the UK. Our historic expertise in design and manufacturing engineering still has a marketable value to manufacturers based overseas. We can maintain a centre of engineering excellence. The benchmark is already set by BAE who having immense skill in the design of aircraft wings, manufactures them in the UK and ships them to France for assembly into Airbus aircraft. Rolls Royce aircraft engines go overseas to be incorporated into aeroplanes. Perhaps the best example is Dyson vacuum cleaners is designed and developed in the UK, manufactured in Malaysia and sold worldwide.
This pool of expertise will still be relevant as inevitably the UK manufacturing dries up. Undaunted despite a downturn in their own sales base MG sports car designers had a hand in the design of the Mazda MX5 and Lotus cars have a hand in numerous overseas car developments. British architects designed the fantastic Viaduct de Millau motorway bridge in the French massif Central built by French civil engineers. UK Ltd. still has a lot to offer.
James Dyson tried hundreds of prototypes before he perfected the model for his vacuum cleaner; a true example of our historical culture based on resilience, inventiveness and reluctance to give up. The number of significant British inventions is disproportionate to the size of our country but it is fair to say we lack the capitalisation of the invention. If our design ability is our real strength maybe this is where we should focus our curriculum efforts.
To do this we need to convince children that science and engineering are the fun games part of education and schooling with huge potential for employment globally. If you want adventure, employment and a real opportunity of a Eureka moment, science technology, engineering and maths is the educational route to take. Our educational authorities need to capitalise on the work achieved so far and then raise the bar. In 20 years’ time the potential for British engineers is vast. We need to recognise the potential of the opportunity, perhaps adopting the German approach where an Engineer with a capital “E” holds the same status as a Doctor, bearing the prefix Eng. before their name.
Tags: educational games, maths games, maths resources, STEM
Posted in Opinion | Comments Off
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Following the November announcement of top ten educational games on the www.keen2learn.co.uk site these are the December results. Christmas has influenced some titles proving that these games are the ideal present.
- Crystal Rain Forest: For the 3rd month running this firm favourite tops the poll. Using maths skills and logo programming language to help save the planet
- LogiRobot New entry educational toy robot is a truly unique and multi-talented robot with a mind of its own. It can be used in simple play or in more complex and engaging projects that help you understand the principles of control, automation and robotics.
- Bunja: Climbing one place this maths game is based on MP3 technology provides hours of fun and is small enough to fir in a pocket when travelling around.
- Spelling Board Games. Nobody wants to spell – unless it is part of this popular English games pack.
- Feel Good Friends: Parents and teachers have found this game developed to boost the self esteem in children is great fun for anyone to play.
- Electric City New entry manly due to the popularity of this science game as a present. Create the fascinating Memory Circuit and understand all about feed-back systems. Make a Burglar Alarm, Light Breaker, Door Alarm, Water Sensor, Alarm Light, Flash Back, Morse Code, Metal Detector and Lie Detector. Test your logical skills.
- 6 Maths Board Games – Basic New entry to the top 10. Ideal maths resources and games to help understand the basics in maths.
- Make a Face Puppets New entry these educational tactile face puppets can be used to create different fun faces and expressions. Used as puppets they are ideal for PSHE role playing or to provide opportunities to talk about feelings and emotions. Each face is supplied with 10 Velcro parts and 6 labels.
- Nubble Deluxe New entry Everyone loves Nubble! – teachers, pupils and parents. It is the perfect way for pupils to sharpen their numeracy skills. The range is now joined by the a new high resolution version of Nubble! that includes a Headstart option in which between 10 and 50 hexagons are randomly covered over at the start of the game.
- Kiddoku Children’s Sudoku. Drag and drop the pieces in the grid so that every row and every column contains just one copy of each type of piece. The program includes 4×4, 5×5 and 6×6 grids..
Tags: educational games, English games, ICT games, maths games, maths resources
Posted in News | Comments Off
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Research conducted by the University of Central Florida (UCF), has revealed immersive educational video maths games (such as Paws Explore Multiplication ) can improve students’ maths skills and comprehension to raise scores on district-wide benchmark exams.
According to the study set over an 18-week period, students playing the educational video games demonstrated higher gains on district benchmark exams than students not playing the games. On average, students in the experimental group made gains of 8.07 points (out of 25), while students in the control group made gains of just 3.74 points.
The research study, conducted by a University of Central Florida team of faculty and graduate students evaluated 193 algebra and pre-algebra students, and 10 teachers who were all from Orange County, Florida. Experimental and control groups were used to test the researchers hypotheses and were evaluated using pre- and post-study district benchmark exams, game preparation tests, surveys, classroom observations, and personal interviews.
As well as the increased test scores researchers found that teacher training, as well as focusing on the integration of educational games, was essential to enhance student learning. They also found that students were not only capable of intuitive game-play on their own, but were also willing to help fellow classmates with the games, proving that peer support has significant benefit in the learning process.
The survey was conducted in 2008, and with the ongoing development of game platforms able to play interactive maths games, the benefits of this style of learning is growing.
Based on an orginal article by By Chris Riedel
Tags: educational games, interactive maths games, maths games, maths resources
Posted in News | Comments Off
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Heliocentris the manufactures of educational Model car fuel cells for keen2learn is to supply an oil company from Bahrain with an autonomous power supply solution.
The Berlin-based Heliocentris also designs and manufactures larger scale innovative energy storage solutions has acquires two more orders for autonomous fuel cell-based power supply solutions. As specialists in clean energy for the supply of autonomous power supply solutions they have won orders for Bahrain Petroleum in Bahrain and a university from Germany.
The solutions are hybrid energy storage systems consisting of batteries, fuel cells, electrolysers and adapted power electronics that store the locally generated solar or wind power. For the oil company project, Heliocentris will also deliver the photovoltaic and wind solution. It is good to see that a fuel cell clean energy systems has an application with a forward thinking oil company. The projects have a total volume of approx. €300,000.
Heliocentris Fuel Cells AG is a specialist for clean energy storage solutions based on a smart combination of batteries, fuel cells and energy management. Areas of application are mobile and stationary applications that require longer ranges than current batteries can provide. Examples are electric vehicles, onboard and emergency power supplies as well as electricity supply for off-grid applications such as monitoring stations or energy self-sufficient houses. Heliocentris has been developing and marketing fuel cell-based energy solutions for more than 10 years now. Heliocentris initially targeted the training and lab markets as typical pioneer markets, where it has successfully positioned itself as one of the worldwide market leaders. Since 2006, Heliocentris has been entering selected industrial markets with considerable growth potential. With customers in over 60 countries and a broad distribution and partner network, Heliocentris is globally well positioned. Heliocentris Fuel Cells AG is listed at the Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (Entry Standard) and employs in total 50 staff with its head office in Berlin and a subsidiary in Vancouver, Canada.
Tags: educational games, green energy games, Heliocentris, renewable energy games, Science games
Posted in News | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Updating the primary level educational curriculum is perhaps overdue. The world has changed significantly since the last review and our schooling standards need to reflect the social and technological changes incorporated in these updates.
From The Department of Children Schools and Families
The curriculum lies at the heart of the government’s policies to raise standards and help every school to improve all of the time. Our curriculum should help children become the very best they can be. We live in a changing world, and our curriculum has to evolve to prepare our children for the opportunities and challenges of life in the 21st century.
Following a review by Sir Jim Rose and consultation by QCDA, a new primary curriculum from September 2011 was announced on 19 November.
This new curriculum will be organised around six broad areas of learning to help schools and children make coherent links across all their learning. It is a model that advocates direct subject teaching, complemented by serious and challenging cross-curricular studies which provide ample opportunities for children to use and apply their subject knowledge in order to deepen understanding. The next step is to implement the new curriculum by creating the new areas of learning in law through the Children, Schools and Families Bill, currently before Parliament.
Religious Education, though not part of the National Curriculum, remains a statutory subject and part of the basic Primary Curriculum. An illustrative programme of learning will be published in January.
Related downloads
Areas of Learning
* Essentials for learning and life (doc, 70kb)
* Understanding the arts (doc, 108kb)
* Understanding English (doc, 108kb)
* Historical geographical and social understanding (doc, 91kb)
* Mathematical understanding (doc, 105kb)
* Understanding physical development (doc, 32kb)
* Scientific and technological understanding (doc, 107kb)
Tags: 2011 curriculum, DCSF, English games, maths games, National Curriculum, Primary schools, Science games, Sir Jim Rose
Posted in News | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
The average sixteen year old in the UK is studying two academic subjects at GCSE. Our educational programme centres on English and maths whilst the rest of the world is pushing for six academic subjects.
Britain is on a par with Australia in what could become an academic backwater. We expect some educational prowess in English as the mother tongue, but this is not the case. Our standards in English literacy and maths are falling. Whilst we slide in these key subjects Germany, France, Japan, USA and Canada push children towards four to six academic subjects. With maths and their indigenous language matching the educational programme in the UK, overseas students are additionally pursuing science, history, social studies and English as a modern foreign language.
British children will ultimately compete in global markets. Overseas governments recognise the potential of this development and have raised their schooling ambitions. The legacy of our children in mastering English, once regarded as an advantage peculiar to the UK et al. is now matched by the significant use of English overseas. Spurred by the Internet, films and its growing dominance as the international business language, English is by far the predominant modern foreign language studied overseas. Bang goes our first reserve! And whilst our schools persuade children to pursue non academic vocational subjects to achieve overall school targets we are left with maths as the focal academic subject.
Our natural reserve and perhaps entrenched educational procedures and standards are cluttering the forward plan. We don’t readily accept change – shown by our reluctance to adopt the IGCSE and International Baccalaureate in the National Curriculum. But if we fail to adjust to the demands brought by the globalisation of the job market we may miss one of the fundamental reasons for education. And learn to bitterly regret it.
Tags: English games, International Baccalaureate, literacy games, maths games, National Curriculum
Posted in News | Comments Off
Monday, December 7th, 2009
In a move to improve their learning performance, boys and girls in the same school are being taught in different classes. Schools in the trials have found educational concentration improved without the distraction of the opposite sex.
A conference of head teachers from academies, state and independent schools met recently in Cambridgeshire to discuss this issue. If adopted this would reverse the trend for co-educational school which stems from the 1970s. What has changed? Apart from the maxim of “what goes around comes round” why has this issue taken so long to resurface in our educational scrutiny? If this trend is ratified how many of our children have lost out in the past 40 years?
Maybe the element of competition is at last emerging more effectively in schools. Girls consistently outperform boys in maths and science by the age of 14, but then slip down in the standards by age of 16. Rather correct this trend schools have been guilty of pushing girls into less demanding subjects. Has the key influence behind this move been schools striving to maximise target performance? It may have been easier to get the numbers up than correct the fault, with girls, maths and science loosing out.
Single sex lessons have removed the element of embarrassment, ridicule and showing off associated with mixed emotions and adolescence. The greatest shock is perhaps that this is a surprise! Boys and girls grow, develop physiologically and mature at different rates. They have done so for a couple of millennium. How come we just noticed, and how many children have we messed up as a consequence?
Tags: coeducational schools, educational games, single sex lessons
Posted in News | Comments Off
Friday, December 4th, 2009
The Copenhagen summit will gather the world leaders to resolve a common approach to global warming. Timed to coincide with the summit Keen2learn have launched a range of green renewable energy teaching resources for schools and the home. They believe whichever school of thought you subscribe to; natural event or man made, the effects of global warming will be left to our children to resolve.
Accepting the man made inference, this terrible legacy created by current generations will take decades to control. It will fall to the children in school to learn, understand and take charge of any ongoing solution to minimise the effect. Educational games specialists Keen2learn’s range of renewable energy games and teaching resources are for use in school and at home to help children learn about green renewable energy.
“The resolution of this vital subject area will fall to future generations” said Alistair Owens managing director of keen2learn. “It is imperative children understand the cause, effect and solution of global warming. Our new range of renewable energy games cover wind, water turbines and hydrogen fuel cells in fun working models demonstrating the technology now available in renewable energy”.
Keen2learn are using the opportunity of the Copenhagen summit to focus attention on the subject in schools. The products were recently shown at the Design and Technology exhibition in Birmingham where they generated significant attention from teachers. The fuel cell model car on show is a didactic learning resource that lets children see the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen and oxygen molecules through electrolysis of water and a two way PE membrane. The recombination of the gases through the fuel cell releases electricity used to power a model car. The kit includes a solar panel and a variable load panel with ammeter and voltmeter to show the performance of the cell under different loads.
The Hydrogen fuel cell car was recently reviewed by the National Science Learning centre and the STEM learning centre and is being incorporated into their teaching resources for science teachers attending training courses.
The fuel cell is a great cross curricular resource covering chemistry, physics, engineering and maths. Many design teachers were considering how they could mount the fuel cell in different projects. The pack of 6 cars comes with a comprehensive teacher’s guide, worksheets and 30 experiments. A front of class teachers demonstration panel is also available which scales the equipment up to let all the class see the fuel cell in action and measure its performance. “Fuel cells are a future power source and this is a fantastic way to introduce children into their operation and benefits” said Alistair Owens
Tags: green energy games, hydrogen fuel cells, National Science Learning Centre, Science games, STEM
Posted in News | Comments Off
Friday, December 4th, 2009
For some years keen2learn has promoted the benefits of educational games to engage children in the learning process. Recent developments by Futurelab, a tie up between industry, educational and government – and the equivalent of James Bonds Q, have shown the advance of technology in teaching resources.
Educational games have been in use in the classroom for some time. Tracking with the national curriculum they provide essential teaching resources to make lessons memorable, understandable and fun. Recent advances in technology have allowed these teaching resources to be updated but this is an expensive proposition for small educationalist suppliers, many of whom are ex teachers with a great idea. The lower sales volume compared to a retail game has been an issue in making some of the products more financially attractive to schools and parents. This could change with recent developments by Futerlab who could bring state of the art technology used in laboratories into the world of English, maths and science games .
Dr. Breslin at Futerlab is developing an idea in conjunction with the department for children, schools and families, DCSF, to liaise with industry to capture interesting technology into practical learning resources. One of the higher profile projects is investigating how high street computer games, with its obvious entertainment content can be developed as a teaching tool. If this technology could be incorporated into learning resources for the National curriculum it greatly reduce the cost of production of educational games. Similarly greater fun educational content could appear in the high street game versions.
The key to retention in learning is practice; a function that is difficult during the short lesson and abhorrent as homework. Lessons or games which include an element of fun engage children’s attention, enticing them to “learn in disguise”. Educational games with “street cred” played outside the classroom on the journey to school, in the home or with the parents has huge potential in improving learning retention. The work of Dr Breslin and Futurelab could go a long way towards to develop this opportunity.
Tags: educational games, English games, Futurelab, maths games, Science games
Posted in News | Comments Off
Friday, December 4th, 2009
As books become digitised and downloadable over the Internet, will this reduce the vast cost of educational textbooks and allow funds to be transferred to another teaching resource, or will it become a fad interrupting learning that we’ll learn to regret.
School budgets worldwide are a continuing source of concern to teachers and governments alike. Each year teachers are given a budget that have most wondering how they will cope. Even then the funds are not sacrosanct. Policies change, market situations evolve, issues emerge. No single year is completed without some reorientation of the educational budget.
In July 2009 in the USA, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a massive $350m slice from the educational budget for text and English language reading books. “It’s nonsensical and expensive to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form,” Schwarzenegger wrote.
“Especially now, when our school districts are strapped for cash and our state budget deficit is forcing further cuts to classrooms, we must do everything we can to untie educators’ hands and free up dollars so that schools can do more with fewer resources.”
A Schwarzenegger point out that California last year set aside $350m for school books and argues that even if teachers have to print out some of the material it will be far cheaper than regularly buying updated textbooks.
Teachers still needing to support the curriculum suddenly had to manage without an essential teaching resource. Their resolve determined a plan to involve parents and the internet. Many text books were worn and although still usable gave a poor impression to the current generation of school children. Parents were invited to buy the replacement for their child and in these circumstances enticed to download where possible. Although this demonstrate teachers’ resourcefulness to bridge over the cracks it opened Pandora’s box as to which children had the correct English and maths books, no books at all, or selected chapters. Children are now being schooled and measured on their performance without the full tools to do the job.
Without the foundation of learning contained in books these children are receiving an indifferent educational experience. If a government commits to an educational strategy it must also commit to the operational budget to support it. Various strategies should be graded with education and health being category “A” where budgets are cast in stone. The alternative ebb and flow of budgets leads to a disconnect in the emphasis at the sharp end of teaching that we will inevitably learn to regret.
Tags: English games, literacy games, maths games
Posted in News | Comments Off
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Ed Balls, secretary of state for the children, schools and families has laid the gauntlet down to 1,400 primary schools told to improve. He is demanding 10 local authorities come up with an action plane to redress the failures in Maths and English literacy in the National Curriculum. The move is reminiscent of National Challenge, where secondary schools in which fewer than 30% of pupils achieve five good GCSEs are threatened with closure or turned into academies.
The move comes days after the primary school league tables, published on Tuesday, showed growing numbers of primary schools were failing to teach children to the level expected. In just under 900 primaries – 100 more than last year – the majority of pupils leave without mastering the basic skills of the national curriculum level 4 – in English and maths that form the bedrock of secondary education.
Tags: DCSF, Ed Balls, English games, literacy games, maths games, National Curriculum, Primary schools
Posted in News | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
Primary school league tables are to be scrapped along with the SAT’s for 11 year Olds. Is this a retrograde step which could further mask the failings of our educational performance? Would the targets introduced in their place create a monster that will incite internal manipulation in our schools?
(more…)
Tags: Christine Blower, DCSF, Ed Balls, league tables, Mick Brookes, sat's
Posted in News | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Came across this fantastic quotation by Sir Winston Churchill. An update on the concept by Robert The Bruce watching that spider, to me it summarises a direction we should all perhaps consider in our educational journey, business and life in general. .
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Posted in News | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Ed Balls announced last week that he wants schools to either save £750m in energy costs, or else reduce the number of teaching staff. This is nation wide objective rather than one very large school! But whilst you had your head down sorting this one out he has also promised £300m to reduce the shortage of school places. http://tinyurl.com/ylmpzar. So make sure you are not working in the dark and cold when you don’t need too. Not that I am a cynic but the maths don’t quite add up. Where is the other £450m going?
Tags: DCSF, Ed Balls, Overcrowed schools
Posted in News | Comments Off
