gail dyer

While in Scotland, more precisely Dundee. I had the pleasure of visiting Derek Robertson in LTS  Consolarium. My colleague Kim and I had an amazing time engaging with hardware and software that appeared to have great potential in the classroom.

LTS were running a trial using the Brain Training Program and Derek reported that all students had shown improvement from point of pretest to the time when we were talking to him ( see Derek’s Blog).

Kim and I left Derek with so many ideas swimming around in our heads.

The first thing we did was go and buy 2 DS Lites and a couple of the programs Derek had recommended. That night rugged up warm and cosy by the fire in St Monans we played with the DS Lites, engrossed and engaged by the challenge they afforded us as adults, and adult learners at that.

The programs we had were Dr Kawashimas Brain Training, The Big Brain Academy, Phoenix Wright, Sponge Bob Square Pants and a Tamagochi style program, the name of which eludes me. Since then we have purchased many more as well as another 8 DS Lites for the students in Stage 3 ( Years 5/6).

These little machines and their programs were easy for us to master and neither of us would consider ourselves amazingly good with technology;however, we were hooked. As educators we could see the possibiities and the benefits were potentially enormous.

First of all of the programs we looked at are those that claim to be Brain Trainers . . .  Dr Kuwashima’s Brain Training picked up on a clever marketing ploy when he named his program Brain Training. The program requires a Brain Age Check. It uses the Stroop test and 20 x calculations to determine this. The the student undertakes daily brain training, which is charted over a period of time, to develop their brain age to the ideal 20 years. Each activity / game played trains the brain. Initially braining training involves only 3 components: Calculations x 20, x 100 and reading aloud. All depend on accuracy and speed. When the program determines the student is introduced to the other components: Low to High (numbers); Syllable count; Head Count; Triangle Math; Time Lapse and Voice Calculation. Sudoku games are also available for practice.

Our school has a couple of copies of Dr Kuwashima’s Brain Training. There has been huge demand on this program because of clever marketing program where it was promoted as a package that developed learning and delayed the onset of altsheimers in the elderly. We found the basic facts elements of the program really good and the training sound; however, the passages to be read in the initial test were way out of the range of our children. English as a second language also limited accuracy for reading the the speed passages as well. The notion of a younger brain is all very well for older people it is not as motivating for younger people. Our students will;however, trialling this on a daily basis

The program that we are more positive about testing at our school Belmore South Public School is The Big Brain Academy. It works on the principle of increasing the brain’s weight. This is more more appealing to the students. The program offers a test that is taken to determine intial Brain Weight. The student’s results are anlaysed and a diagram informs them of their areas of strength and weakness. They choose to practise accordingly. They test themselves on a weekly basis to test overall improvement. They practise skills daily.

The categories that determine the brain weight are ability to : analyse (reason), think (logic), compute(math), memorise(memory) and indentify((visual). In this program the games, their structure, the graphics and the challenge are all is engaging and motivating for the students.

Each category consists of three different activities with three levels of difficulty. When the students achieve a cetain score they achieve either a bronze, silver or gold medal for their effort.

Another advantage that the DS lites have is that they can be connected via wirelss. This allows the students not only to practise skills singly. They are also able to test their skills against their peers.

The DS Lites also provide a reasonably inexpensive way for our students to play a variety of computer games. This is good preparation for when we begin to analyse games in preparation for them developng their own Games.  They are asked to evaluate the games in terms of what constitutes a good game.

 They will begin to do plan and develop their own games in Semester 2 using either Game maker 7.0 or Mission maker. They cannot make a game without developing an appropriate narrative for its context. To play as many games as possible critically will give them good background.