I am not a big fan of the gory, bloody or violent war games that many of our elementary school students play online. There are obviously not on the school’s recommended resource list. On the other hand, I love to be able to allow them time to design and experiment with games that require a little more thinking than to fire a gun, chop someone’s head off or blow something up. Here are two of my students’ favorite, plus a bonus one, I found today,

Learn about cause and effect with LineRider by drawing a line, where your little sled zooms along unless it was too steep or not steep enough to gain enough speed to fly over abysses, jump ramps, or zoom across YOUR design.

Fantastic Contraptions is a game that one of my Tech Patrols (4th grader) recommended in Tech Club. He demonstrated some amazing contraptions he had designed to get through the levels. I must say that every single kid that was in the room was glued to his lips and his explanations. They could not wait to get to their computers to try it out for themselves.
A fun Online Physics Puzzle Game

To get an idea how to do this, check out the following video clip.

I just found the link to the following game today in my Reader. Can’t wait to introduce it to the kids and see their reaction.

Drawminos is game, where YOU get to design your own domino path by dropping each individual pieces and balls onto the screen

Just found this amazing site, that allows students to create Character Trading Cards from Read Write and Think. Thank you CLong from Tech Integration in School.

Students will be asked question by question to fill out an analisis of a book character for example.

Once completed, students can print it out, to fold and then glue together. There is also a space for kids to add an image of their character afterwards. I did not see that the image could be added electonically though.

Download example of character-trading-card as a .pdf

Neat possibility to create a game in your classroom around characters of a story or a book.

Here are additional interesting material / links from the Read Write and Think

• Create and Print your own Flip Book
• Read and create your own Fractured Fairy Tales

For five days, three hours each morning, for a total of fifteen hours, I had a small class of twelve students of my own. They were between the ages of 9-11 years old, incoming 4th through 6th graders.

I have written in the past weeks about my preparation for the camp on Learning and Teaching Scratch and TechCamp- Scratch, Lego Designer, Zoon Tycoon and more .

My prerogative for the campers was to be able to have the time to play and explore. I stressed to them that they would be learning with and from each other. It was ok, to take a break and stroll over and stand behind another camper to look over their shoulder and check out what and how they were doing something.

I was amazed how they focused they were most of the time. How generous with their explanations and sharing with their fellow campers. I loved the way they enthusiastically ran over to someone else and exclaimed how something worked that they had just figured out. We took a break each day about half way through and headed out to the playground. While some of them hit the swings and started chasing each other around a group of four didn’t take long to find out that they all had a DS. They seamlessly were attracted to each other and continued gaming.

Each day, I’d introduce a program, game, link or site and then let them work on them on their own and with each other. I would never force anyone to work on any particular one, always encouraging them to try new things though. The only requirement that I asked of them was that they needed to contribute with a review, recommendation or tutorial about a link, program or site. I was going to record them and then upload to the school’s Flickr account and then embed them into the blog.

I was so impressed by their natural ability to just narrate what they were doing on the screen. No rehearsal, no editing, except for cutting down the length to stay under the 90 second imposed by the limits of Flickr uploads.

In addition they reviewed or recommended the following:

• Zoo Tycoon
• Wildlife Filmmaker
• Animal Planet Games
• DizzyWoods
• FancyPants
• Club Penguin
• Webkinz

On Day 4, I created a different scenario. Each camper would start out with a different program or site. They were given 10 minutes to start creating or building. After the time was up, they would move to the next computer and read, look at , edit, add on , learn from or contribute something new to that task. Here are the stations that we had available:

1. TechConnect Blog
   Each camper would leave a sentence or two and describe what they had learned or taught someone else in TechCamp. You can read their comments here .
2. LineRider
   We would try to build the best ride for that little guy on the sled.
3. Mircrosoft Word
   I left the task up to them and they chose to write a collaborative story together. Read their story on the TechConnect blog.
4. Zoo Tycoon 2
   Collaboratively they created a good layout and animal exhibits.
5. Lego Designer
   No one really got into creating anything. There were a few legos stacked on top of each other or sprinkled throughout.
6. Kerpoof.com
   Everyone painted, then erased or scribbled over the previous “piece of art”. No collaboration ensued.
7. Microsoft PowerPoint
   Everyone explored and figured out how to insert images, text, new slides, etc. We ended up with a PowerPoint file that faintly had a theme “Places to go-Things to do-Food to eat”.
8. Kid Pix
   Repeat of Kerpoof. No collaborative effort was evident in a “finished” product.
9. Scratch
   One of the camper’s favorite programs to play, experiment and “mess with”.
   
10. Google Earth
    The task was to find a particular place in Jacksonville, Add a placemark and write a description of a memory associated with that location.
    
11. Audacity
    The task was to listen to the track that someone else has left and continue to record that story
12. Myths and Legends
    Create a story collaboratively. Overall impression and comments were: Boring, they did not really get into this program.
13. Create a City
    Kids had fun with this one, but when the last campers came to this rotation, the city was built up and they did not feel they could contribute anymore only tear things down.

I have decided to introduce Scatch in my upcoming TechCamp.

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

Documenting my learning journey in familiarizing myself with the program helps me in the process and might encourage and guide someone else.

First I downloaded the available documentation from Scratch:

• Getting Started Guide (.pdf)
• Reference Guide (.pdf)
• I made copies of the Scratch Cards for each one of my TechCampers to reference. It was a lot of work copying, cutting, laminating and adding a metal ring. In the future, I am thinking of just photocopying them, letting the students color them and create their own style of booklet.

Researched other educator’s blogs and websites on their use, lesson plans and experience in the classroom with Scratch:

• Creative Computer Exploration

Other resources:

• LearnScratch.org
  Great getting started videos and answers to Why Learn Scratch for the development of 21st century Learning Skills
• Scratch Help Screens

This is how I plan to start out on Day 1 of camp. Let’s see where it takes us from there

• Discussion of importance of collaborative learning
• In order to personalize: take and import students pictures to be used as sprites
• Watch Introduction Video
  
• Watch Image Effect Video
  
• Let students experiment in the Scratch environment and create their own Name Project.
  Here is my first attempt:
  
• Record students explaining their projects
• I am leaving the Scratch Cards to be handed out for the next day. Again emphasizing to try out and play without too much instruction.
  

I am getting ready to teach a one week-three hour summer technology camp next week at my elementary school.

My objective for this camp is to allow the campers (incoming 4th-6th Graders) to have time to PLAY, time to EXPLORE, time to MAKE MISTAKES and time to FIGURE IT OUT, either by themselves or with each other.

The first day, I want to give them an overview of installed and web based programs that are available to in TechConnect (our lab).

Installed

• KidPix (Drawing)
• Jing Project (Screencasting)
• Zoo Tycoon (Simualtion)
• Venture Africa (Simulation)
• Scratch (Programming)
• Lego Designer (Construction)
• Audacity ( Audio Editing)
• MovieMaker
• PhotoStory
• Google Earth

Web Based

• LineRider
• Kerpoof.com (Drawing, Storytelling)
  
• Myths and Legends (Storytelling)
• Create a City (Simulation)
• or any other link listed on our TechConnect Resource page

From the video below, I got an excellent idea for an ice breaker that I am planning on doing with the kids. Get them in groups and have them teach each other one thing, that the other person DID not know. I want to make sure that everyone is in the mood for collaboration, sharing and teaching EACH OTHER what they are learning. It will be important to allow time every day to give each one the opportunity to share new things that they have learned. Since I don’t want to "force" any project on the campers, I will ask if anyone would be interested in creating a podcast or vidcast about the camp and be in charge of documenting what everyone has learned.

I am looking forward to having my own little group of students. Can’t wait to see what we can learn together.

Barnes & Noble (national bookseller chain) had one of their clearance sales and I bought “Thousand Places To See Before Your Die” game for 50% off. My family and I finally sat down yesterday and played. Here is a quick review.

The game is intended for ages 7 to adult. I believe you can play it with a little younger children if they pair up with a teenager or adult. The game comes with a a world map board and “Destination Cards” and “Movement Cards”. The destination cards have a beautiful photographs of a certain landmark in the world and are divided into different zones of the world (not continents).

Each player is dealt 5 cards (destination & movement cards included). The objective of the game is to start out at a spot closest to their city of birth and visit 5 destinations in different zones. The first player to return to their city of birth wins the game.

Sounds easy? Not so fast. You need to have (or learn) to recognize/guess where the photos of the destination cards are from. They are on the table with the photo side up. Since you will need to have visited five zones before finishing it can get tricky trying to decide to pick up the destination card from the pile or roll the die.

I watched my children trying to guess the location and then look on the map trying to guess the zone that location might be in. My guess is that everyone will get pretty good at placing destinations on the map if you play long enough.

Once a player has reached a destination, the card is turned over and the text on the back is read aloud with tidbits about that location.Very cool! We should have a laptop next time we play on the table and have someone in charge of finding the location on Google Earth.

I am wrecking my brain to think about how to use this game in the classroom. In groups… in Google Earth or Google Maps adding the placemarks in different colors representing the different groups. Use the projector as the game board.