Today in P3 we tried out the coding game 'Kodu Game Lab'.
I had heard about it on Twitter and at conferences but hadn't had an opportunity to try it out. 10 of my boys were out at a the Boys High School open day, this was the perfect opportunity to try it with my remaining students.
Initially it took some time to get the programme installed, this meant some students were able to begin early on while others had to be patient. I gave very limited instructions other than see what you can create.
What students created:
- Racing car game
- Submarine racing game
- Plane racing game
- Soccer field
- Island
- Soccer field/battle zone (2 player)
- Factory
- Underwater worlds
- Aquariums
- Colourful worlds (playing with patterns)
P3's Reflection:
Pros:
- Challenging
- Programming aspect is fun
- Lots of options to change colours
- Being creative
- You can work with different sized tools (much quicker than Minecraft, which is block by block)
- Lots of options for manipulation (rotating, size, colour)
- You can verse mobs
- You can play together
- You can create games
- Can synchronise characters together
Cons:
- Limited characters
- Requires patience
- You can only use a few resources before it goes pixelated and lags
- Confusing to use (especially when you are used to another game because you try to transfer those controls)
- Hard to move the camera and get the right angles
- Graphics were not that great of quality
- Time consuming to build one thing
I think that a lot of the cons come from my students Minecraft game play. They were expecting an immediate transfer of controls and build options because the game play has a similar aesthetic.
If you want to see what Kodu is all about check out this video:
We used this tutorial to help teach us the different aspects of the game.
Last week 1/2 my class went to Devon (Sports Exchange) and the other half stayed behind at school and organised/ran a tabloid sports day for the remaining students at school.
Once my students came back I had them reflect on their week. I was impressed with the length and content of their reflections.
I am aiming to have them put more work and effort into their blogs. Last year I pushed the use of their individual blogs and whanau engagement/interaction. The class I have this year are very sporty and take on a lot of extra curricular activities, it is very rare that I have a full class because of this. It has been hard to manage their blogs because of this. Some students have lots while others seem to have very little.
In the term 2 holidays I drew up my long term plan for term 3. I had decided that I wouldn't do a novel study because I felt like I needed to put more focus on a solid guided reading programme., however my lower readers are out most days receiving additional help during our reading time. This leaves me with 1/3 of my class who are all reading above their level. They love novel study and begged and begged to begin another one. Our last novel was so successful/popular that I ended up buying my class the set of books, which are always out of the library because they are all trying to finish the series. Before we began the book we analysed the cover. We look at the text and what that suggested about the book and then we looked at the pictures and made predictions on what we thought the book would be about. This started a lot of great literary discussion of all the elements of the cover. - Title - Image of the three children - What the relationship between the children was - Why the owl was at the front of the children, suggest the owl was leading the children somewhere
We read the first chapter together and made notes on all the characters and information about them in their reading books.
We then had a discussion lesson. I presented them with 10 statements that relate to the book. This was extremely successful and the students had so much fun debating and arguing their positions. Statements:
1. All animals should be protected.
2. All children should have a voice in a move toanother state.
3. Parents should allow young people to maketheir own decisions without asking too many questions.
4. Land animals should have more rights than fish.
5. All children should have a safe place to live with parents.
6. All young people of school age should have an education and be in school.
7. Students in school are smarter than students not in school.
8. Police do everything right.
9. Administrators / Principals are always fair.
10. The good guy always wins in the end.
I then had students choose one of the ten statements they felt most passionate about and write it in their book. They then wrote their argument for or against that statement.
We read a few more chapters and had a lot of discussion and comprehension activities.
Sometimes when I want to ensure my students are listening I will have them go on Tagxedo and make a key word chart from the chapter we read.
My students are loving this book and I am having to growl them for attempting to read ahead when I am not looking!
