On Friday 9 December, we held our ‘Still Game to Learn’ event at City of Glasgow College. As well as an opportunity to learn about games-based approaches to learning and teaching, the event also hosted the launch of Learn Direct & Build’s Construction Manager game (which is free to all schools, colleges, universities training providers, employers and learners in Scotland).
Delegates had the chance to experiment with some Virtual Reality, courtesy of David Renton from West College Scotland, who brought along his HTC Vive kit to demonstrate an early beta of a numeracy game he had developed.
Trying out VR at Still Game to Learn
According to David, “… it’s as close to a Star Trek HoloDeck as it currently gets” and given the popularity of the demo, no-one seemed to disagree.
Learning and Teaching with Animations and Games
Daniel Livingstone, Glasgow School of Art
Daniel is the Postgraduate Programmes Leader at the School of Simulation and Visualisation at the Glasgow School of Art. Prior to this, he was Programme Leader for Computer Game Technology at the University of the West of Scotland, one of the first dedicated game development degrees in the UK.
Daniel’s interests cover a wide range of areas involving games, artificial intelligence, virtual worlds and virtual reality – with a focus on the educational applications and uses of games technologies.
Construction Manager – Launch Event
Jenny Kellie, Learn Direct & Build; Douglas Morrison, City of Glasgow College
This session considered the potential for serious and persuasive games to support early career VET (Vocational, Education and Training) students in developing a wider understanding of working within the construction industry. The session also acted as the launch of the game “Construction Manager”, developed in partnership between Learn Direct & Build, CITB and academics from the construction sector.
Construction Manager will be available to download from the App and Google Play Stores in January, but if you would like to obtain a copy beforehand to try out at your institution, simply contact Jenny Kellie at: jenny@learndirectandbuild.com
Sumdog
Andrew Gallacher, University of Glasgow
(Presentation to follow)
From December ‘15 to June ’16, 1,093 pupils across 103 classes in 74 Glasgow Primary schools took part in a study to determine whether practising mathematics skills via Sumdog online games would have any impact. Andrew Gallacher, an independent reviewer of the study, revealed the findings.
Delegates attending Still Game to Learn
How to Fail Your Research Degree?
Daisy Abbott, Glasgow School of Art
This session described the development and evaluation of a serious game aimed at enhancing the teaching and learning of research skills. It demonstrates the efficacy of game-based learning and considers how the game can increase motivation and embedding of knowledge.
Badges and Leaderboards
Graeme Brewster, City of Glasgow College
It can be challenging to gain staff buy in for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) e.g. in completing staff training, declaring equalities information and role modelling positive behaviours. An approach taken at the College was to encourage competition between teams through the use of leaderboards, and recognising achievement via digital badges.