What an interesting experience I had on Friday. I was able to participate in a sixth grade "virtual recess" with my science teacher host and several sixth graders. How can kids have recess in the virtual world? My host teacher and I logged into her Elluminate! virtual office beforehand, and we discussed what the students would do. She had several games form them to play together online, under her supervision. The games were: Hangman, Concentration, Tic Tac Toe, Connect the Dots, and Build a Picture.
There were several reasons for conducting a virtual recess. The teacher felt the students would come to the recess sessions to learn, and to become more familiar and less scared of the Elluminate! program. She also wanted them to have a chance to interact with each other. She is able to control who could use the whiteboard feature, and when they could use it. They were also able to IM each other as the recess continued. If the students wanted to use the microphone feature, they had to ask the teacher to turn it on. In this way, she was able to keep the recess orderly and under control.
As the six students logged in, she welcomed each by name, and introduced them to me, a visiting graduate student. She reminded the students how to use the tools, such as the select button, erase, pen, highlighter, text, shape, and draw line buttons. The first game was Hangman, with Albert Einstein ready to take on the noose. Her theme was March Madness, and covered the words with green tiles. (For the first time, I realized that the game "Wheel of Fortune" was loosely based on the kid's game Hangman!) She invited each student by name to guess a letter. When someone had a guess for the full answer, they could IM it to her. They played another round with Scooby Doo.
The second game was Concentration, with the theme being Great Women in History. Students were invited to select two tiles each and search for matches. The teacher kept score, and announced the winner after all of the matches were found. The third game was Tic Tac Toe. She paired the six students up by twos, assigned one as X and one as O, and had the X's go first. All six students could see what was going on in each game. They switched places, and played a 2nd round. There was one winner and five cat's games.
The next game was Connect the Dots. This went rather slow, as each student connected 2 dots, looked for squares, and initialed the completed squares. After about 10 minutes, she called the game, counted the squares, and declared the winner. The students were then told that Recess was over (she had to grade papers). They did not get to do Build a Picture. The entire Recess session took about an hour to complete. After the students logged out, we had a chance to talk. She told me about the control features and rationale behind the virtual recess (which I outlined earlier in this post). It was a interesting experience for me, and the students as well.
Here are some of my observations. First, the students loved playing with each other online with the virtual recess. I would say that sixth grade is the perfect age for such an activity. Knowing they were playing with real people was exciting for the students. They seemed excited to know a visitor (me) was observing as well. They liked IM-ing each other, and used the standard abbreviations (LOL, etc.). They also liked using the pen tool, as I observed during Tic Tac Toe and Connect the Dots (they refrained from scribbling too much). The games went a little slow, but the students seemed to stay engaged. The teacher had a good feel for when the students became bored with a game, and moved on to the next game in a timely fashion. Overall, the virtual recess seemed to be a pleasant experience for the students.
I would recommend that the virtual school look for some other educational interactive online games the students could play during virtual recess. I found a few websites that offer such games:
http://www.funbrain.com/
http://funschool.kaboose.com/
http://www.lethsd.ab.ca/mmh/games/top100.htm
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/games/Games_Online_Educational_Games.htm
http://www.primarygames.com/
http://www.gamequarium.com/
http://www.theproblemsite.com/games.asp
http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/
Please feel free to add other links as well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
What a great way to have the students "meet" each other! Having interactive opportunities such as the virtual recess really gives the students, especially homebound students, the opportunity to connect with others their age and with the same background. I can see your excitement in having an opportunity like this. Thanks for the resources also.
Very interesting! I was wondering how recess would work in a virtual program!
I think it is a great way for students to interact. On the websites you presented would the teacher be able to monitor what students are doing?
Did the teacher mention difficulties in finding a time that all six of the students could meet for recess?
I asked my host teacher about scheduling, and she said since she is teaching middle school, most students are online at the noon hour. They plan the recess days in advance, and ask the students to be available. They only meet once a month, and meet only with their grade.
The resources I listed probably would not be able to be monitored by the teacher unless it could be incorporated into the Elluminate! whiteboard. I'll ask my host teacher and see if I can find out the answer to that question.
Post a Comment