Games in the classroom...
Gaming resource 1: Spelling city
I had a year 2 class for my practicum. Two main educational game sites had constantly been used by my practicum teacher in the classroom. The first one of which was spelling city as guessed from the images above. Spelling city contained various educational games to help improve students spelling. It only started being implemented by my practicum teacher during term 2 and was attached as a weekly homework task where students are required to play 2 games on the site. The advantage of this site is that it is free and teachers are able to add their spelling words for the week into the site, so that games now revolve around their spelling words for the week. This website can be accessed by any mobile device that has internet access which is great. Overall i found that students really enjoyed the games available. The only disadvantage is that students that don't have access to a computer or internet at home have to do the traditional method of look,cover,write and check for their spelling words.
Gaming resource 2: Studyladder
Study ladder is another great website that was constantly being used by my practicum teacher. This website consists of various educational resources most of which are fun interactive games. The advantages are that this website is not only free for teachers but also for current education students. It contains a vast array of resources from per-school to year 6 across 10 different subjects. These include Mathematics, Literacy, Science, Music, Art, Naplan, Language and Culture, Health, Safety and Citizenship, Financial Literacy and Mastering Numeracy. All of which are teacher approved and is aligned with the educational standards. It can be accessed by any mobile device that has internet connection which makes it great. I signed up to this website as soon as i was aware of how good it was and implemented some of its teaching resources in my lessons. Students were not only engaged but they were better able to grasp the concept being studied. Making a great resource in any classroom.
My search for a new interactive game ....
Since the above two online games sites were ones that my practicum teacher had told me and students were already familiar with the sites and its games. I found that i needed to go beyond that so i went searching for more educational games. I then came across this great resource i found for teaching students about road safety. It depicted a cartoon version of a typical real life scenario and posed questions along the way. Students seemed to really enjoy the interactiveness of 2 games the first was called stop, look listen and the second which was called cross safely. It would have been beneficial if students were able to play the game on an individual basis rather than as a class. Navigation is simple and straight forward which makes it easy especially for students that are in year two if it was to be completed individually. The site consists of already constructed detailed lesson plans which i used as a basis in creating my own lesson. At the end of the lesson i did an oral assessment i found that students retained more information from the game done on the interactive short throw projector than any other resource used. Overall i knew i found a good game when my practicum teacher was interested to know which site i used.