Project of The Month December 2002
Three primary schools of North Denmark and a Multimedia enterprise entered a joint venture of developing a pedagogical simulation game for computers, the SIM-Tools. Now the development of the tool is completed, and the SIM-Tools application is being introduced to teachers nationwide.
The pupils of the 8.D class at the School of Vester Mariendal in Aalborg have been testing the ”Turen går til Prag” (”Destination Prague”) project, and they pronounced that this was an entertaining and innovative way of teaching.
Photo: PF Ajs Nielsen
By Naia Bang / Texthuset Aalborg
- The SIM-Tools is not a computer game! This is a learning game. This makes it important to define the term “game” to the pupils, to make it understood that this is not an action game. Far from it, the SIM-Tools is a simulation tool enabling teachers to build interesting scenarios/themes including roles and missions. Once the pupils are assigned a role, they are to solve a number of tasks in the virtual world of the computer.
Hanne Madsen, project manager of Zonning Multimedia finds it quite an ordeal to explain the SIM-Tools. - For it's a great deal simpler to simply demonstrate its capabilities.
As a project of the Digital North Jutland the SIM-Tools application was created in a cooperation between the Zonning company located in Århus, the Hjørring Teachers' College and a selected number of people from the School of Vester Mariendal in Aalborg, the School of Ranum near Løgstør and the School of Bindslev near Hirtshals.
- The Ministry of Education has been highly focused on integrating IT into the primary school education – and differentiated teaching. With this project we wanted to develop a role game in the shape of a computer game – and to be noted, a role game with the teacher as the author, enabling him to integrate the differentiated teaching into the various roles in cross-disciplinary sessions, explains Hanne Madsen.
In the SIM-Tools application teachers can pose individual tasks to the pupils, and those tasks can be ”tailored” for the level of each pupil in terms of language, subject and creativity.
Pedagogical Challenge
In practice Zonning has been handling the technical part – including e.g. the development of graphics – while the schools have been working as pedagogical sparring partners and created scenarios or themes for the tool. Additionally teachers and their pupils took part in the test phase – in relation to e.g. the ease of use.
- I think this has been a challenge to the teachers who have committed themselves to the project. Partly working with this type of development is a new thing, and partly the teachers were originally intended to collaborate across schools. In practice, however, this proved difficult, not least owing to the different backgrounds of the schools. But also because of the discrepancies in expectations to the project – and the effort put in by oneself –, Hanne Madsen points out, while emphasizing that to Zonning it has been an interesting and educational process collaborating with people from environments so different to the ones in which they normally operate.
But now that the project has been successfully concluded, all agree that a far greater number of man-hours for teachers should have been allocated – and hence larger funds should have been granted to free up teachers for development work.
Virtual Tour of London
The SIM-Tools is not the goal in its own right – but a means to gain insight in a topic. The content is to be provided by each teacher, depending on what he or she deems relevant and interesting for the class to work with. However, the project group has already developed four scenarios or themes, which might be adaptable to ones own class. These are the ”Destination London”, ”Destination Berlin”, and the ”Destination Prague”, which are cross-disciplinary simulation games for pupils in 8th through 9th class, and the ”Space Journey Year 2037”, which is about the Universe and aimed in particular at pupils of 6th and 7th class.
Using e.g. the ”Destination London”, pupils are to plan a virtual trip to London – for example as a prestudy for a field trip to London. This enables them to work with topics within the subjects of geography, English and math etc.
- According to feedback from teachers the pupils had a good time working with an imaginary journey to another country, having to make decisions on timing, economy, and experiences – of a cultural, historical and social nature, explains Hanne Madsen.
A viewing sample of the tasks posed to pupils by teachers. This is from the ”Destination London”.
The Teacher Plays a Central Role
- Considering the integration of IT in teaching in general, the teacher plays a very central role. It is up to the teacher to work out form – and put to use the pedagogical potential of information technology. For this reason it is essential to involve the teachers and make sure that they are prepared to work with IT, technically and in terms of knowledge, emphasizes Hanne Madsen who is still finding infrastructure to be a problem at some schools: Are there computers enough, and is the Internet capacity large enough in classrooms?
Still, to the teacher who finds the SIM-Tools an interesting tool, technical matters should not be an obstacle: For the program has been stuctured in a way that relieves the teacher from programming; primarily he is just to fill in various textboxes.
- I see SIM-Tools as an authoring tool for the teacher. He or she is to make up the good story, the good topics and the interesting roles that are required. Next the authoring teacher will enter a session in the application – and present it to the pupils. The teacher can now choose to work as a ”Game Master” and intervene in the course of development, or maybe award points for solved tasks in the process. Or the teacher might just walk about in the class to guide and advise the pupils, explains Hanne Madsen.
The adapted scenarios/themes of the individual teachers kan be put at the disposal of other teachers across classes, schools and municipalities via a ”virtual faculty lounge” where each teacher can reuse the educational sessions and information produced. The intention is to make the ”virtual faculty lounge” work as a knowledge bank continuously expanding with new scenarios/themes. The ”virtual faculty lounge” can be accessed via the Internet along with a dialogue forum created for teachers.
Free For 54 Schools
The three municipalities contributing to the project – those of Aalborg, Hirtshals and Løgstør – will have the SIM-Tools available for free to all schools of the municipality – adding up to a total of 54 schools. If these schools want any support or updates they must pay for it. An application license is available for sale to other schools. A one year school license fee is approximately equal to that of a class set of books.
Experience made during the developing of the SIM-Tools proves that pupils from about 5th class and above are getting the most benefit from the simulation game. However, it is suitable to be developed for use on a grammar school, HF and HG level.
- Now we can present a physical result from our development work – the SIM-Tools application. The next thing will be to distribute the application to a vast variety of teachers. So no doubt we will see new ways of using the SIM-Tools, new branchings and variants – ways that go beyond our own imagination. And this is going to be very interesting, states Hanne Madsen.
Read more about SIM-Tools on the Web site: www.sim-tools.dk and visit the ”virtual faculty room” on www.sim-tools.dk/laerervaerelset/. You can also monitor the project in its developing process on the Web site of the Digital North Denmark: www.thedigitalnorthdenmark.dk
6th class at the School of Bindslev working with the "Space Voyage Year 2037".
Photo: Zonning
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