Good Morning

1. Good Morning

2. Gaming consoles are the computers that our students are using the most. • Though we think of students as being the net generation, perhaps the term screenagers is closer to reality. A recent study confirmed that while most teens spend somewhere between 20 and 40 hours in front of screens a week, 85% of the teens reported spending less than 10 hours a week online

3. Gaming consoles go well beyond gaming. • Did you know that the Wii has built in WiFi? That you can buy an Internet browser add-on via the online store to surf from your game console? You can also purchase USB keyboards for text input. The combination means that students can be centered around one computer for their work and fun...it just happens that the computer is a game console.

4. The Wii can turn your whiteboard into an interactive multi-touch whiteboard. • Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon University has been playing with a Wii in ways that Nintendo never imagined possible. Though perhaps not for the masses (yet), the possibilities are there for using a $40 Wii remote for many other uses.

5. Playing the Wii is quite a workout. • From the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, Wii commenters always seem to note that playing the console is a rather physical activity. In an age of increased screen time, active screen time may be one way to push healthy living.

6. The Wii transcends generational gaps and disabilities. • People who are wheelchair bound can still bowl, play baseball, and swing a Wii golf club. Young children - three and four years old even - can play the Wii on even footing with their parents. Like board games, the Wii can provide family entertainment where everyone is competing and participating on equal footing. My mother-in-law picked up a Wiimote for the first time and crushed me in bowling despite my practice. I did redeem myself on baseball where practice of timing is more important, but since they went out the next day and bought a Wii of their own they will be practicing more as well.

7. The physical nature of the Wii's interactivity makes it a great candidate for PE classes. • Like libraries who work towards crafting lifelong learners and readers, PE programs are working to motivate students to be active throughout their lives. The Wii, while certainly not a replacement for real physical activity or involvement in sports, does provide a nice gateway for getting students interested. And what was our collection development policy again? Oh yeah...to provide resources in a variety of media to promote curriculum standards.

8. Video games are moving beyond shoot 'em ups and sports. • New interactive technologies have led to video games like Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and now Rock Band. Rock Band - combines guitar playing, drumming, and singing - provides nice links to music classes. A console version of Civilization, that great social studies game, will be out soon as well. As with graphic novels, the time has come to see video games as another format and not a genre.

9. There is a great deal of research connecting video games to learning. • Some of the most prominent books on the subject include James Paul Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and David Williamson Shaffer's How Computer Games Help Children Learn. For a more accessible starting point, however, I highly recommend Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good For You. The real point is, like them or not, our students are playing video games. First, find out what it is doing to them. Second, grab a Wiimote and teach them a thing or two about bowling a strike!

10. Video games are a big market. • How big, you ask? Well, think back to last year. What was the biggest first day release of an YA focused entertainment item? I seem to recall some hoopla over a little book called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But it wasn't the top seller of the year. The biggest opening day sales went to the video game Halo 3 ($170 million for Halo compared to $166 million opening day for Harry Potter according to the ESA). Computer and video gaming as a whole was up to an $18.8 billion industry last year. Not something we should be ignoring, in my opinion.

11. Libraries are about resources, but also about much more than the things they collect. • . Libraries are social institutions. The Wii is a very social gaming system. While some may think that gaming involves sitting alone in a room in front of a computer or TV, the Wii completely demolishes that perception. With four players involved in a tennis match or taking turns at the bowling lane, the Wii provides a great deal of interaction and socialization. It fits into the broader idea of a library as a place for social interaction around resources

12. NINTENDO WII IN BRITISH PHYSICAL EDUCATION With childhood obesity rates in the U.K. continuing to rise, the government recently endorsed a program that would see the Nintendo Wii employed in physical education programs across the country. The move follows a pilot project at five Worcestershire schools that used Wii consoles to bring inactive students into "virtual PE." The project found that students would line up over their lunch hour for a chance to play games on the Wii that included tennis, baseball, bowling and golf, all of which required physical effort in order to play. Heart monitoring conducted as part of the project determined that regular use of the consoles led to a greater level of fitness among the students. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/81028-U-K-Government-Endorses-Wii-For-Physical-Education-Programs

13. BONUS • Don't forget that games of all types align quite nicely with the new AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner.

14. Mission Oak High School The Nintendo Wii and the Wii Fit add-on are for special needs students at the high school. Physical education teacher Dina Da Silva raised the money to purchase the Wii from a local business, family and friends. Students also helped raise money. A parent donated the television it's attached to, she said. "We were approached at the beginning of the year about allowing students with special needs to enter our PE department," Da Silva said. "I thought, what can we do to help these kids get exercise?" Da Silva had the idea for the Wii and Wii Fit. Some kids who cannot participate in regular PE can use the Wii Fit, she said. Student Jayne Mattingly, 15, is one of the users of the Wii. She has spinal bifida and is in a wheelchair. "It's awesome. It's fun," she said. Before the Wii, Mattingly was participating in P.E. but was taken out because she was getting extremely tired, she said. "It's good exercise for me without being painful," she said. Her father, Phillip Mattingly, said he was impressed with the idea of a Wii at the school. "I thought it was incredible," he said. "It's very advanced." Special-needs students play the Wii inside an area of the gym while other students are doing cardio exercises, Da Silva said. http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/article/20081108/NEWS01/811080310

15. Where are Wii Headed? Bringing Physical Education into the New Technological Age • The Wii also presents interesting points concerning physical education in terms of simulation. Many students today have little desire to participate in Phys. Ed and it can become difficult to find alternatives so that there is maximum participation in all classes. The Wii may be a good option for certain students to get their physical activity and participate with the class. It would be interesting to see how the students would react to having a unit or even one lesson with the Wii and I do think it may enable some students to get over their phobia of physical education. I think that it is important for students to feel safe and comfortable and like they could have fun if they just try and participate. A part of the new literacy's is preparing the students for the future and the outside world, in terms of learning and getting familiar with the newest technologies. • The potential for learning new skills with the use of programs to help the students understand the new technologies is an important aspect of the school curriculum. In respects to physical education the two aspects which I feel are probably two of the most important are play, and simulation. They both can be fun and present new opportunities for teachers and students to progress academically and physically. The Wii is a technology which could accomplish the building of a foundation for the students and could be a good alternative for the textbooks and assignments in physical education. I am excited to see the way technology will develop in the classroom and more specifically the gymnasium. http://blogs.mediaeducation.ca/3754/?p=226

16. Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming Technology to Engage Students • For those who've been under a rock (or buried in a busy classroom -- trust us, we understand), the Wii is today's hottest gaming console, vastly outselling the PlayStation and garnering gobs of media attention with its inventive and easily understood games. More than twenty-four million Wii units have sold globally, according to its maker, Nintendo. • Here's a thought: Why not take a tech platform that kids are already nuts about and put it to use? That was the thought at Cumberland Elementary School, in West Lafayette, Indiana, where first-grade teacher David Brantley used a parent donation to buy three Wii consoles. Brantley integrated some of the Wii's games and online channels into lessons on weather and geography. The result: "A great virtual map and globe activity," he says.

17. Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming Technology to Engage Students • Ongoing research shows that students learn more quickly and easily with instruction across multiple modalities or through a variety of media. So educators are eager for new tools, especially ones that are a hit with students. • Brantley also began using Wii games with his students, including the console's golf, bowling, and baseball offerings. These have players standing and swinging like in the real sports -- minus the ball that could go crashing through a classroom window. Using scorecards he found online, Brantley turned the fun into an opportunity to practice data recording and charting.

18. Wii Love Learning: Using Gaming Technology to Engage Students Brantley's colleague, kindergarten teacher Mary Ford, has also used the Wii sports games in a joint activity with an older class: Ford and third-grade teacher Laura Smith paired up their students for a game of bowling with a little real-world math practice thrown in. "As the children took turns bowling, we asked them, 'How many pins did each bowler knock down?' and 'How many more do they need to knock down to get a certain score?'" explains Ford. "The third graders were able to add double digits and use mental math and estimation to determine a bowler's final score." http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-wii-gaming-technology-classroom

19. Teaching with Wii: a medical school explores A British university is using the Wii gaming device to train surgeons, according to the Guardian. The Banner Good Samaritan Hospital (Arizona) is exploring the Wii to teach fine tool manipulation. • "The surgeons develop an increased efficiency, less errors, more fluid movement - basically they're just better," says Dr Mark Smith, director of the hospital's Simulation Education and Training (SimET) Center. To be precise, the doctors who regularly played on the Wii scored 48% higher on tool control and performance than those who didn't.