Irish teachers experimenting with Nintendo DS and Wii in the classroom

Posted in: Blog, Uncategorized by James on August 11, 2009

When I attended the ICT in Education conference in Thurles recently I had the opportunity to meet with a number of inspiring educators.  But there was one in particular whom it was an absolute pleasure to finally meet in person - Ban Ryan.

@lismiss on Twitter had been piquing my curiousity for quite a while with tweets linking to and discussing many wonderful uses of technology in education. But there was an apparent anomoly. This woman had mentioned her grandchildren on several occasions and that just didn’t sit well with our preconceptions about Irish educators.  How could someone past the age of 50 be contemplating a DIY setup using Wiimote controllers to make a cheap Interactive Whiteboard?

What I eventually learned was that Ban Ryan had been a primary school teacher for forty-one years and a teaching principal for twenty-eight of those.  She continues to work with SEN children for a number of hours each week as well as acting as tutor/ facilitator to teachers interested in integrating ICT into their classroom practice.

But for those of us following her on Twitter Ban is simply a mine of information. And inspiration. Yesterday she published an article to the website of the Computer Education Society of Ireland about her experiments using the Nintendo DS and Wii gaming devices in her classroom -

I gradually extended the use of the DS to other areas of the curriculum, larger groups and eventually to the classroom itself as players can challenge up to 15 others by using DS Download Play on a single Game Card. The enjoyment and achievement factor contributed to the children’s personal and social development. I have found that children learn to work together, sometimes leading and other times following, thus engaging them in decision-making, being supportive of their peers and developing positive relationships. Their concentration improved also and all were highly motivated to improve on their personal scores, which in turn built greater self-esteem.

Make sure to read the full article and absorb the importance of what Ban is saying. I can’t emphasise enough how significant I think this article is in terms of the message it delivers to Irish educators -

In conclusion, the Wii and the DS, in my opinion, are great affordable tools to integrate into the curriculum as they are student centred. They help to build class cohesion, to foster whole class participation, to promote independent learning and healthy competition. We teachers are all working with students for whom interacting with some sort of screen is second nature. I personally like to take advantage of that when I can to make learning engaging for today’s students.