This was an experimental class created on mentimeter.com. We wanted to have a more interactive discussion with our Year 8s and 9s (13-15 years old). On this occasion, I can't take any credit for the slides, as my partner Dylan set up the entire thing, but he is kindly allowing me to share it here. The class took 45 minutes, and was a success with each year group. We conducted it online, but in a classroom you could split students into groups and hold real debates.
It is very easy to host a presentation on mentimeter. All you need to do is click present, and have students follow the code at the top of the screen to access it at the start of class. I have shared the screenshots below from Dylan's presentation, but you would have to create your own on mentimeter to hold this class in an interactive manner.
To start with, we had students give a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' to represent yes or no answers. We explained that the question mark was to anonymously state confusion. If we saw a question mark at any point in the lesson, we would go over a point again. This was a good time to ask students for their favourite game.
This opened up a discussion on PCs, consoles, or mobile gaming. Some questions to ask - pros and cons of each type, games you can/can't play on each, affordability of each.
Dylan gets the students to reiterate their favourite game and works out which type of game it is (e.g. Minecraft is a sandbox game, Call of Duty is a shooter, Mario Kart is a racing game). Some students also bring up 'RPG' (role-play games). It helps to have done a bit of background research beforehand. It's a good slide to have the question mark on.
We're not sure where the picture went when we downloaded the slide but we usually have a picture of an e-sports competition here. Ask students to define it, and state their opinions on it. It's also a good time to mention live-streams of games, e.g. on twitch or youtube. Ask students why people like watching others play games.
Things to discuss here: improving languages (we often get onto the topic of Among Us and other games where you talk to other English speakers), relaxation, reflexes, educational games.
Things to mention here: posture and health problems, difficulties sleeping, small screens and eye problems, violent video-games.
We generally discuss VR - 'have you ever tried VR?' Also a good time to mention photorealistic games and the 'uncanny valley'. Students tend to have strong opinions on this.
We finish the class by asking them to fill in their opinions here. It's a good task to do, as it gives shy students a bit of thinking time. We then feed-back to the group, and see where debates arise. Let the group lead its own discussion here.
Let me know if you use any ideas from this class. We've noticed that most students play some form of game here, so tend to be quite keen to chat on the topic. Don't be afraid to pick on students - the worst that can happen is they say 'I'm sorry, I don't play any games'. But that hasn't been our experience here!
Comments
Post a Comment