Casual Gaming Console - The Nintendo Wii

Tip from teacher  Denise Tarlinton ICT Curriculum Support Teacher, Kurwongbah SS

To effectively use a game in the curriculum, you don't have to be a gamer yourself. Why don't you give the game to a child to play? Denise tries out all of her games on her own sons. Once they've mastered the game, they can show you through it. Whilst they show you through the game, you can take notes on possible curriculum links.
 

Big Brain Academy by Jeff Souter
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

Big brain Academy is a brain training game that provides the user with the chance to exercise their brain with a number of activities. Users can keep track of their progress and undertake regular tests to see how their skills have improved.

The game is made up of five categories that test different mental concepts.

• Memorize
• Analyze
• Visualize
• Identify
• Compute

Each category has a number of different activities or mental skills tasks that are either selected randomly or that the student can choose to practice. The software adjusts the difficulty of each task according to how well they accomplish each task.

Inclusive Considerations
The game is quite passive and doesn’t use the gross motor interactivity of the Wii remote. It requires the point and click function of the remote to interact with the game. It is more of an intellectual game, however, so the focus is not on physical activity.

The rules and procedures within the game are provided to the user through an odd looking character. The prompts are given in a text speech bubble – no speech is possible, so you need to be able to read or to have someone read the information to know what to do and how well you did. The requirements of the individual tasks are also given in text although students will learn quickly what they have to do for each task once they have played the game a few times.

Big Brain Academy does provide flexibility in the cognitive capacity of the user. The game automatically adjusts the difficulty level according to how the user responds to the previous questions. Users can choose specific activities to participate in, although all the various activities are required to be undertaken for the test.

Overall, it is an enjoyable game for students who want to test their cognitive skills and does have some inclusive capacity. It is not targeting students with very low level cognitive capacity but is an enjoyable way for students who are developing their mental capacity at the level that the game targets.

Cooking Mama Cook Off Review by Jeff Souter
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

Cooking Mama is a very nice cooking simulator that provides the students with the opportunity to learn the skills and knowledge similar to those required in cooking. The program comes with over 50 different recipes from all over the world that use over 300 different ingredients. The students can make the recipe as a solo activity, or compete against the game’s characters from different countries or against their peers.

The students basically choose a recipe they want to make. They can practice the recipe before getting scored on the final creation. Each recipe requires the student to prepare the ingredients, and then make the finished product.

There are numerous skills that are simulated in Cooking Mama, including chopping, peeling, mixing, pouring, stir frying, stirring, cutting, slicing, and even breaking eggs (no mess except on the screen).

As with most Wii games, Cooking Mama it is not a real life experience but more a simulator for the activity. Cooking Mama is a cooking simulation activity. It is not expected that by undertaking the recipes in the game that the students could be left alone with a knife or hot stove, or become a gourmet chef.

Cooking Mama does provide the student with very good experience in what is required in cooking various meals. They can experience what it takes to make the various recipes. The students learn what ingredients are needs, what preparation is needed and what order the cooking takes. Students can practice these things over and over until they would be able to use this knowledge to make the real thing.

Inclusive Considerations
Cooking Mama provides good opportunity for students to develop their awareness of cooking and basic cooking skills. Many students, particularly those in a special education environment, undertake cooking programs. This provides the opportunity for much more regular interaction with cooking than would be financially or practically possible.

Students develop skills in sequencing and undertake fine and gross motor activities as they practice. Although many of the actions are not exactly as they are in real life, the students experience a similar action as they participate in the preparation or making of the dish.

Feedback is provided through speech, so the user does not require literacy skills. The feedback is provided not just at the end but during the practice. Although some of the speech is a little difficult to understand, the intonation in the voice assists in its meaning.

Cooking Mama would definitely be one game I’d have in my kit, particularly in an early learning or special education environment.

Teacher notes
This game may be useful as part of a unit of work on cooking, diet, foods of the world or life skills. Could be useful for mainstream schooling and special education.

When you first start out the game play can be a little difficult to figure out.

SOSE Curriculum Application by Jeff Souter

Teacher Review
This game does take a while to get into. It's not one you'd pick up and play for 20 mins and feel like you've mastered it. However, if your students can make it past this initial phase of learning the game, I think its one that they'd really engage with it.

In the game, you are a scuba diver. You get to go on dives in the ocean and you have your own boat and a diving assistant. The area that you dive in is called Manurai - a ficticious place. Although the place is ficticious, the fish and other ocean-life that you encounter are based on real life ocen-life. As you discover new ocean creatures, they appear in your record book. Your record book is like a sticker book that you can view at any time you are on your boat. The more time you spend with and interact with the sea life, the more you learn about them.

There is also an interesting story that unfolds around the legends of the Manurai Sea and about the past of your diving assistant.

You receive missions to complete such as taking people on tour dives, taking underwater photos and visiting previously undiscovered areas of the Manurai Sea. You also get to train your own dolphin and can go diving with them.

If you know someone else with the same game and your Wiis are connected via the internet, it is possible to go diving together, although I haven't used this feature yet.

If you are doing a unit on oceans or reefs, this would be a great game to use as part of your unit of work. You may like to use it as lead up to a visit to an aquarium.

If I were using this in my classroom, before letting students loose on the game, I'd probably start by demonstrating to them a game that I'd already saved that had already got past the tedious beginning tutorial. Once they know what the game will be like and are enthused about using it, then I'd get them to start a new game and do the tutorial themselves.

To keep motivation levels high, you could offer competitions for the student that has discovered the most fish in their record book.

It would be quite easy to use this game as stimulus for a large number of science, sose and english activities.
 

Endless Ocean by Jeff Souter
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

Endless Ocean is a software application that provides the user with the opportunity to experience a simulation of underwater life and activities of diving.

Although the user interacts with the game through their character who is a Scuba diver, the program is not a diving simulator. As you use the game it does not require you to jump into your pool and start swimming, nor do you have to get down on the floor and start to dog paddle. It is more to allow the user to experience the types of activities that would take place during a dive. The diving doesn’t require the user to monitor their depth, rate of ascent or air supply, which is something that would be required in a real dive and which is something that I feel could be easily included in the game for more problem solving activities for the user. The user is given written instructions and tasks that they need to undertake as a dive guide on a tropical reef. They navigate to various locations and carry out the required tasks in order to obtain points and work through the game. It is similar to older style adventure games except the player uses the Wii remote to interact with the game.

Inclusive Considerations
From a conceptual perspective the game has a lot of potential. Students should be able to obtain some experience in what it is like to experience diving, including the various requirements for air supply, buoyancy, and
ascending and descending. The game unfortunately doesn’t focus on this component.

One of the negatives with Endless Oceans, so far as inclusive user interaction, is that practically all of the instructions are in written format. If you have difficulty reading, you will need some support to know what to do
throughout the game. There are a few games that only provide the instructions in text and that is frustrating for me because it would be very easy to add voice to the instructions without adding a lot of space to the game disc. It may, however, provide a motivating opportunity for students who are progressing their reading capacity, as it will motivate students to read what is on the screen. It could also provide opportunities for group work and support.

Endless Ocean doesn’t use much gross motor functionality. It is mainly click and point and a little bit of up/down and sideways movement of the remote. This is not useful if you want to develop gross motor skills.

It provides users with some sense of life under water and for those students that are able to read or have the support of others, does provide some good information about the creatures of the sea.

Overall, it would be a good game for students who are learning about the ocean and who either have the capacity to read or who could obtain that support from others.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Review by Jeff Souter
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

As the name suggest, this game is all about the Olympics and students can participate and compete in the Olympic events, just as they would see on TV. All the events use the motor movements of the Wii remote, with some of the games requiring a lot of energy and enthusiasm from the player.

The package has over 20 different events that the user can play. The events fall into the categories of:

• Athletics – both track (100 metres, 110 metres hurdles, 100 metres relay, 400 metres) and field (hammer throw, javelin, long jump, high jump, triple jump, pole vault)
• Swimming – different characters have different swimming styles. Events include (100 metres, 100 metres relay)
• Skeet Shooting
• Archery
• Fencing
• Gymnastics – trampoline and the vault
• Rowing
• Table Tennis.

There is also a Dream category which is more like your arcade style of games. The students still use the techniques of the regular events but can acquire special powers and will gain points for successfully achieving tasks presented during the game. This makes the events a little more challenging but provides a motivating variation to the events.

Students can play individual events, undertake a circuit of a selection of events or missions where you must obtain a certain goal (not necessarily winning) in the various events. Up to four players can compete at any one time, depending on the event. Some events have everyone competing at the same time while others like shooting have the competitors taking turns (turn taking is often a goal for students).

Inclusive Considerations
With a range of games in the package, there will be a sport that most students can achieve at. As students develop their skills, they will be able to participate and succeed in other events. The range of games in the package means there is longevity in the package.

The user can interact with their game using one of the characters from the Mario or Sonic range or using their own Mii. Using their Mii would personalize the interaction and perhaps further motivate the student.

There is a very large range of movements of the Wii remote involved in the events. This allows students to develop a wide scope of motor and coordination skills within the one game package.

Many of the games involve high degree of physical input to the upper body and would develop aerobic capacity. Some require the coordination of gross motor input as well as fine motor coordination in the pressing of various buttons. This may be problematic for students that don’t have the coordination skills but may also be an  opportunity for students to develop such skills.

One issue that a number of people who have played the game have is that it may not be demonstrating the true spirit of competition and the ideal of the Olympic Games or good sportsmanship within the characters. When characters don’t win or place highly, they throw “tantrums” and are clearly disappointed. It would be appropriate to have the characters display a little less competitiveness and show some sense of achievement regardless of where the player finishes.

Students will almost certainly improve their fitness and physical skills while enjoying themselves and competing with their friends.

SOSE Curriculum Application by Jeff Souter
Develop an awareness of flags around the world and the continents/ global location of the countries.

More ideas for how this game could be used in the curriculum

• Some of the elements of this game require greater physical exertion than others. This game could be used to encourage reluctant exercisers! It may also raise students' interest in the actual real-life versions of these sports and could be a way to help them learn the rules.
• Build students' critical literacies by investigating in-game advertising.
• If you have four wiimotes and nunchuks all sports can have up to four players. It can also be a non-threatening way to encourage social interaction between students (and staff).
• The on-screen characters do not always exhibit sporting behaviour. While this is disappointing, this could be turned into a learning opportunity. This behaviour could be used a stimulus for discussions and activities around what is sporting behaviour and looking at real-life athletes and how they behave.
• Do the relay - 4 x 4 - 16 students can participate a time. Record the race times and use them for Maths.

Wii Fit: Full Body Learning Experience Review by Jeff Souter
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

As students become more able at using the function of the Wii, they will quickly develop their coordination of the upper body and hand eye coordination. Most of the regular games of the Wii, however, are limited to the upper body. The Wii Fit uses the capacity of the Wii to become a full body interactive system.

The Wii Fit package is made up of the Balance Board and a series of full body activities designed to motivate as well as improve fitness.

Each user has a training schedule that they can undertake. Their progress is monitored when they use the Wii. It keeps track of time used, weight change and variation in Body Mass Index (BMI). Once the user has identified their personal weight goal, they can undertake training in the four areas of the training program:
Yoga: The user follows the Wii instructor in carrying out the various yoga poses. Points are scored on balance during the activities.
Muscle Toning: A series of activities to increase muscle tone are done with the Wii instructor providing feedback. The activities tone all areas of the body.
Aerobics: The user can undertake a number of fun activities that will increase the fitness of the student. Some of the activities include hula hoop, Step Aerobics, jogging and Step Punch Aerobics.
Balance: This is probably the most fun area of the package and will have the students focus. The user shifts their weight around the extremely accurate and sensitive balance board as they interact with the games. Some of the balance games include soccer goal keeping (the player must head the soccer balls and avoid the boots and other obstacles kicked at them), snow skiing slalom, snow skip jump, tightrope walking, snow boarding, a labyrinth style game, an iceberg fishing game involving a penguin, and a bubble balance game.

The more the student uses the Wii Fit the more games become available to the user or the games will open up more challenging levels. This in itself is motivating to the student and keeps their interest in the program.

Inclusive Considerations
The Wii Fit provides an opportunity for students to develop flexibility, strength and fitness while enjoying playing the various games in the package. Students don’t see the Wii Fit as a workout tool but they are certainly working out as they interact with the device. Some students have demonstrated their willingness to exercise only
through the Wii Fit.

The Wii fit provides excellent feedback to the user in the Yoga and Muscle sections. The Wii instructor, who is a virtual trainer, provides their instructions and feedback in text format as well as through voice. This provides alternative means of feedback but also assists those who have difficulty reading to independently undertake the
activities. It also means you don’t have to watch the screen as you do your Yoga or muscle activities.

Students who need to develop their balance and weight distribution skills will be able to develop these skills as part of the balance games. The motivation and fun involved in the balance games will quickly have students increasing their balance skills which will carry over to their real life requirements and experiences.

Success is achieved immediately and as the student progresses more challenges become available that will match the student’s ability.

The student can monitor their progress by graphing their weight and time they have used the Wii Fit. This could be done as a Numeracy activity.

The cost of the Wii Fit is about $140 and would be a very useful addition to a school Wii program.

More teacher ideas

• Maths: Collect data from the game and use it in a Maths exercise.
• Fitness: Students could use this to develop a physical activity/training plan.
• Fitness: Students could compare a virtual trainer to a personal trainer.
• Fitness: Students could compare virtual routines to other face to face options.
• Fitness: Investigate the place and purpose for the use of Wii fitness tests. Students could develop a list of guidelines and investigate whether the fitness tests provide data that is reliable or worthwhile.
• HPE: Investigate if consoles have a place in training for sport skills/techniques. Are the useful psychologically? Are they useful for skill acquisition?

Find out how Toowoong SS use Wii Fit in their classroom

• Download an overview of their project (PDF - new window - 1.5 mb)
• Download their physical activity diary (PDF - new window - 95 kb)

Thanks to Ben Tupas from Toowong SS for supplying this information.

Teaching note
from Jeff Souter 
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

The activities also enable students to develop skills in visual scanning, recognition of common features and decision making.

Teacher notes
Here are a few ideas of where Wii Sports could be used in schools.

• play it with children who cannot play sports due to a physical disability
• use the bowling game for the basis of a Maths investigation for how scoring in real-life bowling works
• use it to exhibity turn taking, cooperation and social skills
• play it to improve students' hand/eye coordation and gross motor skills
• play the games with students and then explore the rules of each game, why rules are important, etc.
• use the games as a stimulus for getting non-sport inclined students interested in sports
• use the games at lunch time to increase physical activity levels of students who do not normally engage with physical activity.

More information about each sport by Jeff Souter 
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities

Tennis
This is probably the easiest game of the five to play as it only requires the user to swing the remote as they would a tennis racquet. No other buttons need be pressed during the tennis match. One to four players can play the Wii. When one or two players are playing the player controls both tennis players on their side – both tennis players swing at the same time. Each match is a maximum of five games, so the matches are not a long ordeal (although a few more games would assist where the students would benefit from a longer workout or activity).

Boxing
Boxing is the most physically demanding of the sports although it is fairly easy to play. Students that use the boxing on a regular basis will work off a lot of energy. It involves a number of skills such as where to punch, blocking punches and dodging punches. The user does not need to hold other buttons down, so it is an easy activity to learn.

As boxing is a combat sport, check with your Principal before using this game with a class.

Baseball
This requires the player to become part of a baseball team. The student takes on both the pitcher and batter, depending on whether their team is currently batting or fielding. The computer controls all other players. When batting the student needs to time their swings
but they don’t have to hold any other buttons down. With the pitching the student can simply pitch the ball or by pressing various combinations of buttons, can make the ball swing. This function is useful for getting students to learn how to use buttons while they are moving the control.

Bowling
The bowling is often the most popular of the sports but is probably the most difficult of the five sports to play. The student goes through the normal bowling action but to release the ball they must hold down one of the buttons and release it at the right time. Releasing too early makes the player drop the ball (or throw it into the crowd behind them) and releasing too late makes the ball bounce.

Golf
This requires timing and control in the swing – although it is much more forgiving than normal golf. The user is required to hold down one of the buttons as they swing which increases the motor skills required by the student.

All the sports can be practiced with a number of fun variations to the games. Each game has a training mode to help the user hone their skills. The user can also keep track of their abilities in speed, power and timing, using the test facility.

Inclusive Considerations by Jeff Souter 
ICT Learning and Develeopment Centre - Students with disabilities
Gross motor functionality can be significantly improved with all games. Some games do, however, require the user to have some fine motor and motor coordination skills, as they need to hold buttons down during play. This can cause problems for some students as they are learning but can also improve their coordination in other non-Wii activities.

While some of the sports are more complex in their motor skill requirements, many only require the capacity to hold the remote and carry out the gross motor movements. This makes the Wii Sports accessible to most students. Catering to individual ability levels and increasing the skills of the opponents ensures the students are always challenged.

Wii Sports uses the player’s Mii character which motivates the user and personalizes their playing. As the student improves, the Wii keeps track of their success, graphing their progress and increasing the difficulty of the Wii opponents. This keeps the students challenged and provides opportunities for students to continually improve.

A channel that allows you to create your own Miis (a Mii is a cartoon character that you can develop). You can either design your Mii from scratch or by starting with a look alike. Miss can be used in other activities and games.

Mii Channel's official web site

Teacher ideas
Here are a few ideas of where the Mii channel could be used in learning.

• Create a character for each student to show their moods
• For students that have trouble expressing their emotions, have them show how they are feeling by modifying their Mii character
• Have classroom contests for creating Mii characters around certain themes (eg. a scientist, robin hood). This could also lead to discussions around stereotyping
• Create Miis that portray a character in a story - either a novel that the students are reading or a story that the student is writing
• Create Miis to represent a character in a story. The class then votes on which character the class will use. Students can graph the results. Students could make a list of attributes and characteristics that make it suitable to represent the chharacter
• For use in LOTE or ESL: students create Miis to take part in a fashion parade. The students introduce 4 - 5 characteristics of the Mii in the target language
• As a motivational tool to write a character profile
• May fit in with the QCAR develop a character task
• Could link to a visual images unit. To create a Mii students have to interact with the Mii generator program that requires students to recognise symbols to customise their Mii. Students could use this to look at how colour/shape/symbol create meaning.
• Use creation of Mii as response to a question to stimulate discussion on stereotypes (eg. body image)
• Use for social interactions - role playing situations.

Thank you to the teachers who have contributed their ideas.

Other Teacher ideas 

• The message channel allows you to send messages directly to a Wii console. This can be done between two consoles that are both on the internet and it can also send and receive email messages. This could be used as an alternative way to communicate between home and school.
• Penpal with other Miis