Janine’s blog

At the Simulations, games and learning symposium held in Melbourne in February Vanessa Pittard from Becta in the UK gave this presentation. She made extensive reference to recent research in order to explore the potential of games in education and note future research needs.

During the presentation she noted trends and developments wrt young people’s

• general use of ICT
• use of games, and
• use of ICT at home for educational purposes.

She went on to descibe the UK policy context in terms of lots of money invested towards supporting engagement of students:

• BBC online curriculum and BBC Jam - to support student-led learning in he home and elsewhere, incorporate the latest digital technologies combining video, games, audio and animation, an aim is to inspire even the most reluctant learners
• “extended school concept” – home/school/parents
• the “e-mature” learner – need “e-mature” leaders at all levels (Note: UK coined term - not yet in Wikipedia!)

The survey UK children go online concluded that students are a fairly confident generation.
Research references:

Bober and Livingstone, (2004 ) UK children go online - surveying the experiences of young people and their parents , LSE
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/bober/UKCGOsurveyreport.pdf, accessed 17-Feb-2006

DfES, (2005) Harnessing technology- Transforming learning and children’s services
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/docs/e-strategy.pdf, accessed 17-Feb-2006

Kirriemuir, J. and  McFarlane, (2004) A.  Literature Review in Games and Learning - A Report for NESTA Futurelab  http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/reviews/08_01.htm  accessed 28-Feb-2006

Pratchett, R. (2005) Digital Play, Digital Lifestyles
http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/files/bbc_uk_games_research_2005.pdf  accessed 28-Feb-2006

Valentine et al, (2005) Children and Young People’s Home Use of ICT for Educational Purposes, DfES  http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR672.pdf , accessed 28-Feb-2006

UK children go online - surveying the experiences of young people and their parents (2004):

The UK Children GO Online report presents key findings on childrens and young peoples’ internet use. The report is at http://personal.lse.ac.uk/bober/UKCGOsurveyreport.pdf and a BBC news report about it titled “Parents underestimate Net risks” is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3910319.stm .The UK Children GO Online report presents key findings on childrens and young peoples’ internet use. The report is at  and a BBC news report about it titled “Parents underestimate Net risks” is at .