Author Archives: grahamstanley

I am a teacher, social media consultant based in Barcelona, Spain.

Top Ten interesting ipod/iphone apps for English language learning

The idea of mobile learning (or M-Learning) is starting to become more and more popular as more people get access to smart phones and other devices that allow them to learn wherever they are. Although only a small part of m-learning, the apps available for the iphone/ipod touch show what some people are using at [...]

English Attack – a new fun way of learning English

English Attack is a new way of learning English through videos, games and other online entertainment platforms. Aimed at the 15-35 year-olds and claimed by the founders to be “the world’s first 100% entertainment-focused online resource for improving English language skills”, it is now open for beta testing (you can request an account here) and [...]

Problem solving game to generate conversation

Here’s a problem solving game that is best played in a connected classroom (i.e. a classroom with a PC/data projector) – it’s even better if you have an interactive whiteboard (iwb) The game is called Crayon Physics Deluxe and a free demo can be downloaded from here: http://www.crayonphysics.com/ You will need to install the game [...]

The Uncanny Valley

An interesting video to use with Advanced class interested in video games

Spotlight on Digital Play Innovators #4: Hayo Reinders

Darren Elliott, who writes the great Lives of Teachers blog, recently interviewed Hayo Reinders, keynote speaker at the 4th International Wireless Ready symposium. An Interview With Hayo Reinders from darren elliott on Vimeo. One thing that comes out of the interview, that Hayo also mentioned in his keynote, is that existing games should be adapted, [...]

Gateway

Gateway is a short, absorbing and entertaining puzzle game with ten levels – you have to guide a robot through a number of different rooms, each of which require the solving of a puzzle. Highly entertaining, although it is easy enough to do, so it’s not so obvious how you can use this for language [...]

Spotlight on Digital Play Innovators #3 James Paul Gee

Later today (early tomorrow in some parts of the world), there’ll be an interesting opportunity to join James Paul Gee who’ll be in conversation with Steve Hargadon and Ed Hill about Video Games, Learning and Literacy. photo by Preoccupations Event: More Details are here Date: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern [...]

Storytelling – How important is it in a videogame?

Here’s a video about whether it is important for games to have a good story Suggestions on how to use it Ask your learners to think about games they know and their stories – Are the stories important? Could they be better? Get the learners to tell each other a story from a game to [...]

10 Sites for Playing With Images of Students

In September last year, we wrote about the film Gamer and featured a link to a site allowing you to create a Gamer film poster from your own photo. There are lots of other sites like this, allowing you to create altered images of yourself. Here are ten, with ideas of how you can use [...]

Ludoliteracy – a book about games in education

Ludoliteracy is a book about games in education by Jose Zagalwhich is now available as a free PDF download from Lulu . The book’s preface makes the point that games education can be surprisingly complex and that “extensive prior videogame experience often interferes with students’ abilities to reason critically and analytically about games”. Zagal suggests [...]