DDR + Science Instruction = SciRAVE

SciRAVE is a pretty cool idea: take a fun game like DDR or Guitar Hero and have the songs be about Science topics. The game works like any Dance Dance Revolution game, you have to step on the matching arrows as they rise to the top of the screen. The arrows rise to the beat of the song, in this case science songs. The goal of this game is to teach children concepts of science while they are playing an enjoyable game. The only problem I have with the game is that the words are too hard to understand for most songs. Also, so much focus is going into hitting the arrows at the right time that there is little time to focus on the lyrics. Other than that it's a pretty fun game. You can check it out at: www.jmtour.com/scirave/

Matt put together a little video of screenshots taken while playing the game.

And here is the rest of it.

Hands-on: Facesay (Autism) by Efrain

A video Efrain Reyes made after having an actual experience using a video game that allows autistic children to develop better social understandings.

And here is the rest of it.

Handigo for People of All Abilities

In what is the first cross-blog post between this blog and my Exergame Lab blog, Ubisoft released a free online game called Handigo The Game. Actually there are three mini-games (Sensory handicap,  Motor handicap, and Mental handicap) and their objective along with handicap International was to play games that puts you "in a disabled persons's shoes."  Of course I must take issue with that phrase as we all know the importance of using first person language, i.e. "person with disability or "person with a handicap."  

Fitspott: Spotting PE teachers

Cortland Alumni David Gise (1991 - BS Adult Fitness) created Fitspott, a new social networking platform for anyone interested in health and fitness, a robust platform to meet, communicate, exchange ideas and more. Fitspott also wants to organize the very large and convoluted health and fitness industry into easy to navigate sub-communities of members with similar interests, goal, skills and needs. Currently they are in Beta testing and they will be launching mid September 2008.

Fitspott will be collaborating with me and you to see how Fitspott might be used by physical educators. This will be great opportunity for you to get in on something new from the ground up. and will be just one of many real-life practical opportunities that you'll have. Please take advantage of it and really strive to be the best, most up-to-date teacher in your school, district, state, and country. No one will ever give you anything except maybe an opportunity, what you do with it is up to you.