Introduction to the case study: Transcript
Hello there. My name’s Derek Robertson and can I welcome you to Learning Teaching Scotland’s Consolarium, the Scottish Centre for Games and Learning, and it’s in our Dundee offices. I want to talk to you about the Nintendo DS, and in particular a game called Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training. Now we’ve been using this game in a Primary 5/6 class in a school in Dundee with a real focus on whether it can have any impact on mathematical ability and academic self-concept. So we’re going to spend a bit of time showing you the games, how the thing works, and also telling you about what we found.
So in order to use the game, lovely little thing here, got the volume up, got my touch screen here. It’s changed so it’s like a book, and I want to go into Brain Training I just touch it. I’ve got lots of options because I’ve opened all the games, and all I need to do is touch them to scroll through them. I’ve played quite a lot today so they’ve been blanked out, although I can play them again. So if I go up to calculations x20 for instance, touch it, it’s going to count me in, and I’ve got to write the answers here as quick as I can. 1, 6, 8, 6, 4, 36, 3 – didn’t understand what I’d written there, so I was too hasty – 9, 3, 15 – try and anticipate it, as quick as you can. Now the kids when they’re playing this in school are all trying to beat each other’s score. And what have I got? 16. So slow. 16 seconds. Train speed, ha. Okay, that’s how it works. Hopefully a lot more the video clips that are within this site will help inform you a bit more about what this game can do.