Mario Kart Project – Get Set…..
Based on discussions with the class, the restrictions of hardware and software, advice from my PLN and the curriculum restraints this is what I have chosen to trial this term.
There will be 2 leagues.
The first is a competitive league where 8 pupils at a time will race their tennis stars in a classroom battle.
How? I have set aside 8 of the DS devices which I am hoping I will be allowed to retain in my classroom solely for the use of the project until at least Easter. The pupils have chosen to name the consoles after tennis players (yes, Wimbledon was on at the time). The league has been drawn up on a point basis. The game will work out winners and points and the pupils will record these. For now I will keep the info in a Google spreadsheet with a view to possibly getting the pupils to duplicate the worksheet in an ICT lab.
What learning outcomes am I addressing here?
- reading tables, graphs and charts
- draw conclusions and explain them from data
- take an organised approach to solving problems
We will have 2 races each session, hopefully 6 sessions this term.
2 each time to ensure the whole class has the opportunity to play.
This will leave us time in the last week to draw our conclusions.
The second tournament will be a time trial competition.
Within the game there are 8 characters who each have 2 cars and 4 cups which each have 4 tracks.
This leaves a lot of space for trial and improvement of the project.
So we’re going to attack the first track in each cup with each player’s 2 cars – that’s 64 races – that’s more than enough for 1 term. This is an individual game so I’ll have to be careful about who’s getting to play. The pupils will be able to choose which character, car and cup to race until all of the blanks in the posters are filled in.
Each time trial gives overall time and best lap data which will both be recorded. The times are given in minutes, seconds and then decimal up to 1/1000 of a second. This will set up learning outcomes about time beyond expectations of the course. Extending easily into time calculations, we can also consider rounding, averages and further organisation skills.
So let the races begin!
Your feedback as always would be greatly appreciated.
Tags: Education, fun, games based learning, Getting Started, ict, Maths, positive, posters, valuable
ICT Teaching & Learning, games based learning | admin | 14 August 2009 |
4 Comments
Other Links to this Post
-
Mario Kart and DT | From Dawn till Dusk - Games and life — January 29, 2010 @ 9:08 pm
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By Anna Rossvoll, August 14, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
Really looking forward to following the development of your project. Great to see this being used in Secondary. Brilliant.
By Julie, August 14, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
Shame your school’s so far away – I’d love to come and see the tournament in action! It sounds like a great idea!
By admin, August 14, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
Hi Anna, Hi Julie,
Thank you for your comments!
Hopefully this will integrate well into our classroom routines once it settles in – I’m hoping it will be a good motivator and worthwhile reward for good behaviour and work.