TEACHER COMMENTS

At its best the schoolyard is an attractive learning environment that encourages observation, self-expression,
investigation and interpretation – a place where play and exercise come together. An inspiring ground educates and stimulates learners. The school grounds become a new classroom and a more diverse teaching facility, which provides even fairer learning opportunities for different learners.

To reach this goal the SmartUs Ltd. is collecting versatile user feedback from the SmartUs user communities in schools. The data collected both from the pupils and the teachers show the way to develop the products further.

Teacher comments about the use of SmartUs playground and game creating tools
in three schools in Netherlands and Finland 10.9. - 12.10.2007

Strengths of SmartUs Playground

Children use their whole body in learning

Playful way of learning

Teaching and learning outdoors

Informal way of learning, learning after school hours

Platform for drill kind of exercises for pupils

Playful process fosters group working

Children learn the games easily, they guide each other

Playing on the SmartUs playground doesn’t require any special skills (i.e. technical skills

Children guide adults for playing SmartUs (3 generations together)

 

Challenges and ideas for further development of SmartUs Playground

Positioning the iStation central unit (can’t to be directed toward sun)

Adults (teachers) had difficulties in playing the SmartUs games, pre-training is needed

Teaching outdoors (how to organize it)

an idea: iGrid also for indoors

an idea: a bigger screen for the iStation

The online score board on the playground

Quick registration point for the iCards (solution: the inGrid or the Score Box indoors)

 

Strengths of SmartUs Tools

Children learn the game making software easily

Children like programming new games

SmartUs Tools foster group working and project kind of working

Teachers have many ideas for new games (math, geography, languges, music, visual arts)

Most of teachers will use the tools in teaching

Challenges and ideas for developing the SmartUs Tools

Organizing the work of game creating is demanding (teacher has to have a good plan and experiences)

The LinkIt tool is more demanding for teachers than for pupils

an idea: Game templates which could be modified

an idea: more ready-to-use images for the ImageGallery