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Merlin John

'Despondent' is not a word you would normally associate with Derek Robertson, the Scottish educator who runs the Consolarium, the Scottish Centre for Games and Learning in Dundee. More apt words that come to mind include 'focused', 'confident', 'dynamic' and 'energetic'. But Derek had just been immersed in the media coverage following the release of Dr Tanya Byron’s report, 'Safer Children in a Digital World'.

"It was focusing on the negative – what's bad with games and not about how we can use them to good effect," he said. "It seemed like another excuse to roll out the old chestnuts about obesity, de-sensitisation of violence, and there doesn't seem to be any counter-balance.

"When I go to speak to teachers and the education community here in Scotland I very rarely get cynicism or resistance to working with games. Schools can't get enough of it up here. I think the reason it's been a success is that everything I do is packaged up for effective teaching and learning that can make sense in classrooms."

It also helps that Derek is a teacher, a college lecturer and a teacher educator - he was seconded from the University of Dundee to be the development officer at the Consolarium. He knows what does and doesn't work in a classroom and he knows teachers and how to support them. That is why he is so assured and confident about how and why games can work for learning, and why adverse, ignorant media coverage can divert the debate.

As a teacher then uninterested in gaming, his conversion to the cause was the result of a 'bring and show' session with his students bringing in the activities they enjoyed at home. One child brought in a Nintendo and they played games on a television screen. The shock came when two boys who were at the bottom of his maths class turned in great performances on a maths-based game.

"I thought that they just weren't clever enough, that it wasn't me, it wasn't the curriculum," he says. "But when I saw them play that game it completely changed my attitude to them - it showed how good they could be in that context. I thought about how I could bring that into my classroom so these kids could achieve to the best of their obvious potential - and that's what got me interested in games."

It also proved something close to his heart, that children's learning experiences out of school have to be recognised, credited and nourished within the classroom. "Children come to school as learners already – they don't just start learning as soon as they come into the nursery. They come with skills, knowledge, experiences and pre-disposition to learning attitudes. One of the key things for me is the cultural framework from which they come, and I think it's really important that schools are aware of that and that they can tap into things that have got cultural value to learners to try and bridge that gap between life inside school and the life outside.

"Technology is part of children's everyday experiences and games are such a cultural phenomenon. It's not for us to dismiss them and to be worried, as opposed to looking at them for ways in which they can be used to open doors to traditional curriculum and maybe not traditional curriculum; to help children to become creative, to be the best they can be."

Children's expertise with games is something to be shared within schools so that they don't just think that learning is something that is 'dumped' on them at school, he says.

These arguments go down well with Scottish teachers and Derek is now working with schools in 24 of Scotland's local authorities, and that work is attracting interest from all over the world. There is talk of getting an extra development officer involved, and once the Consolarium is properly ensconced on Scotland's broadband education network, Glow, both interest and capacity will be set to increase.

Computer games are being used in a wide variety of ways in Scottish schools and with a wide variety of handheld devices. What Derek thinks is important is the design standard of the likes of Sony and Nintendo to make the gaming experience simple and pleasurable. The low technology threshold makes devices like Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS Late easy to use for both children and teachers.

In one primary school children are using the Nintendog game to build work on animal welfare. Of course they do all the other usual classroom activities you would expect. "They had to work together to look after the puppy and they make sure it's healthy, well fed and exercised," he says. "They took it to the dog competitions, they groomed it so it could get first place hopefully, it could earn money to go and buy more stuff to make sure it was a happy, healthy dog. It opened the door to fantastic writing opportunities, art activities, ICT for making animations about little dogs, design making kennels for the dogs and looking at properties of materials."

The project successfully exploits children's expertise. Those who already had a Nintendo and Nintendogs knew the game and they became the mentors for the children in the class who were new to it. "They were called the top dogs," says Derek, "and the idea was the top dogs had to get everybody else to status of top dogs so everybody was an expert in the use of Nintendogs. And what that's saying to children at that early age is, 'I am an active participant in the learning process. It doesn't just get done to me. I can help people, I've got something to share, I've got something to give to people as well as have things given to me.' That's a really important message. And when you see the primary children speaking about it, they comment on children helping each other and collaborating. They are using all these words."

There is no one approach for exploiting games in class. For example a teacher could create a branching story with students, generated by an adventure game. Or software like Dr Kawashima's could be used for mental maths or vocabulary work in modern languages. "The games can become the contextual hub for a cross-curricular project," says Derek.

An evaluation of Scottish students using Dr Kawashima's Brain Training has already provided positive results. Now Derek is working to extend this with colleagues at the University of Dundee across 16 schools with 16 control groups. As well as measuring success it could also help generate materials to be shared online – short videos, bite-sized comments and information and teacher stories, along with teacher voice and parent voice. And those at the highest level – Her Majesty's Inspectors of Education – want to see the data too.

Feedback from teachers, pupils and parents has all been positive. "I am getting countless stories from colleagues about the changing attitudes of pupils," says Derek. "About boys who wouldn't write before, people coming in early in the morning to make sure they are on time for school, people just so enthused by what's happening… Teachers said parents are saying when they used to ask their children what they did at school today the answer would be 'nothing'. Now with the Nintendo project they won't stop talking about what they have been doing at school. They see that as a good thing, a positive impact on the children, who feel good about coming to school. They are excited about what's happening in school and they are excited about learning and, as a result, they are achieving. The parents are really happy about it so there has been little or no resistance to the project so far."

Working with Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence, one of the Consolarium's aims is "to try and ensure that the learning experience of Scottish children is very much imbedded in the 21st century, to make school a place that children want to come to, and they are enthused by learning and maximise their potential," says Derek.

"A large part of my job is to try and create examples of good practice that are attainable for teachers and also are attainable in such a way that they can really enhance learning and motivate learners in the class. Teachers recognise good practice and good ideas but they need the tools and the ways into things that will help them get success. You have got to give people attainable success that makes them feel good about themselves, and then they will try things."

The plan appears to be working because many teachers are getting as clued up as Brian and their pupils. Surprisingly, many await the release of a new game with the same enthusiasm as the game players – Spore and Rock Band are top of their lists. Unfortunately these are not the sorts of stories you are likely to see splashed across newspaper pages. But they are an effective antidote to media-induced despondency.

Merlin John is a freelance editor and writer who also runs his own website at www.merlinjohnonline.net .

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