Handheld Learning

Well if it's in The Sun...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/article1202937.ece

A story about Oakdale School in South Woodford, Essex who are using Nintendo DS's in class.

A more detailed version of the story in the local paper at:
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.2292348.0.sth_woodford_school_first_for_brain_training.php

from the Redbridge Primary ICT Blog:
http://redbridgeprimaryit.blogspot.com/2008/05/nintendo-ds-in-class-whats-good.html

From what I can tell from the Redbridge blog this project has been inspired by the work that Derek Robertson and the team at LTS in Scotland have been doing so I'm sure that they are already considering other game based learning ideas for their crop of Nintendo DS's.

Nintendo Wii's and Playstations are also finding their way into the physical education classes with add-on's such as Wii Fit and dance mats. An interesting recent article can be found in SecED here:

http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/cgi-bin/go.pl/features/article.html?uid=3826

Here's a video for Wii Fit, the displays kind of remind me of something from Star Trek Classic...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/RlOG3PM_xHA&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/RlOG3PM_xHA&rel=0</a>

I think the things is that it's becoming clear that commonplace gaming technologies are being accepted into the learning environment which bodes well for the upcoming Handheld Learning Conference :-)