My name is Judy Farr and I am currently teaching Year 5 at Cromer Public School. I have been teaching for many years from Kindergarten to Year 6 - in permanent, casual and temporary positions with the Department of Education. In 1983 at Winston Hills Primary School I encountered my first Apple computer and took it home to babysit during one school holidays to become familiar with this wonderful new tool. Probably the first game that I played was "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" and I spent lots of useless hours chasing Lemmings!
I moved into the corporate world for a number of years where I developed my skills with computer technology and when I returned to teaching in the early 2000's I found that I had skills that a lot of teachers from my generation were struggling to learn. I became a technology teacher for a number of years using many applications and assisting children to use the computer as an engaging part of the teaching , learning process across all areas of the curriculum.
To see my current class using Kahootz to design a game is amazing. My class is a very mixed ability group, but using this tool all children are using higher order thinking skills in designing a game. They are all extremely engaged, completely open to trying out all options, press any button to see where it will take them and are sharing their expertise with each other. This programme was completely new to me before I came to Cromer. We had a crash course in game design with Cathie (an excellent introduction but I still lacked confidence!) Now I walk around the room watching my children develop their skills without fear of making a "mistake" and thoroughly enjoying the game design process. I learn as they learn and I am as excited about the project as they are! I can't wait to play their games.
I too spent many, many hours playing Lemmings! Thank you for your post Judy, it is so great to have you on board with the project. I value your feedback on the project and look forward to reading future posts from you.
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