Getting our brains in gear for Coffee Morning

  mike.jpg 
  Originally uploaded by digitalagency's.

I thought more of the Edinburgh Coffee Morners would know about the DS Lite and things like Dr Kawashima's brain training. They didn't and, as you can see, our Godfather Mike needs a bit more training before his mental age comes down from the 80s. Oh dear. There are some

Derek has been setting up (and filming this week) trials of different DS games in various Dundee primaries to see if they really do impact on teaching and learning. I'm looking forward to seeing the material on a blog near you soon... I was suggesting to some of the dads there this morning that it might be one way to help with the spelling and maths of their offspring - worth a try anyway until the research comes in.

As a language teacher by trade I've been really interested to see what the effect of playing the game bilingually will be over the next few months. I've set up three profiles in which I will record the results in three languages: English, French (in which I am supposedly bilingual) and Dutch (which I don't really speak at all). I'll rotate the order in which I attempt the brain age testing and practice so that each language gets an equal crack at the whip, give or take a margin of error of one day. Over four months or so I'm interested to see what I end up being more intelligent in.

I can already say that it's really hard to do in French. For me the English has maybe had more practice from previous trials of the machine and the Dutch is merely codes for me - the words hold no deep mental relationships and the instructions, since I know them in English already, are providing an entertaining way to learn the grammar of the language.

I'll post here on whether I'd be better off writing in Dutch than English...

Comments

[chris]

For sure the DS lite helps the basic maths - especially tables! That's probably the most useful aspect (apart from staving off senility) - unless you regularly need to keep tabs on people going in and out of a building. This is spectacularly challenging when they use the chimney as well as the door - would be great training for a surveillance team :-)

[olly]

Your DS was great fun this morning. Coffee, chat and learning! See you next week.

[Alan Coady]

Ewan,

I'm beginning to wonder if Kawashima has built in a a default of age 80 so that some sort of progress is ensured. I too began in my 80s. The next step was 56 then 36. Not even surgery could produce an improvement like this in a few days. I got from 56 to 36 when I was really tired and "succeeded" in raising it to 40 a couple of days later, when I actually felt quite zippy. It doesn't make sense, man!

I love your idea of creating varous profiles in differeing languages. Very inventive! Have you ever thought of teaching? :-)

Changing the subject completely, I note that you occasionally say feed-reading has caused you to miss a couple of things. In case you missed this, let me recommend an inspirational short film about the artist Jonathon Harris, which I reached via your blog today - by clicking the link "Mike" and then scrolling down his blog. Harris is doing very interesting things with aggregation and connectivity. The short way there is: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2007/03/jonathan_harris.php

[Mike]

Blimey, the default is set at 80!

What a relief.

As my actual age is 93, I think I can feel quite chipper about yesterday's performance.

Ewan, one of the things I love about the Edinburgh coffee morns are the occasions when in addition to chat, we noodle around with things like the DS, or the time when Ed when he brought his digital air guitar in or the QR tests we did. In a way, it kind of brings the 'theory and abstract' content of the blog posts we write to life.

There's a lot of that goes on during coffee morning, which makes that first working hour of Friday from 0800-0900, invaluable.

A 'Don't tell me, show me', method of learning.

I suppose when you work closely in educational environments, 'hands on' becomes second nature. But I'm sure if more business/marketing/advertising people played around, and in a sense, 'got their digital hands dirty' with things like DS lite, Wii, the features on their mobile phones, widgets on their desktop, trying out social bookmarking, uploading to flickr, seeing if their organisation was on wikipedia, (and if not having a go at writing an entry themselves), even dare I say it commenting on blogs, (let alone writing one), they'd undersyand and learn a heck of a lot faster about the way things are and where they might go.

Instead of reading the odd article in the Economist or Marketing Week,then deciding they get it. Or heaven forfend, that's this 'internets' (see George Bush passim) thing, isn't to be taken seriously.

Oh dear, I've just realised, what started out as an innocent, hopefully humorous comment about my DS Lite mental age, has turned into a bit of a rant on a wobbly soapbox.

Which I guess in a mildly circuitous way does indeed demonstrate my mental age.

I wonder if the DS has any relaxation techniques I can try?

:-)

Thanks, as ever for your wonderful blog Ewan, and your contribution to the coffee morns.

[Ewan McIntosh]

I wonder if they really do start at 80 or if, the first time you play it, you're slower as you work things out. I'll have to create a new profile and see.

Hands on is the only way I learn - it gets me into trouble sometimes because I can't abstract things and need to make my own mistakes. That said, it's also led to some unexpected successes for the people I work for, so it has some merit!

[Matt]

People should really read the labels before purchasing. Nintendos Brain Age/Big Brain Academy are not scientifically validated. The only company I know in this category that has actual published science results is Posit Science.

My parents have been using Posit Science's Brain Fitness Program for a little over a year now. They swear by it and I have noticed the difference in just talking over the phone with them. It really works.

http://www.positscience.com/

[Ewan McIntosh]

It's a game, Matt, and I think we all realise that, thanks ;-) Is it good for practising things we don't normally practise? Yes. Is that helpful? Definitely. Nuff said.

We'll see in our own trials whether either game has an effect on numeracy or literacy.

Thanks for the links to positscience