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Quarantine and home school is robbing students of physical play. At the same time, this might be when they need it the most.
Hours in front of the PC screen is taking it's toll on all of us during times of social distancing. While many adults are used to sedetary days like these, young students are used to having physically active breaks throughout the day.
Because physical activity is so important in childrens development, we have physical education as part of the regular classes. Physical activity is also very important for childrens mental health, research shows.
The problem is that home school and quarantine is robbing the students of these physical activities. In worst case, breaks are filled with video games or online content - more screen time. If the students are lucky, they have siblings to play with.
Teachers are often left with assigning walks as the physical education alternative.
At Wittario we have a goal of creating outdoor learning activities, and thus we can provide teachers with some tools to activate students. We think using game mechanics is great for motivate both learning and physical activity. The basic platform is free for teachers. Currently, we are also offering the full version free of charge.
So what is this platform? Foremost, it is an outdoor learning game.It has two komponents: It is an app that is available on App Store and Google Play. This app is used by the students for navigating between tasks. The app is also used to solve tasks such as multiple choice, free text, photo- and video tasks and mini games using augmented reality.
There is also a web based platform for the teachers. This is used to create task collections, monitor the game progression and evaluate and grade answers.
There are several game types, but in a home school situation distance based or solo games are probably the most practical options. Distance based games do not require the teacher to set waypoints on a map - just set the distance of the game. Teachers can choose an existing task collection and start a game in 30 seconds. The game code generated can be used by the students wherever they are.
What about assigning a game as homework.
Teachers can also easily create task collections of their own as shown in this How-to collection.
Other schools have already started using the platform and you can too. Register for a free administrator account on our Content and game manager. Provide the students with your unique organization code and off you go.
See what other teachers say about the platform.
