I had a fantastic opportunity to visit Victoria Primary School in Edinburgh with the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research. The P7 class had been learning about asthma, how it effects the lungs and breathing, what can make it worse and also what can be done to help it. As part of their learning they designed games uses a fantastic product called Bloxels where they could create characters, levels, baddies, fun fact clouds and all sorts which is then scanned and created into a virtual game on an iPad.
The kids we saw had invited other year groups in the school to come to their Asthma Arcade to learn about asthma as they played the games. It became quite competitive as the P7 kids were wanting to get rave reviews from the others who came and played them. It was amazing to play what they had created and to see how each child was totally different and could go crazy with their imagination. There was no 2 games that were the same, some I found very difficult but I think that is more because I lack gaming ability than anything else.
Seeing schools using novel and new tools to help children create and learn about something as important as asthma in a fun way and they all understood the reason for doing it. Some of the children had asthma and some didnt but the enthusiasm each of them had made going today really worthwhile even when presented by one child with an Asthma UK donation box asking for money!!! (sorry Asthma UK I didnt donate as didnt have pennies on me, but always willing to donate). If you want to see more the school has a twitter account where you can see more about their Bloxels and Asthma Aracade using this link: Victoria P7
I cant wait to see more that comes from this and hope that we can use their input in SPEAK Asthma events and meetings that we do in the future.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 