Owl Jr. Project

Joined 7 October 2011
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== Welcome to our class counterpart of the Sugar Labs wiki. ==
 
== Welcome to our class counterpart of the Sugar Labs wiki. ==
 
We are students and faculty from Oakland University working to bring literacy resources to the Sugar OS.  As we develop materials from class research, our content will gradually become available.   
 
We are students and faculty from Oakland University working to bring literacy resources to the Sugar OS.  As we develop materials from class research, our content will gradually become available.   
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Spelling Games
 
Spelling Games
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Letters (by mulawa1) was inspired by the TV show, "Letters and Numbers." This game gives players 8 letters and has them make as long a word as possible. Letters contains a dictionary of 42,566 English words, giving children endless possibilities to test and improve their vocabulary.
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* Letters (by mulawa1) was inspired by the TV show, "Letters and Numbers." This game gives players 8 letters and has them make as long a word as possible. Letters contains a dictionary of 42,566 English words, giving children endless possibilities to test and improve their vocabulary.
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GCompris Missing Letter (by Activity Tea) gives players a word and requires them to fill in the missing letter(s). This activity promotes the growth and use of cognitive functions by teaching words and spelling in a non-traditional way.   
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* GCompris Missing Letter (by Activity Tea) gives players a word and requires them to fill in the missing letter(s). This activity promotes the growth and use of cognitive functions by teaching words and spelling in a non-traditional way.   
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Falabracman (by alecu, hectorsanchez) contains a character named Falabracman. Players help this character to learn new words by collecting all of the letters in the correct order, which helps improve their memorization.
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* Falabracman (by alecu, hectorsanchez) contains a character named Falabracman. Players help this character to learn new words by collecting all of the letters in the correct order, which helps improve their memorization.
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Listen and Spell (by Manusheel, Chirag, Assim) helps children to learn and revise word spellings, vocabulary, and pronunciation. It includes an extensive database of words with their usage and definitions categorized according to their difficulty levels. Listen and Spell even gives players feedback on the development of their skills, and seeing progress will keep kids motivated to continue learning.
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* Listen and Spell (by Manusheel, Chirag, Assim) helps children to learn and revise word spellings, vocabulary, and pronunciation. It includes an extensive database of words with their usage and definitions categorized according to their difficulty levels. Listen and Spell even gives players feedback on the development of their skills, and seeing progress will keep kids motivated to continue learning.
       
Reading Games
 
Reading Games
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Textdungeon (by Tony Forster) places the player in a dungeon setting and aims to improve literacy and numeracy. There isn’t much information available on this game yet, but the idea of a dungeon game (one that involves a character defeating challenges and reaping rewards for his/her triumph) creates a strong premise.
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* Textdungeon (by Tony Forster) places the player in a dungeon setting and aims to improve literacy and numeracy. There isn’t much information available on this game yet, but the idea of a dungeon game (one that involves a character defeating challenges and reaping rewards for his/her triumph) creates a strong premise.
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GCompris Click On Letter (by Activity Team) has the child listen to a sound and select the corresponding letter, which will enhance the phonological aspect of language and literacy acquisition.
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* GCompris Click On Letter (by Activity Team) has the child listen to a sound and select the corresponding letter, which will enhance the phonological aspect of language and literacy acquisition.
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Read ETexts (by James Simmons) lets children read free e-texts from Project Gutenberg or use Text to Speech to have e-texts read to them. This application has over 24,000 titles available for browsing and downloading and will provide all children with access to interesting stories that can spark their interest with reading.
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* Read ETexts (by James Simmons) lets children read free e-texts from Project Gutenberg or use Text to Speech to have e-texts read to them. This application has over 24,000 titles available for browsing and downloading and will provide all children with access to interesting stories that can spark their interest with reading.
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Writing Games
 
Writing Games
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Story Builder (by Morgs, Activity Team) is a graphical story constructor tool for children to drag and drop a variety of characters into a background and create an imaginative scene. It includes simple word-processing capability to encourage and facilitate free-form creative writing and original stories.
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* Story Builder (by Morgs, Activity Team) is a graphical story constructor tool for children to drag and drop a variety of characters into a background and create an imaginative scene. It includes simple word-processing capability to encourage and facilitate free-form creative writing and original stories.
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OOo4Kids (by Bastien, Activity Team) is an Office suite for creating texts and presentations. This program is fully OpenOffice.org and MS Office compatible. The diversity of the sheets promotes the transfer of knowledge at a very young age. The Microsoft Office suite is one of the most prevalent computer packages in the educational, professional, and recreational spheres of contemporary society, so starting children on them at an early age would be greatly beneficial to their future success.
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* OOo4Kids (by Bastien, Activity Team) is an Office suite for creating texts and presentations. This program is fully OpenOffice.org and MS Office compatible. The diversity of the sheets promotes the transfer of knowledge at a very young age. The Microsoft Office suite is one of the most prevalent computer packages in the educational, professional, and recreational spheres of contemporary society, so starting children on them at an early age would be greatly beneficial to their future success.
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Turtle Blocks 117 (by Walter) is an activity with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art with snap-together visual programming elements. We would like to contact the game developers with the intentions of expanding the purview of the existing game to orient more around our linguistic lessons. We envision a “Writer’s Blocks” game (pun intended), where several blocks will appear with different words on them. The blocks can then be manipulated into a variety of structures, encouraging students to explore the basic parts of speech and the composition of sentences.
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* Turtle Blocks 117 (by Walter) is an activity with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art with snap-together visual programming elements. We would like to contact the game developers with the intentions of expanding the purview of the existing game to orient more around our linguistic lessons. We envision a “Writer’s Blocks” game (pun intended), where several blocks will appear with different words on them. The blocks can then be manipulated into a variety of structures, encouraging students to explore the basic parts of speech and the composition of sentences.
    
Though we found multiple applications related to reading and spelling on the Sugar Labs website, there are several important curriculum points that are only partially addressed or entirely omitted. Lessons on grammar, sentence types, introductory audience awareness, and revision are largely omitted from the extant games. Some of them don’t readily align with the game formats we’ve investigated thus far and will, therefore, require creativity when adapting the content to new programs.
 
Though we found multiple applications related to reading and spelling on the Sugar Labs website, there are several important curriculum points that are only partially addressed or entirely omitted. Lessons on grammar, sentence types, introductory audience awareness, and revision are largely omitted from the extant games. Some of them don’t readily align with the game formats we’ve investigated thus far and will, therefore, require creativity when adapting the content to new programs.