Apart from the games that you buy and creating Miis on the Wii, the team the Puzzle feature of the Photo Channel on the Wii to be useful. One idea is to ask learners to take pictures that are suitable to turn into puzzles for the Wii - eg signage, equipment, clockfaces. This can be used to stimulate recognition of key information.
We created some pictures using PowerPoint to use in lessons and I thought it might be useful to create some templates to ensure we were creating images that were making best use of the screen space. You can download the PowerPoint by clicking on this link: Wii_template.ppt or click on each slide below and then save the picture. These slides that can be used with the Doodle function on the Wii:
All my previous Wii posts can be found with this link: http://lilian-mlearning.blogspot.com/search?q=wii. We had the Wii connected to the Internet using the USB wifi connector and software on one of their laptops. The Internet Channel was easy downloaded and we started storing some websites as favourites on the Wii.
Here are some of the good games from the sites that work well on the Wii:
Paint. As the name suggests, a good simple paint program for creations using the Wii remote
Stringem Up. A simple word search game
Hangman. Allows one or two player game play
Zoo keeper and games like this can be used to stimulate communication skills. Form two teams and take it in turns to tell the teacher which animal to switch by using words only (not pointing!)
Paint Blocs can be used in a similar way to Zoo Keeper, but is also good for pattern and colour recognition.
Pointer is a great game for hand - eye coordination using the Wii remote.
Scribbl e - another great game for hand - eye coordination
Japanese Food - a memory game that can encourage teamwork
Guess 5 - a word game where you have to guess the 5-letter word
Fridge magnets - One team can drag some letters on to the board for the other team to turn into words
It's worth looking through the various categories on http://wiiplayable.com and http://psponme.com/list_psp.asp to find the games that can be used for curriculum purposes or that stimulate communication and teamwork. Once you have found one, add it to the Favourites on your Wii for easy access.
Have a look through the BBC Skillswise games and quizzes too. I looked at two that could be useful: http://tinyurl.com/ynlhfb and http://tinyurl.com/6gf9jmy
You can do your research on a PC before adding the sites to the Wii. You may find it useful to use a URL shortening service like http://tinyurl.com or http://goo.gl so that you don't have to enter long URLs on the Wii.
