Primary School Teacher Uses Nintendo Labo As A Creative Classroom Tool

A LEGO Contender !
Here my place, people usually use LEGO as Creative learning.
Nintendo LABO Should be included in Curriculum, just like Sakamoto or Kumon teaching methods.

I don't think it is fair nor educative to use expensive, brand related stuff in schools as tools by teachers. Its ok for people to desire things like consoles or other expensive stuff obviously, but the role of a teacher is different, a teacher should teach you how to be independent and that you don't really need those things.

@LuckyLand couldn’t agree more. 👍🏻

@LuckyLand Do you think every resource a school uses isn't branded? Technology like this is an excellent learning tool. What makes it expensive is all the other uses for the joy-cons. I applaud this teacher for his willingness to look past the economical aspect (by likely paying for it himself, but I could be wrong about that) and modernize his curriculum to encourage critical thinking. If anything, the Nintendo branding generates even more interest from students due to its reputation. If this same product were made by a company that only makes classroom tools and was relatively unknown outside the education industry, would you feel the same way?

as a school governor... money is tight, so i don't advocate schools buying Labo to use, but if it was made available i'd love it to come to my kids school. Anything that stimulates kids brains and gets them interested in "why/how" is great in my book.
As for not using Branded equipment... sadly long beyond that. Apple ipads anyone??

@LuckyLand
Why not ?
Peoples are used to know about LEGO, Ipad, etc.
That's a Great Opportunity for Nintendo to introduce LABO as a New Contender.
Soon, it will become a Culture.

@wariosmith : Exactly. iPads are pretty much a requisite for modern students, and worst of all, they're perhaps the most expensive tablets on the market, and I don't know how receptive schools are to non-brand name tablets.

My younger brother is on his second (if not third) due to damage/misuse.

@Anti-Matter @fiben1002 "That's a Great Opportunity for Nintendo to introduce LABO as a New Contender." school shouldn't be a place for Nintendo, or Apple, or anybody else to advertise their products.
And yes, a company that make only tools specifically intended for schools would not bother me the same way because that would be their role, they would only do their job, it would not be trying to advertise something in a place that is not intended to advertise commercial products but is intended for much more important purposes instead.

@wariosmith
Ipad is More Expensive than Nintendo Switch + LABO.
Ipad is Too Mainstream, Boring.
Nintendo Switch + LABO is Different and Interesting.

This school also uses 1-2-Switch as a punishment in detentions, ha, no, I knew this kind of article would inevitably pop up... It's just a calculated publicity stunt (how else does such a trivial thing conveniently get in the news?)

@LuckyLand
Nintendo at School as Lesson.

@Haywired
"This school also uses 1-2-Switch as a punishment in detentions, "

Huh ?
Punishment for what ?

That’s neat. Here in the states, I was in an adjunct program in 4-6th grade where some of us got to attend classes at a uni twice a week. One of the coolest parts was working with robotics, and that was over 20 years ago.

@LuckyLand I think that if it can be done without detriment to any other programs, it should be encouraged. It allows for more engagement, as well as discussion around how things we use daily can actually function.

@LuckyLand Educational products aren't made by schools. They're made by businesses. Businesses need income to operate and expand, even non-profits. If those products need to also be capable of non-educational tasks to support the companies that make them, then so be it. How do you think schools in low-income areas acquire things like ipads and new computers? They're donated by companies that can make up for the loss with profits gained elsewhere. Would you prefer that poorer students have even less access to relevant skills in the modern workforce?

@fiben1002 we are doomed if relevant skills needed by young people are related to Switch, iPad and other similar products. I wouldn't care anymore if that was the case, because literally we would be doomed in that case. But I absolutely don't think this is true. I absolutely don't think the quality of the learning process get better if you have Switch, iPad or other similar products in your school. This is only a way for big companies to promote their products to people so young that are even more easily influenced.

I think having games in school would be a really good thing if done right and I will share some videos that should show us good reasons :+).

There is also this side as well, but this video is about 5 years old now, so many things could have changed since then, but yeah, hopefully we in the future see games/interactive activities in school to help make kids interested themselves in learning :+).

@LuckyLand Influenced into what? Are these 5-10 year olds buying their own games/tablets? Just because the product has a name and logo on it doesn't mean the kids are being shown ads for it. My five year old has a kindle that she uses for educational games and she has absolutely no idea who makes it and could care less. Nintendo was able to develop a tool that can teach simple robotics in a safe and comparitively-inexpensive manner thanks to its ventures in other industries. These kids don't have to visit a nearby university, and they can handle the cardboard themselves. If the kids enjoy the lesson and ask their parents for Nintendo games, that would make them...regular kids. It's not like they'd be asking for cigarettes.

I’d like to have known more about how this teacher is utilizing Labo, such as how many Switch consoles he’s using and the number of kits he or the school bought. Lot of credit to the teacher for trying something new.

And that was the day Switch became uncool in Crawley.

@LuckyLand At my high school, we have chromebooks and every student gets a school Google account and must use Google drive and Google classroom for many assignments.

Also, why does the article say there is a biscuit when it is clearly a cracker?

@fiben1002 if kids at home ask their parents for Nintendo games after their teacher decided to use Nintendo hardware at school and develop his lessons around it that would make the teacher a salesman more than a teacher and the school not what a school should be in the first place.
Kids have always wanted Nintendo games, but school is something else and for good reasons as I already said multiple times. Your 5 year old daughter maybe does not know what Kindle is, and probably many other child are in the same situation as well, but I'm sure all of them know what a Switch and/or an iPad is, they know what something with the name Nintendo on it is and school should remain independent from such things.

@LuckyLand They aren't advertising, they are making tools that engage students and help them learn...

Why is this a bad thing?

N should just give the labo (cardboard ) and lend a few consoles for the day. very little expense and you will have 30 kids running home shouting mommy mommy i want a switch ( im a shareholder, sorry i know parenting is hard but i wana get paid )

@LuckyLand That doesn't make the teacher a salesman. Is he selling desks, paper, and pencils as well? Is Crayola some evil company that brainwashes children because they made 90% of the crayons and markers I used at school growing up and their name is on every single color? The teacher is only using the switch as an educational tool. I highly doubt he is letting them play skyrim on it too.

@LuckyLand I dread those ''iPad schools''. It was a big experiment that was set up in my country a couple of years ago and it failed big. The result is that I have to deal with a great number of students who are unable to properly write a readable language or draw something as simple as a circle or a square.

A little bit of an exaggeration of course, but their fine motor skills seem to get worse every year.

@Octane
"The result is that I have to deal with a great number of students who are unable to properly write a readable language or draw something as simple as a circle or a square."

There were so many of my students still unable to draw Circle or Straight line properly during my Drawing lesson.
Some of them tends to give up easily.

That is so cool and part of what Nintendo was hoping for. I hope in time more schools catch on to this.

This is exactly what Labo is made for and I can't stress enough how important this is.
This should be a mandatory part of curricula worldwide!

Branding in schools has been around for decades. I take it that some here have never seen a teacher's catalogue? Where I am, Chromebooks and iPads are taking over some classrooms and computer labs.

I applaud approaches like this that get kids to think outside the box (literally) and maybe learn something along the way.

Gotta brainwash them early, eh? Luckily, in my county they don't have the money to throw them on useless corporate publicity stunts.

Cya
Raziel-chan

@LuckyLand My school PCs were all DELL branded.

I was clearly so influenced that I ended up buying HP instead.

@Knuckles-Fajita I don't even remember the brand of the PCs in my school, you know why? Because a brand that makes PCs usually is not as attractive as Nintendo for a kid. And that's why if there is a PC in a school it's not such a big deal and I'm not concerned about it.

The inevitable Labo used as an educational tool news article we all knew was coming and the inevitable arguments for and against. Sigh, Nintendo news is rather boring at the moment especially after a disappointing E3. Being on next year already.

@Mr_Zurkon Hi! I've managed to accumulate 6 Switch consoles and a further 6 pairs of joycons. Each Switch has Labo variety kit 01 in it.

I’m going to be running a library program with LABO the Saturday after next! It’ll be an all-out Robot Wars tournament with the RC cars... we’ve got a lot of people already excited about it (librarians like myself included)!

More educational than Mario is Missing.

@LuckyLand So... only mediocre junk like DELL in school is allowed to be branded but if it is something engaging and exciting that will motivate kids to problem solve, it can't have a brand because that will make them want engaging exciting things that motivate them to problem solve. Mediocre junk okay to advertise in schools. Exciting learning tools, not okay. Got it.

I understand not wanting schools to be a place of competing advertisements, but having companies compete over providing devices and products that educators want to use... that's a good thing. If businesses were to completely ignore schools, how would this really help?

Sure it might make some kids want something they can't have or their parents can't afford, but they will have access to it they wouldn't otherwise, and that adds value to their school experience.

There's some middle ground here.

#33 just doesn't make sense. So if Dell releases a kids toy that explodes in popularity all Dell computers should consequently be removed from schools? In my opinion all businesses who invest in making something educational that teach us good things should be applauded. It's so easy for Nintendo to release yet another Mario Kart or Mario Tennis, Labo is more risk so kudos to Nintendo. Just awesome if the product can be used to teach & educate for real.

Yeah, too expensive for education.

Keep schools paying massive licenses to Microsoft so they can use software that's also available free.
In fact, let Microsoft and other US tech companies hide their taxes, and then we will soon be able to keep money out of public education forever.

So yeah 1 Nintendo Switch between 5-6 classes of 35 children per day. What a waste of money.

Much better the money spent on 100s of MS office packages so that children can learn =SUM(). Couldn't have done that in libre-office.

Anyway, why should we teach children about new technologies? The Brexiteers have a future of Fruit Picking, Fishing and Coal Mining set out for our youth.

It's really great that still there are such teachers who have some passion about what they are doing and are making the process interesting. For example, at my school most of the teachers were dumb af so a lot of students had to use sites like https://pro-papers.com/ to pass the exams. Really wierd times..