Wow, this is just the kind of article I...needed
I work in a residental school for children with autism. And um, at the risk of sounding like a dick, let's say that none of the kids are...really capable of reading, or posting in this topic. >>
One student maybe, but that's it. Out of the school's 150-student population, I can only think of 3 students that I'd call "gamers". They like Mario games [actually, one of the students in my classroom picked up Glory of Heracles and Spirit Tracks on a home visit (keep in mind he's comparable mentally to a 3 year old). I saw the receipt he took with him to school, looked at it and actually laughed "Holy shit!" out loud - I couldn't keep it in. Keep in mind this boy is MR and can't read let alone tie his shoes, yet he's got the best gaming library ever. WHAT] but, for most of the students at my school they have a hard time understanding the controller in relation to movements onscreen.
That tangent written out, my boss actually approached me as she was considering purchasing a Wii for the classroom - we're a research school as well so finding out how well it works out for the population would also massively benefit us as well
At the time, Natal wasn't even proposed and I was on the fence about it most of the time, not really sure how well it'd fare with our population.
After seeing the Kinect, however, it's like this lightbulb in my head went off - it's interactive gaming like the Wii, but it's more like those IR gaming setups you see at children's museums, but downsized and playable right in the household. And it's controller-free.
A year's about passed since I started in that classroom, and our classroom demographic has changed dramatically, from having the highest-functioning to medium-low, but it's amazing - I think this new group of kids could actually take advantage of the Kinect much better than something like the Wii - especially since the menus are voice-activated and don't really require much reading skills. I'm seriously considering bringing back the proposal with new information and the support from some other teachers - and it seriously helps when one of the teachers is a hardcore gamer who plays a ton of FPSes on PSN
Even if we're brand-loyalty nerds it's impossible to not acknowledge the accessibility of Kinect
The only thing is that I'm pretty sure some of the higher-functioning kids would be humongous jerks and shout "XBOX, SHUTDOWN" while their classmates are playing, rofl
oh no i've typed like an entire article what have i done
PS. Now that I think about it, I've heard Kinect is extremely finicky about voice-recognition. Only one student in the class can really speak clearly and loudly; every other student has speech impediments in one form or another (grammar most of all, but particularly pronunciation - one student's pronounces L's like Spanish LL's, so ruler becomes "rooyur"...hmm) so I don't know if that'd be difficult for Kinect to pick up
But, now that I think about it, can Kinect do voice recognition like
-every student has a profile
-to test voice commands, student "reads aloud" phrases back to Kinect, similar to how it's done with cellphone voice-activated command works
-Kinect understands strings of phrases, i.e. "XBOX - Start ____"
if so that'd totally work, but I'm sure Kinect is tailored so specifically that it recognizes your Brooklyn accent if you have one
I work in a residental school for children with autism. And um, at the risk of sounding like a dick, let's say that none of the kids are...really capable of reading, or posting in this topic. >>
One student maybe, but that's it. Out of the school's 150-student population, I can only think of 3 students that I'd call "gamers". They like Mario games [actually, one of the students in my classroom picked up Glory of Heracles and Spirit Tracks on a home visit (keep in mind he's comparable mentally to a 3 year old). I saw the receipt he took with him to school, looked at it and actually laughed "Holy shit!" out loud - I couldn't keep it in. Keep in mind this boy is MR and can't read let alone tie his shoes, yet he's got the best gaming library ever. WHAT] but, for most of the students at my school they have a hard time understanding the controller in relation to movements onscreen.
That tangent written out, my boss actually approached me as she was considering purchasing a Wii for the classroom - we're a research school as well so finding out how well it works out for the population would also massively benefit us as well
After seeing the Kinect, however, it's like this lightbulb in my head went off - it's interactive gaming like the Wii, but it's more like those IR gaming setups you see at children's museums, but downsized and playable right in the household. And it's controller-free.
A year's about passed since I started in that classroom, and our classroom demographic has changed dramatically, from having the highest-functioning to medium-low, but it's amazing - I think this new group of kids could actually take advantage of the Kinect much better than something like the Wii - especially since the menus are voice-activated and don't really require much reading skills. I'm seriously considering bringing back the proposal with new information and the support from some other teachers - and it seriously helps when one of the teachers is a hardcore gamer who plays a ton of FPSes on PSN
Even if we're brand-loyalty nerds it's impossible to not acknowledge the accessibility of Kinect
The only thing is that I'm pretty sure some of the higher-functioning kids would be humongous jerks and shout "XBOX, SHUTDOWN" while their classmates are playing, rofl
oh no i've typed like an entire article what have i done
PS. Now that I think about it, I've heard Kinect is extremely finicky about voice-recognition. Only one student in the class can really speak clearly and loudly; every other student has speech impediments in one form or another (grammar most of all, but particularly pronunciation - one student's pronounces L's like Spanish LL's, so ruler becomes "rooyur"...hmm) so I don't know if that'd be difficult for Kinect to pick up
But, now that I think about it, can Kinect do voice recognition like
-every student has a profile
-to test voice commands, student "reads aloud" phrases back to Kinect, similar to how it's done with cellphone voice-activated command works
-Kinect understands strings of phrases, i.e. "XBOX - Start ____"
if so that'd totally work, but I'm sure Kinect is tailored so specifically that it recognizes your Brooklyn accent if you have one
