Technology in the classroom is booming, and while some may find it disconcerting, one retired teacher sees an opportunity to cure an epidemic of grammatical malfunction.
Feir Johnson is an award winning educator who finished her career teaching teachers about different learning styles and about curriculum. Now she has a new passion: video games. Johnson has created a computer game called “How to Grow a Sentence,” that teaches kids and adults how to make proper sentences.
“Grammar was being removed from the curriculum and children were being asked to proofread their work, and how could they proofread it if they have no concept of how a sentence had to be constructed?” Johnson said.
With 33 years teaching language arts and English from grades 1 to 12, Johnson had enough experience to know what worked for kids. She started out with an “old school” solution, an actual physical game that had children “grow” sentences in the form of plants. Now, like everything else, she’s moved her plant game into the digital realm.
She’s applied for government grants to help develop her idea of having kids improve their grammar by using the game. “How to Grow a Sentence” is not only educational in terms of grammar however; the sentences themselves are based on Canadian history.
Introducing digital media into classrooms is not a new invention, but support from the federal government and the educational institutions has been rapidly increasing over the past decade. Ottawa has a grant worth $50,000 for media organizations and entrepreneurs who qualify to further develop children’s media and multi-platform projects.
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