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At Jørpeland School, we have taken part in the pilot project of the Molecool game. All together, five different classes have played the game and all class levels in the junior secondary school have participated. In general, experience of the game has been positive. The pupils refer to the game as “cool” and they have often wanted to play.
Background knowledge
The pupils background knowledge varied considerably. Some of them had a fair knowledge of chemistry (10th grade). Other children saw chemistry as fairly new ground (8th grade). But all the pupils seemed to show great interest in the playing of the game.
As far as computer knowledge was concerned, the pupils were also fairly unequal. Some were experienced computer gamers and others had hardly touched a computer prior to the Molecool game. In our opinion the game was not sufficiently self-instructive during the pilot. It looked as if the classes who received instruction both in regards to content and gaming had a much faster approach to the game and profited more from the playing than those who were left alone from the start.
Some points worth mentioning:
- When the game starts, the pupils have to wait for the graphics etc. to be loaded in. This has to be emphasized as most young people are impatient because they are used to playing from a CD-ROM, where things move faster.
- At the places where choosing difficulty level is an issue, it is usually sensible to start on the easiest level. After a while, the pupils can test themselves up to higher levels and most players will end up finding “their own” level.
Do the pupils learn anything?
During the Double or Quits quiz session, our experience was that the pupils put great effort into finding the right answers. They looked up problems in books and used the teacher eagerly as another source of learning. In our opinion Molecool encouraged pupil-autonomous learning – which we know is the most efficient form.
As the aim of the game is a competition on gaining most points, pupils find the work exciting and interesting. They are trying to beat each other and they also try to beat their own personal records. We even played against another Norwegian school, and a competition between the schools took place straight away.
Our conclusion here at Jørpeland School is that Molecool can be used for teaching purposes, especially for subjects like valence electrons, the hydrocarbon chain and which atoms that are likely to be combined with others.
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