It seems that, since launching last year, Microsoft’s Kinect has been in the headlines for just about everything except gaming. Which isn’t all that surprising, really, when you compare Kinect-powered experimental deathcopters with Fighters Uncaged.
Anyway, turns out Microsoft has now introduced Kinect to South African classrooms, as part of their Live@Edu pilot program, aimed at helping second-, third-, and other sequentially numbered-language students to learn English.
According a press release, the program currently sees eight specially-trained teachers in Lakeside Park Primary (in Vryheid, Kwa-Zulu Natal) working with Xboxes and Kinects in their classrooms.
“In South Africa’s rural primary schools, the chances are good that a learner’s home language is not English, but rather one of the ten other official languages,” says project coordinator SchoolNet’s Peter de Lisle. “But in many schools, English is the language of learning from as early as Grade 1. The huge challenge is to create learning experiences which help to bridge this gap, rather than exacerbate it. The teachers saw the promise of Kinect’s English-based games – involving the hesitant young learners in trying the new language, through active involvement in play.”
Presumably once the kids have grasped the fundamentals, they’ll move onto proper life instruction in Halo and Gears of War.
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