Happy to see how well Mingoville – the first RIA for the Danish Ministry of Education I produced when working for DELC – is doing. Mingoville is the first of a series of online learning materials ordered back in 2005. In 2009 an evaluation of all the materials was conducted by Læremiddel.dk and the results have been summarized in this report.  I am pleased that the general response from teachers and pupils is very positive. To think that I contributed to the creation of a product that means pupils learn more in a shorter span of time!  This is something that we as a team genuinely belived would be the case, when we were working on it. But now it has been confirmed at least by one of the teachers interviewed in the evaluation.

Den ene af lærerne udtrykker efter kontinuerlig benyttelse af  Mingoville i en 3. klasse fra starten af skoleåret overraskelse over, hvor meget eleverne lærer: Efter ca. to måneder er de nået længere og kan mere engelsk, end han hidtil har oplevet med analoge læremidler.
source: http://www.laeremiddel.dk/media(9292,1030)/Kap_6%3A_Sammenfattende_om_l%C3%A6remidlerne.pdf, p.263

Translation:
One teacher after continuing use of Mingoville in a 3. grade class from the beginning of school term, expresses his surprise over how much his pupils have learned: After  2 months app. they have accomplished more and knows more English, than he has ever experienced with analogue learning materials.

That’s really something! This might be obvious, when you theorize about the potential benefits of an online gamified learning material. But the media is just the truck. To actually execute all the good intentions – to actually design the app in way that uses the media’s full potential takes good planning and a good understanding of the media and the audience.

Apparently the kids are completely engaged when they are learning English through in Mingoville, and the kids who are not normally active suddenly become alive:
En lærer kalder Mingoville en ”opmærksomhedsmagnet”: ”Eleverne har fra dag ét været meget selvkørende. De har kunnet gå til tingene i deres eget tempo, og de har været engageret i at ville lære de her ting,” siger han og noterer, at elever, der normalt er meget stille eller tilbagelænede, er meget mere på, når de bruger Mingoville. Eleverne skal lære det samme som i analoge begyndersystemer, men ”måden at gå til det på er meget mere dem.”
source: http://www.laeremiddel.dk/media(9292,1030)/Kap_6%3A_Sammenfattende_om_l%C3%A6remidlerne.pdf, p.258

Translation:
A teacher calls Mingoville an “attention magnet”: “From day one pupils have been self driven. They have been able to do stuff in their own pace and thay have been engaged in wanting to learn these things”, he says and notes that pupils who are normally quiet and reserved are much more in there, when using Mingoville. Pupils are presented to the same subjects as in analogue startersystems, but “the way to approach it is much more them.”

These days Mingoville has evolved into a social learning platform, which I have nothing to do with – but which I think is a splendid idea and very well executed by my old colleagues and with help from guys at Molamil.