Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley July 2008 Issue June 7, 2008 Exercise Your Brain for Success Crosswords, Lingo, Sudoku, and “Brain Age” games are among the most popular cartridges for the Nintendo DS handheld game system. Among students using the popular social Web site Facebook, versions of Scrabble and Boggle are the most popular games. As a teacher, I am thrilled. Word games dominating a popular Web site? I definitely did not see this coming. There are places to share scores, discuss strategies, and exchange user-created puzzles. Because I specialize in learning disabilities and special education, I’m especially excited to discover that students living with dyslexia and similar “decoding” challenges seem to enjoy these games. I’m not sure what started the craze, but anything that gets students wondering what a five-letter synonym for “remove” is can’t be bad. (The answer was “purge.”) When I was growing up, my mother always had a Dell Crossword or Find-a-Word book nearb...
technology • teaching • writing