Aimed at children aged 8-13, it is a subscription-based, educational MMO that is designed to supplement learning in areas such as English, Math, Science and Social Studies. The programme was built for educational purpose; it is based on US frameworks and curricular but still links to the UK curriculum. 

This PDF details the learning objectives, what research was considered as part of the development, how it links to subject areas, as well as some benefits of using Massively Multiplayer Online Games in education. https://www.ageoflearning.com/style/standards/AAcademy_Curriculum_4pg_05_RGB.pdf 

·      Use of and reading of maps

·      understanding longitude and latitude

·      the continents, oceans and countries studied at each key stage

·      human and physical geography

·      the uk and its countries and features

·      fieldwork guides (how to read maps, how to carry out surveys, analysis and presenting of results and planning a field investigation.)

 

the website is incredibly easy to navigate with loads of fun interactive activities for children to complete. Content can be tailored to specific year groups making it extremely appropriate for use by students. Supports enquiry as it scaffolds them in planning their own.

World Mapper is more appropriate for KS2 than KS1. It can be used to locate countries and describe key features, for example population, environment such as agriculture and other relevant features. 

It is fairly easy to navigate. However, the maps cannot be filtered based on which country you are looking for so may have limited function. 

The maps are resized to show the features and for reference include the standard map. 

The website could be used to support an enquiry and will enable children to find features of the world as well as specific countries. 

Review:

-Easily accessible for children/child friendly 

-Offers a wide range of interactive activities 

-Information/activities can be tailored to suit different age groups/abilities 

-Relates to the national curriculum by including the use/reading of maps, understanding longitude and latitude, fieldwork guides, the continents, oceans and countries relating to each key stage and human/physical geography. 

These sets of games provided by national geographic kids allows children to play geography inspired games. They vary in difficulty, from matching country names, to pairing a landmark to the correct country. After each game concludes, a fun fact about a country is provided. They also have a section that has dedicated pages for a variety of countries that is easy to navigate and written specifically for kids. (https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/geography/countries)

o Appropriateness for use by pupils – can be used by pupils individually/in pairs or as a whole class activity/game on interactive whiteboard. Child friendly games. Doesn’t provide subject knowledge, more activities to apply the knowledge.

o Navigability – good, easy to use, can search for topic/subject area to find games to consolidate/practice knowledge. 

o Degree to which web site could be used to support an enquiry - based approach – not so much, more about practice knowledge with sorting games more than investigating into a topic.