If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~ Charlie Parker
Gaming in the Classroom
On the Wallwisher: Gaming and the Classroom
Feb 4th
In preparation for a workshop this morning around game design and the new Common Core, I put out a call for friends in my various networks to add to a Wallwisher about the possibilities of gaming. There are some great ideas on this wall! Thanks to everyone who added a thought to the project. I appreciate it.
Peace (on the wall),
Kevin
We’re Moving Towards the STEM Video Challenge
Jan 26th
We spent a good part of the month of December, working on our science-based video game project. But yesterday was the first day I have had a real chance to chat with my classes about what I saw when I was assessing their projects and to give another overview of the STEM Video Game Challenge. My teaching colleagues and I have identified about 15 projects (out of more than 50 video games) that we think, with some revision and more work, might have a chance. We haven’t shut the door to the others but I wanted to encourage students whose games really did rise up above the others and reflect interesting game play and integrated science themes.
We had long conversations about STEM, and what it is, and why that is the push of this challenge. They were most interested in considering how science, technology, engineering and math are going to be much of the focus of the employment world when they head off into the marketplace (in 10 years or so).
So, they are now going to review their games (made on Gamestar Mechanic) and consider if they want take the next step. I have given them about four weeks to make their decision. This work will involve game revision; writing a short narrative overview of their game; and then going through the registration process, which I have promised to help walk them through.
My guess is that we might have 8 to 10 games that move forward before the March 12 deadline.
This is the first year we have done game design at our school (and probably in our entire school district), and this is the first year anyone from our school will enter the challenge, so I am hard-pressed to know how it will go. But, there was a lot of excitement as we talked about the competition and our games, and whether our work would stack up against other middle school game designers in the country.
I think they do stack up, and they will be very competitive as game designers.
Peace (in the STEM),
Kevin
Game Design Project: The Youtube Video Collection
Jan 19th
Our game design website, in which we examine how we used game design in conjunction with writing and science, has a lot of videos embedded in it, as we talked with our students and us teachers about what we were doing, as we were doing it. Our goal was to capture the project in the moment, and then use those videos to share out resources.
A few teachers said they were having trouble accessing the videos (hosted at Vimeo) in their schools. This might be a firewall issue or a Flash issue. I am not sure. But what I did was uploaded the videos onto YouTube and created a playlist for sharing out the videos in that format. There more context within our website resource, I think, but the videos (particularly those of the students) might be valuable for teachers considering game design as a project in the classroom.
Go to the Game Design Project Playlist.
Peace (in the design),
Kevin
The Games of The Hunger Games
Jan 17th
Yesterday, I reviewed The Hunger Games and I was exploring the Scholastic book site where writer Suzanne Collins has plenty of interesting videos about the books and her inspiration as a writer. I also noticed a link for some Hunger Game-inspired games, so I figured: I might as well check it out. There are two games on the site, both of which are really just advertising for the book.
The first, Trial by Fire, is a Choose Your Own Adventure game, which is kind of interesting since I was just re-exploring that genre last week as part of our blogging series around Mentor Texts for the Digital Writing Workshop. Here, you choose a name and you are the character in the Hunger Games, making decisions as the clock ticks down on you. The music made my heart beat faster, pointing once again to the power of all the multimedia elements for website design. The quick pace and the connections to the story were well-done, and I bookmarked it as a good example of an adventure story with multiple paths.
The second, Tribute Trials, is a quiz-style game, in which you are asked a series of questions on survival, and you are awarded characteristics — such as strength, courage, charisma — that are then tallied up at the end of the game. If you have enough of what you need (I never quite figured that out), you stay alive. I didn’t. I died.
The two games were nicely constructed, with direct ties to the novels. I imagine some of my students would enjoy them. It made me think a bit about how publishers are marketing to young people now, using game theory to spark an interest in the book. I wonder, too, if the games here would have been as interesting if I had not read the book. Would I care? It seemed like the content of the games were designed to tap into what I already knew about The Hunger Games series, but with the movie coming out soon, I suppose eyeballs will be searching the Web for Hunger Games content.
Also, I was thinking: how could I get my students to create companion games for the stories they are writing? What would that look like? Hmmmm.
Peace (in the games),
Kevin
It’s Nice to Get Noticed: Game Design
Jan 6th
Yesterday, I shared out my new Video Game Design resource, and it generated a lot of interest across various networks, including Twitter (which I hope translates into possibilities for more students to use video game design in the classroom). The site also got a few mentions here and there on other websites and blogs, which is always an honor. It’s not always easy to stand out in the cacophony of the web world.
First, Richard Byrne at Free Tech for Teachers gave me a warm shout-out. I always appreciate the sharing of resources that Richard does at his site and encourage you to visit Free Tech for Teachers on a regular basis.
Second, the Gamestar Mechanic teachers’ blog also focused on my website. The blog is a place where gaming projects are coming into focus, so to have mine in the mix is a nice honor.
Finally, I am working with a few new colleagues (mostly from Canada, it seems) to create a wiki resource space around gaming in the classroom. Julie Johnson is spearheading the effort, and it is just beginning, but we hope to have a collaborative site that can be of use to other teachers considering gaming as a possible learning activity. It’s exciting to be part of collaborative adventures!
Thanks to everyone who did drop by the game design site, and gave feedback through my various networks. I appreciate it!
Peace (in the connections),
Kevin
Site Launch: Video Game Design for the Classroom
Jan 5th
For the past few weeks, I have been sharing out pieces of a resource around video game design as my sixth grade students have created science-based video games. I often brought along my video camera for the ride, interviewing my fellow teachers and some of my students, and capturing some of the events as they unfolded with the project. I thought I might produce a video. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to keep much of the segments separate, and a website resource really seemed to be the way to go.
I’ve created this website called Video Game Design as a way to document our learning adventure around game design, science and writing in hopes that you might also consider the possibilities of video games in your classroom. It was quite an interesting project, which continues to unfold even now (some of my students will be revising their games for the National STEM Video Game Challenge). I’ve tried to show how the project touches on a lot of curricular areas, and connects with the Common Core initiative. And I have attempted to show how engaged my students were in their creation of a video game project.
Most of all, I want to emphasize that my young gamers moved from the “players” of other people’s games to the “creators” of their own projects, with a real audience (we used Gamestar Mechanic, which I highly recommend for this kind of project) and a real purpose. While there are areas I see in reflection that could have been done better, there is no doubt in my mind that this project transformed learning practice for a few weeks. It’s been a bit difficult to get back to the regular curriculum, to be honest.
I hope the site is useful for you. Feel free to pass it around and if you see things that need to be addressed or have some general comments, I would love for you to give some feedback here.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
Student Podcasts: Reviewing Video Games
Jan 4th
As part of our work around video game design, my sixth grade students were also assigned to play and review a video game. The game could be on any platform (and there was a wide range — from iPods to Wii to Xbox Live to web-based games) and the criteria for the review would be along lines of design, challenge, media and other elements that we have been discussing. What they didn’t know was that they were learning persuasive writing techniques, and use of rhetorical stance. They just thought they were able to play and write about video games.
This assignment was inspired by an online friend, Julie, who shared with me her own graphic organizer around game reviews. I adapted her organizer for my own needs, but I was grateful to have a starting point. If you need a starting point, here is the link to my own graphic organizer.
I wanted to give my students some voice, too, and so we used our iPod Touches and Cinch to record podcast versions of their video game reviews. I was impressed with how they came out, and have now pulled them together into a single folder of game review podcasts. Feel free to share with your own students, and let me know if you do a similar assignment. For me, this was yet another writing component to our video game design project.
Oh, and something interesting emerged, too, as the owner of a website called Gametrender kindly offered to provide publishing space on his website to feature our young writers. (He later told me he is a former teacher and sees the opportunity to nurture future journalists. You can read his post about it here.) I told my students this was an opportunity to publish to the world (the site gets a lot of traffic) in a meaningful way, with authentic readers. They were pretty excited about it, and I sent forward about a dozen reviews to be published there in the coming days and weeks.
Take a listen:
Peace (in the review),
Kevin
Final Reflections: Video Game Design Project
Jan 2nd
As I wind up my work on the video game design project, I wanted to reflect a bit on what I saw and what I learned, and what I need to think about for the next time we head off on this adventure. I decided to reflect via a comic.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
Connecting Video Game Design to the Common Core
Jan 1st
I’ve been spending some time thinking about the ways in which our science-based video game design project connects with the Massachusetts English Language Arts Standards, which were built off the framework of the Common Core. I created this chart to help me make the case (to myself, if no one else) that the project does indeed connect in a number of areas around reading, writing (or better, composition) and science.
Video Game Design Connections to Common Core
Peace (in the connections),
Kevin
A Student in the Gamestar Mechanic Spotlight
Dec 30th
One of my student’s science-based video games is in the prime “Spotlight” position in the Gamestar Mechanic community, which means lots of players are now playing his game. It is one of the better games that my students have created. He will be happy to see that all of his effort is getting not only recognition, but also playing time by many players. There are still things he can do to make it better and we will be talking about the revision process after vacation.
What? You want to play it? Give it a try.
Peace (in the game),
Kevin
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