We shall see…

I’m going to try and remember to record thoughts on games design and its place in our curriculum over the next few days. I know. Calm down.

http://www.stencyl.com/

It creates flash games using a scratch-like programming tool, or full Java code. It has image editors and a library of great graphics and behaviours.

Super!

I’m planning (planning!) to update on how we get on with our course. We are running the course with zero printing, assessments through Glow and online e-portfolios of some kind. Fingers crossed.

Me and my computingy accomplice, Mr Brown, went to Dundee yesterday and today to the Game to Learn (Take 2) conference. The first day was aimed at games developers and Further/Higher educaton, so was more technical but still very interesting, and the second day was focussed on teachers.

It was a great couple of days and we picked up a lot of stuff, which I thought I’d share on here. It’s convinced me to pay much more attention to the online world as I’ve missed lots of stuff (such as a teachmeet about 800 metres from our school).

Daniel Livingstone talked about virtual world building. It was very interesting but maybe for us not helpful, as we don’t have enough time to build a big world. We are maybe interested in using one as a space for showing off 3d modelling skills though, so that was useful. Good talk about the usefulness of such environments.

Nicola Whitton talked about games based learning, and covered some interesting misconceptions, and touched on whether “gamification” can work in the current educational context for FE.

Jackie Mullen talked to us about the use of simulation and assessment through technology in the construction training world. It seemed really good but we got more on the quiz stuff than the 3D modelly scenario stuff. That was unfair. I commented that the quiz was just really a dressed up multiple choice quiz, and later on we heard from Tom Hodgkinson about the misgivings of this approach. Saying that, they said that it was mainly used for “Friday afternoon revision” – i.e. a more relaxed method or revision. We do the same in school. I don’t consider this games-based learning in a significant way though.

Craig Mill talked about devices for assisting with input for disabled users and it was great. Really showed what was available and how it worked. This is really good for Computing teachers to see as we talk about this and will influence our work on the NPA computer games development now. Thanks Craig!

Tom Hodgkinson ripped into the “flash wrapper for a multiple choice quiz” that constitutes a significant proportion of e-learning as understood by many schools (Think Inquisitor etc). Nasty? I don’t think so, when you consider that he was talking about the BBC. They have the resources for better, not to mention an archive of amazing radio and TV to work with.

Charlie Love talked about games design as it stood in schools now – this was good just to have a wee idea at what was going on nationally. We discussed afterwards how it’s a Very Good Thing that he and the consolarium folks are involved in shaping the new qualifications.

The last talk on Friday was on the NHS’s use of virtual worlds for training. I thought it was good but didn’t tick the boxes in terms of relevance for me and also, forgot to make any notes (sorry) for forgot what it was about!

On Saturday Derek Roberston started off proceedings by talking about what was going on with games, and touched on assessment. Would have liked to hear more about this, but it was a good way to start off. I think it stands as a testament to his hard work how many times I heard him mentioned over the two days in conversation: people realise he “got it” and continues to “get it” and are willing to listen to him.

We then went to a seminar on Kinectimals in nursery and Professor Layton in primaries. This was mainly because we signed up late and so couldn’t get into the ones we fancied. Saying that, it was interesting, informative and good to see pupils engaged. The teacher (Mr Lay?) from St Andrew’s PS Dundee was clearly very informed and thoughtful about his projects with Professor Layton for the Nintendo DS, and it showed in the work on display that it was working well.

Later in the day Ian Simpson took me through an ALICE tutorial and answered annoying questions about games development. It was really useful. I know Steven had a good time with Brian Clark getting his head round Build Your Own Blocks, a more functional version of Scratch.

Siobhan from Media Molecule (that made Little Big Planet) then talked about its creative possibilities, but did a huge favour by mentioning how much she loved the innovation she saw. She made a good link between creating ANYTHING and success and her presentation was really interesting.

So here’s just some of the stuff we did and found out. For raw coverage see out twitter account, @columbageeks:

• We found out lots about 3D modelling repositries and a bit about Opensim. We had previously thought of starting an online space for pupils to deposit 3D models in a sculpture garden. If we can get Opensim working, this could be a possiblity (3D modelling for kids, though: crazy or possible?)
• Thought about adding Creative Commons to our digital citizenship course as a bigger feature, maybe even getting kids to CC something they create.
• Craig Hill showed us amazing videos of adapted computing equipment (including games controllers) – we want to use this in our discussions during NPA games development course.
• The discovery of Prezi.com – yass.
• The discovery of build your own blocks and panther – wowee!
• The discovery of ultra-keen Kenji Lamb and the possible future hope of convincing him to help us do something gamey with our kids out of school.
• The various highlighting of the Livingston-Hope review and how we’re beating Obama in understanding games.
• Excellent practical tutorials on ALICE and BYOB.
• Bacon rolls.

There was lots of other stuff too, it would be hard to write in detail about it, but I plan to as we make plans to implement it. Thoughts we talked about as we left were:

• Making a game developer plan running from P7 to S6, so that kids don’t need to overlap/relearn and so that we have the best options for progression.
• Looking at 3D editing as a new literacy need – is it possible to teach everyone it or not? Can the 3D VR-type world be embraced without being able to create content for it?
• Bringing GBL into other classrooms in our school as part of our mission to be the most awesome computing dept ever.

Thanks to the consolarium and JISC for a great two days. And anyone I talked to, expect a barrage of emails, mainly about games development!

In the 2008-2009 session I piloted an S1 enrichment course on games design. Pupils choose in primary seven from three strands: Technologies, Health and Wellbeing or Creative Arts. I got one quarter of the time with the Technologies pupils to show them games design.

We worked with a program called Neverwinter Nights that was generously supplied by LTScotland and the Consolarium. In the May before I’d been lucky enough to go on the training course LTS had set up to kick-start games based learning. I learned a lot about NWN and met lots of great teachers who (at least from the last I’d heard) are doing great things with games. More that that here…

Anyway, as pilots go, I think it was a success. One of the champions of games based learning (and NWN in particular) is Judy Robertson who had good things to say about the pilot. The pupils that took the course are now in S3 and some are in my Standard Grade classes and have mentioned NWN several times (usually when I’m trying to get them to do boring SQA-related practical tasks).

I’m not using NWN at present because the following year the game was installed in a room which was subsequently timetabled away from my use when I had S1. We also had less teachers on rotation meaning longer sessions with pupils, so I diversified my input, looking at games, magazine making, radio stations, videos and photo editing. For gaming I used Scratch and worked on basic movement and graphics skills.

This year I’ve not been given any S1 classes on my timetable so no games for them!

As a computing teacher, I’m drawn more to Scratch than any other games programming tool out there. It certainly has significant drawbacks in terms of the graphics that can be used (the resolution of the games is maybe 360 pixels squared or something like that) and due to the fact that there’s no way to do 3D games. I like Scratch despite this because the programming interface is so well designed, and, because I’m teaching programming as well as games design, I like how pupils can’t avoid learning logic and structure.  The lowest level of detail in scratch is that of each sprite. But text and graphic control and manipulation at that level is similar to the text input and output used in SG and Higher coursework.

So the mission with Scratch from here is to develop it as a way to introduce programming, as well as just make games. I’m planning to write units for S3 that show pupils how to use all the concepts they must know for SG Computing in Scratch, and I’m also planning for them to hand in their final coursework programmed in Scratch.

I have mentioned this elsewhere and there is discussion of it in our local authority too. While I understand people would have reservations about ‘dumbing down’ programming, I think that’s missing the point. Programming is not an exercise in falling over mistakes in grammar, spelling and syntax, it’s an exercise in logic, problem solving and analysis. I’d like pupils to be able to achieve up to Credit level in Scratch, and then supply a ‘conversion course’ to let pupils learn a language like TrueBASIC. This means the scratch course can be in no way superficial – pupils must understand exactly what they are doing.

So the plan for Scratch is to use it from primary 6 to S1. We start wit P6 visits and show them how to control a character. Then P7 visits do some imaginative thinking and design characters which they then control, and for those getting ahead, collect objects for points.

In S1 (if it’s available) pupils will learn a set of core game design principles like movement, object collection, points, health, collision detection etc. Then they can chose out of nine game types (platform, top down racing, aiming and shooting, maze etc) to focus on, and could work on three or four over the time they have.

In S2 there would be a portion of the year looking at games design. Those pupils that came to us in S1 would be given a mixture of advanced tasks and mentoring work.

In S3 the examples from S2 will be used to talk about input, output, structures like loops, arrays and so on. These will be assessed for understanding as concepts (I think this is important if looking at a transition to another language later on) and then used to program coursework.

Goodness, that’s a long and not particularly exciting post. But anyway,  I wonder if anyone will spot this and if so, if they can give any thoughts on the use of Scratch. I am of course interested in other uses of games, but, that’s probably enough for now for this post, and certainly will be keeping me busy this year writing new stuff for classes!

Update: now that I’ve bothered reading online again, I see there’s a Making Games in Schools project on the go, hurrah!

I’ve decided to come back into the online world and see if I can’t use the combined amazingness of the educational online community to help me out. I thought it might be interesting, first, to explain a bit about where I’ve been.

I’ve been teaching. And even though I’ve not been reading or writing blogs, I think I’ve got better at it. I’ve spent the last two years mainly working on developing materials to give pupils what they need: ways to check what they know, content to help them find answers, different forms of assessment, both computer and paper based, and built in self-assessment. Simple stuff that I was doing in a more haphazard fashion before I redesigned our resources.

It’s taken lots of work, and even though the new material aren’t amazingly exciting or interactive, I’m proud of them, because I think they help pupils understand and get good results.

But they aren’t radical.

What I’ve missed by opting out of what’s been going on outside my classroom is the sense that there are always new things developing, and that they are possible to grasp as an individual, innovative, empowered teacher. In the school I’m working on eight committees, run some clubs, and get involved as often as possible in the schools life. But I feel that I could do something different, outside of those responsibilities.

Teachers are currently wrapped up in the transition to CfE and some are still wrapped up in the transition to AiFL. It may seem terribly uninspired to claim that they have too much to worry about to look beyond the pile of documents to read, the pile of marking or the pile of forms from management. But sometimes, like me, the box is too full of stuff to do to think outside of it.

But I feel guilty that I’ve not tried harder, that it is something I should act on, in parallel with taking on the transition to new qualifications and ways of working. In an authority which has a lockdown on social media, and streaming video, and has still not implemented Glow, it’s more important than ever to organise myself to read the feed, and get involved. I want to take what I now feel I am doing well, and find out how other people are making that experience more exciting.

In the coming days I’ll be writing about what I do with school audio/video broadcasting, computer games and anything else that comes to mind. If you read anything I had to say before, I thank you, and hope you’ll subscribe to this blog too.

Oh, and if this is the only post up on the 16th of February, 2012, call for my resignation.