Let the Games Begin!!!

It was almost like you could hear the Olympic anthem in the background as the ever increasing sound of keystrokes filled the room. Yes, the games have begun! Everyone is off and rolling on their game building while watching tutorials, searching for answers on the web, and working together to solve their Flash coding challenges. A lot remains to be done, but their is genuine enthusiasm and excitement about all this new 'stuff' we are doing. Stay tuned for more from the olympics of Globaloria at WVNCC!

Spring is in the air, and more!

Finally, spring is showing its beautiful face! Flowers are up and leaves are about to bud. Here at WVNCC we are on our spring break this week. But alas, some of the students have asked to come in during the week and do some work with their games and general Flash learning exercises. I continue to be pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm the students have for this class.
At this point the paper prototypes are up on all but one of their project pages, as well as their wikis. Carl is finishing his today and should have it up by tonight. Everyone is working on the "Planning Your Game" topic and will be ready to move into the Flash part of the curriculum in the next class.

Flash and Pizza Marathon!

Today was a great class! We began working on our paper prototypes and everyone finished a storyboard  and will return next week with all the scenes ready to video for the final prototypes. Perhaps you are wondering where the title fits in with this post, since it obviously hasn't so far. Well last week everyone agreed that after we finished our scheduled class at 11:40am today we would stay in the lab and work on learning some new Flash material. And since one cannot be expected to learn Flash on an empty stomach, I provided pizza for everyone and we continued on until 2:30 in the afternoon. As they say, "a good time was had by all". Due to popular request our next marathon will be Flash and Sushi!

Special thanks to Patrick from MCTC for the www.cartoonsmart.com link. If you have not checked it out, you should. A great resource for Flash tutorials, reasonably priced.

It's Play Time!

We worked a lot on getting our blogs and wikis in order and up to date. Still have some more to do but progress is evident. Highlight was our first exposure to Flash (wow, an unintended pun) and working on the mini-game project. It took far longer to accomplish even part of this project than I had anticipated. We all had problems with our codes and even direct copy/paste didn't always solve the problems. But, as a educator, it was an incredible experience to see the students working by themselves and together in groups to solve their problems. Certainly the most student-centered experience I have ever witnessed. Special kudos go to Howard and Gary for sharing their solutions and providing explanations for us all!

Coming up this week will be more work on the mini-game and discussions around game ideas.

Off and rolling!

Just finished week three of our class. Everyone now has a wiki, a blog, and working on game ideas! Looking forward to the next class when we will do our mini game project. It will be nice to introduce Flash and let everyone get a feel for what it is, what it can do, and then do some actual work with it. Do check out our updated wiki page with new colors and layout. More to do, but that will come in time.

I continue to be amazed, quite pleasantly so, with the level of interest and enthusiasm the students are bringing to this class. In addition they each seem to have some experience and/or special talent that will contribute to their games and our class. For example, one of our students has been doing stop-frame animation and has posted a video of his work, in which a rubix cube appears to solve itself. Also check out his Terragen video. Everything can be found on Andrew's wiki page.

Game on!!!

We've only just begun...

Wow! Just finished my first Globaloria game design class and I am nothing short of amazed! I have ten students, all guys, that are really into this class. I must admit that I thought half of them would drop the class when they found out about the wiki work and blogging, expecting perhaps a more intense software based class. But no, they really got into the whole experience and were all enthusiastic and eager to take part. Bottom line - the blogosphere, as of 15 minutes ago, has 10 new bloggers!

About to start - some thoughts about motivation

My Globaloria game design class begins this Friday, Jan 22nd. I must admit I am really looking forward to it, but am at the same time a bit apprehensive, maybe because of the volume of work or maybe the newness of it all. Don't get me wrong, I do feel that I have been well prepared by the Globaloria team through our orientation and training sessions. I really appreciate the help and guidance than my mentor, Patrick provided at this past weekend's academy.

So, why my concern? I think it has to do with motivation of the students and what I can do to ensure that they start, and continue to be, motivated. As a college class the students choose to take this class and are paying for it. Good news is that they must be motivated to have done that. I believe that will arrive interested and excited. The class, at this point, is not required in any program, rather it is an elective they can use in a variety of programs. They will come to the class with little to no experience with a wiki and blogging. My challenge will be to motivate them to look beyond just the basics of game design and to see the use and importance of the social media tools. They will arrive intrinsically motivated. I plan to help them keep that motivation by:

• Involving them in the learning process by stressing the importance of collaboration and teamwork. Letting them know that their input is important to everyone's success.
• Relating the work they will be doing, and how they do it, to the real-world of work they will face after they graduate.
• Stressing that their success, or failure, is in their hands. I am there to help and guide, but they will have to work to succeed.

As time goes on I will update this blog with news of our progress, highlighting success as well as setbacks. Stay tuned. It's going to be a great adventure!

A New Year Begins...

The hectic end of the semester and the Christmas holidays did not leave much time for game development on my part, nor any time for learning more Flash goodies. But now, I am back at it and will be contributing to the Guy and the Dolls game, along with our team. Really looking forward to what Globaloria has to offer in the new year. For now let me leave you with a New Year's wish and image... For those not familiar with the fish eggs in this image, think of them as children of Nemo!


Be sure to click on the image for an enlarged view.

And the journey continues . . .

An old Chinese proverb says that the longest journey begins with but a single step. Our recent Globaloria training weekend seemed to me to be a first step in our journeys along the Globaloria pathway. Based on that introduction it looks like it will certainly be an exciting and educational journey.

Now two weeks later I find myself taking steps two and, maybe, three. I have spent time working on my Flash skills and actually posted (with Angie's kind assistance) two Flash screens for our game. The idea was to create something that made words look like they were 'raining' down on the screen, for the player to choose from. Well, I must confess that I can now have words do just about anything we need them to do, except maybe for singing. I have not been able to work that out yet, maybe for steps four and beyond of the journey.

As resources for Flash learning I am of course using all the great info, demos, etc. on the main Globaloria educator's page. In addition I also use an online resource for software training that has video tutorials for all types of software programs. It is a subscription service that my school subscribes to. If you would like to see it go to lynda.com

A powerful educational moment . . .

For many years I have been a very avid photographer. I have taken thousands of rolls of film and loved every minute of it. But it wasn't until the digital revolution that replaced film that I came to realize how really limited my capabilities were. So for me, one of the most amazing educational moments came when I first turned on my computer just a few years ago and used Photoshop software for the first time. The realization that my photography efforts would be limited literally only by my imagination was a powerful moment. With Photoshop I could 'tinker' to my heart's content and truly learn at my speed and convenience.  

Blogs I like to follow . . .

I have listed two of my favorite blogs to the right. These are both photo oriented so do not have a direct relationship to what we are doing with our Globaloria workshop, but they are excellent examples of full-featured blogs. Both provide links in the text of the post, are very well designed, and integrate video frequently throughout.

First experience with games . . .

Today at the Globaloria workshop I had my first experience with computer games designed for education. Of the games I tried the one that got my attention and interest was Free Rice. This game addresses hunger and allows the player to actually accumulate real rice grains that will be donated. The game is relatively simple but engaging based on the moving graphics of rice added when the correct answer is given and removed when an answer is missed.

Angie's comments about this game were similar, except she did not seem to find anything that she wanted to learn from this game. I would like to know how the motion of the rice grains was achieved. Neither of us commented on the usability of the game.

Globaria blog #1

It begins