Well, we’re into day 4 of our 3rd week here at TGI. This week 30 or so 9-10 grade girls arrived for Game Camp. They will be here through the end of next week, just like we are.
Teachers this week and next are working on a couple of things, 1 – we’ve been challenged to make a game about the upcoming presidential election and 2 – develop curriculum. The teachers have broken into groups, during the first two weeks we were pushed to do all phases of the game development on our own, because they wanted us to exerience what our students would experience, this week we decided to cooperate and divide into groups that used all of our best skills.
My group is making a game about the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. There are three of us working on this game, two computer science teachers, and an art teacher.
I’ve also spent a fair amount of my time this week developing curriculum for a semester course in game development. Liz B. Davis saw this the other day and plurked that she was so inspired by my blog on TGI, that she wanted to do this. I’m honored that what I wrote inspired Liz! It was interesting to watch the conversation that followed on plurk. Many people missed the point of why this program at DU is so great! It is not the technology that drives this program, the technology is only a tool! This program also takes a holistic approach to game development, most that I’ve seen before concentrate on programming – the technology.
I will continue to work on this semester plan, my hope is that it will be written, and enough resources provided that someone who was not at TGI would still be able to use this curriculum. And if I’ve set this document up correctly in Google Docs, it will re-publish as I update the file.
You are absolutely right that it’s how we utilize technology that gives it authentic educational value, and the same could be said of just about any teaching strategy. No strategy can transcend a deficit on the big picture of student learning.
It was fun for me to read that plurk thread too.