From the desk of Mr. Walters

A Short Rant on why WotC needs to enter the Educational Gamification Space I hate to beat a dead unicorn, but I just wanted to write a short (tumblr-sized, but who uses tumblr anymore?) post about the secondary education gamification space and why Wizards of the Coast should throw their hat in the ring.   A void in the space We all know that the elementary folks have Class Dojo , and until early 2019, the secondary folks had  Classcraft . At what I would consider the height of that service's popularity, they made themselves more elementary-friendly and, as a result, way less relevant in the secondary space . I don't know how they're doing as a company, but no one I know even talks about  Classcraft  anymore. You can read more about the changes  here  and  here . A player that's already in the game... Participation in tabletop cooperative role playing games like D&D has been shown to help us  develop social skills , prime our brains for  interdisciplinary stem lear

I saw some teachers asking for this online, so I made one... still a work in progress. Hopefully it helps your distance learning kiddos.      ...and here's a link to the PDF.

If you're a student looking for Game design help, skip ahead to the section, " Game Design with Minecraft EE ". If you're a computer teacher who normally reads this blog as a part of professional growth, or just to make fun of me, feel free to read from the beginning. The challenge Yes, COVID-19 Strikes again Recently, in my post, 5 Elements and Still Relevant , I explained that as far as an actual sound curriculum in Game Design that Middle School students can comprehend and apply, Gamestar Mechanic is the only game in town. It's the only thing that simply and concisely takes students through designing balanced games (games with flow), using 5 Elements of Game Design while essentially using Gamification and Game Based Learning to do it. NO OTHER TOOL TEACHES GAME DESIGNas a distinct discipline. Tynker doesn't teach it. Code.org doesn't teach it.  Minecraft edu , as cool as it may be, doesn't teach it.  Microsoft MakeCode Arcade doesn'

Three lessons learned amidst a pandemic. Lesson 1: Computer Science Does Matter So, I'm going to open by saying that I have never been more convinced of the need for an actual "Computer Class". I'm painfully aware of this thanks to the global pandemic that is COVID-19. My Students have been sent home with their iPads , and I have been called upon to teach them my Computer Science Class remotely. Over the last few years, as students have found themselves in possession of "devices" throughout their school day, thanks to 1:1 programs, usually with Chromebooks and iPads, many districts have sadly asked themselves the question, “ Why do we need a computer class? ”. Even more sadly, many have given up their Computer Science curriculum, at least in the K-8 realm. Hopefully, without sounding classist or making this a politically charged issue, I can make the assertion that iPads and Chrome Books , as well as the myriad smart phones that most people carry ev

So, my last post focused on including girls in esports and my willingness to take a hard look at my own mistakes and failings. This post focuses on engaging boys in school through gamification and a company we all love's unwillingness to do the same...  on to glory! The success I decided to roll out Classcraft in all of my classes two years ago, and I have found it to be surprisingly effective. I've shared here in the past how not only do students take the health and experience of their characters very seriously, but they also strive to help their teams and classmates in general. One thing that continually surprised me was how much students crave XP (or experience points). Remember, what I do with Classcraft has had no effect on student grades whatsoever. Yet, I've been able to attach points loss / gain consequences to my behavioral and procedural expectations via XP and HP . While these points don't matter in terms of students' grades, they do matter a grea

A brief look at my own failings and shortsightedness, and my attempts to course-correct before even beginning...  Preparing to form an ESports team I am currently in the process of researching, planning, and hopefully implementing an ESports club or team for the HS / MS level at my school district, along with our new Superintendent and our Director of Technology. This is a more daunting challenge that one would expect. Don't get me wrong, NASEF along with the Emerald Foundation has everything in place that one would need to get started, but one must wait on administrative and board permission before hitting that " Activate " button. There are a lot of people that we need to have a " yes " from before we proceed. As a result I've had a lot of time to think about what I, and hopefully we, want this to look like, which is a good thing when vision casting for something completely new to your institution. Ultimately, we're looking for an inclusive a

 UPDATE: GSM put out a survey about the future! ::Take the survey:: Back in 2008 (seems like yesterday), E-Line Media in partnership with the Institute of Play , rolled out a new site, called Gamestar Mechanic , which was originally developed by Gamelab in partnership with the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab (AADL) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is a site that aims to teach kids how to design their own games, with the premise that designing games builds: Systems Thinking, 21st Century Skills, Creative Problem Solving, Art and Aesthetics, Writing and Storytelling, and creates a motivation for STEM learning. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you will know that this is a tool that I consider to be indispensable. I was pretty new to teaching Computer Science in 2008. I had only been at it a year, and I was trying desperately to make the leap from programming (we were using Scratch for that back then with no manual or guide wh