From the desk of Mr. Walters

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...

 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...

Back in 2010, when the concept of gamification was new to most of us, I remember trying to add game elements to my classroom. I remember being further inspired to do so my amazing TED talks from Dr. Jane Mcgonigal in 2010 and Gabe Zichermann in 2011. I remember discussing it with others in a group lead by Jeff Mummert . At that time, we felt like we were building gamification experiences out of duct tape and baler twine. Occasionally, we would discover a tool we could “splice” on to our classroom, but more often than not, our IT departments would block that tool almost as soon as we began using it. Most gamers today are a combination of player types. Today, we are blessed to have myriad gamification tools for education available. Some of my favorites are Classcraft , ARIS , and Edmodo’s Badges , but there are a lot more. All of them scratch a specific gamification itch. Some scratch many. None, in my opinion, cover all bases. The Premise I’d like to propose that the most suc...

Recently, I decided to roll out Classcraft in all of my Seventh Grade classes, and I have found it to be surprisingly effective. 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 surprised me was how much students crave XP (or experience points). What I do with Classcraft has no effect on student grades whatsoever. Yet, I can 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 great deal to students, who are ultimately more concerned with the game than their grade anyway. They get so excited about equipping their avatar with custom stuff, and many of them are becoming XP hungry. There are many students who are serious gamers and are used to being able to " grind " for XP in a game. In the way that I...

Okay, I'm going to need you to bear with me while I rant a little bit, whine some, and cry out for help and advice. Engaging Middle School students is hard, even in the computer lab. Most of the garbage out there that is marketed to teachers, particularly in the technology department, is not only teaching antiquated skills, but is also incredibly " edukitschy ". Every once in awhile you find a gleaming diamond in the rough that is awesome and free. This rarely happens for teachers, and when it does, it becomes all the more heart-breaking when it suddenly goes away. Sometimes we only get to greet these things at a distance, and due to our circumstances never get to enter the promised land before the world has moved on.    Project Spark Project Spark was a game creation / simple programming environment for Microsoft Windows 8.1, 10 and Xbox One, which was the very beautiful child of it's homely parent, Kodu. Kodu is a visual programming tool which builds on i...

Okay, so I don't know Charlotte Danielson , and I cannot seriously make conjecture on her leisure activities, particularly in the realm of video games. With that out of the way, I wanted to explore some of the ways in which the use of simulations, games, gamification and game design relates to and can exemplify the four domains of Danielson's Framework for Teaching and learning . Today, I'd like to begin with Domain 2, Classroom Environment. In future posts on this topic, I plan to explore the other domains. For those of you who are being evaluated using the Danielson framework and who also happen to be doing gamification (with or without Classcraft), feel free to steal liberally from the language in this post for your professional "evidence folder". Gamification, Levelling up my Classroom environment with Classcraft I've been using Classcraft off and on since last year, but I'm just now really starting to get into a groove with this thing. ...

This is the first in a 3-part (maybe 4) series on setting up a sweet STEAM classroom in your Middle School. I will link all three parts here when they're finished. MS STEAM starter pack pt. 2: Design The Premise I am a middle school computer science teacher. It's what I do. I LOVE my job. I also often speak at universities, blog, tweet, and just generally build as many relationships in the education world as I can. In my travels, I have heard the following scenario at least a dozen times (probably more, but I am prone to exaggeration, so I'll stop at a dozen).  Hi, Clint. I'm a Librarian for Generic Area School District in Upper Generic County. My school is phasing out the Library curriculum and turning our Libraries into [ultimate action-packed / STEM / cafe-related / Multi-media adjectives] Centers. I'm being asked to teach a Middle School [Coding / Game Design / STEM / STEAM] Class, and I know nothing about this stuff. I think they're trying t...

New post on the Gamestar Mechanic Teacher Blog: STEM Video Game Challenge: A Quick Start Guide Go check it out!

Hello friends, It has been awhile. I do have some new posts in the editing queue for this blog, but for my most recent post, go check out: Designing Fun: There’s more to game design than programming It is posted over at the Gamestar Mechanic Teacher Blog . A big thanks to the folks at Eline Media for the opportunity to blog for them. 

Here's an infographic I made for my game design students and future blog posts because I didn't like any of the graphics currently available. I'm open to improvement suggestions. I used Easel.ly https://s3.amazonaws.com/easel.ly/all_easels/13957/Flow/image.jpg Edtech tweeps, if you're writing about Game-Based Learning, Gamification, or Game Design, and you want to use this in a post, permission granted. If you have ideas on how it could be better, comment below or hit me up on Twitter .

A few months back, I did a series of posts titled, "Hey computer teachers, stop wasting students' time". There I laid out the the basic premise that computer class, if it is to have value, should cover Computer Science topics. Hey ,  Computer  Teachers, stop wasting students' time! (Part 1) Hey ,  Computer  Teachers, stop wasting students' time! (Part 2) I wanted to follow those posts up with some really practical posts for computer teachers, particularly those of us from the BCIT certification, who tend to lack of hard-core Information Technology experience. It's easy, after all, to say we need to spend more time teaching students coding, programming, dynamic systems design & analysis, and end-user experience and less time teaching keyboarding, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but how do we make that transition? Today I'm going to introduce one tool that is relatively new, but growing quickly in popularity. Common Sense Media App flows Rath...

Receiving a "buff" out of the blue... w00t! On February 17th, I made the trek across the river to Millersville University . Jenn Shettel had invited me to lead a Middle Level Game Literacy Workshop with some undergrad pre-service education block students. We spent two hours talking about games, gamification, game based learning, and game design. More importantly, we talked about kids. We talked about teaching and learning. We talked about what works and does not work in the classroom. I had an awesome morning working with these students, and I got some great feedback from my host. I must admit, though, you're never 100% sure how a group you've worked with feels.

21st Century Skills... why game design? I've been using game design for the last couple of years to increase the application of " 21st Century Skills " in my class. The actual curriculum of my course is focused on the ISTE NETS , my official standards, and the Pennsylvania  Computer Information Technology Standards for grades 6-8 . My goal in teaching and assessing those skills, though, is to provide a context including as much STE[A]M focused content as possible and as many opportunities as I can for students to practice the  21st Century Skills . Game Design is concerned with studying the concepts behind the basic elements of a game, and how the balance of fun and challenge in games creates flow. It is also concerned with the iteration feedback loop and how games are a complex system designed around creating a satisfying user experience. Game design is a great jumping off point for introducing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) learnin...

This is not a guide. This is a conversation. Hopefully the comments on this post will be more useful than my ramblings. With that said, let me hit you with the premise. The Premise Game design is a great jumping off point for introducing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) learning through the lens of systems-thinking and user-centered design while stopping short of providing any real foundation in coding, programming, or engineering, areas covered in the realm of game development . I would like to find a way to begin the transition from game design to game development in my classroom, in order to move from STEM theory (ideas and concepts) to STEM skills (concrete practice). Some rights reserved  by  artnoose Game Design is concerned with studying the concepts behind the basic elements of a game, and how the balance of fun and challenge in games creates flow. It is also concerned with the iteration feedback loop and how games are a complex system des...

In my previous post , I argued that mandatory computer courses, particularly on the secondary level (7th grade and beyond) should move beyond a myopic focus on  keyboarding  and  Microsoft Office .  I did note that a curriculum steeped in keyboarding and productivity applications is quite appropriate and often essential at the 2nd through 5th or even 6th grade levels. By grade 7, though, if we're not moving students forward and addressing the actual standards for our grade level, rather than reiterating elementary school, we're doing our students a serious disservice. In that post, I promised a Part 2 that would share ways that you can "transform your computer classroom into a relevant, standards-compliant, juggernaut of 21st Century STE[A]M-tastic awesomeness." Talk about over-promising! Okay, I'll do my best. On to glory... Beginning with the end in mind. If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. This is why we have object...

Despite increased globalization; despite the need to prepare students to access, evaluate, synthesize, and build upon information and media; and despite the drive to promote Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, and Collaboration, the curriculum of many schools' secondary Computer Information Technology programs tends to hinge on keyboarding and Microsoft Office . Let me explain, for those who are not already with me, why this is a waste of our students' time and our parents' taxpayer dollars. There are a growing number of voices clamoring to get rid of the "Computer Teacher", arguing that in today's atmosphere of integrated technology we are irrelevant and redundant. If we're teaching 7th to 12th graders Keyboarding and MS Office classes, that is 100% true. Don't get me wrong, a curriculum steeped in keyboarding and productivity applications is quite appropriate and often essential at the 2nd through 5th or ev...