From the desk of Mr. Walters

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...

Citizen Science shown in GameUp Though I am not a Science teacher, Science was by far my favorite subject in school. I enjoyed the occasional English class, but Science was awesome. I loved labs in Chemistry, Biology, and Geology. Somehow I missed Physics (probably when I took AP Biology), but I bet I would have loved that too. The sad fact is, that due to shrinking budgets, time constraints, and, at times, facilities constraints, Science class in many schools is less and less about actual science and more and more about textbook reading and information recall. This is where games and simulations are coming in to fill the gaps. I get that a game is never going to replace real research and lab work, but it is certainly a better substitute than worksheet packets. My school building has added two new Science teachers for next year. I would love to be able to share some great game based learning resources with them. That got me thinking, what would I recommend? What's out there...

My character in a starting area. It's time to get my nerd on! After reading the testimonies of countless educators, being inspired by J ane McGonigal's first TED talk , and reading " WoW in School; a hero's journey ", I finally took the plunge. I am trying World of Warcraft . This shall be interesting... I hope to get some experience with this game and perhaps con some friends (& preferably colleagues) into coming online with me. So far, after playing for about a week, I have more questions than answers. For example, does my player need to eat? There certainly is a lot of food around but I've been fasting this whole time. I can read extensive articles on the wiki about food, food types, food preparation, and even feeding pets in the game. Nothing tells me whether my character will eventually drop dead from starvation. That would be interesting... I'd be happy to accept any tips from you, my blogosphere peeps (& tweeps ) on this one. I ...

Collaboration, it's one of the 21st century skills. There's pretty much unanimous agreement among policy-makers, academic thinkers, and business leaders that collaboration must be a crucial part of our classrooms. Incidentally, there is almost unanimous agreement among teachers and students that group work is painful, cumbersome, annoying, and largely counter-productive. Even popular reality  shows rely on group assignments to weed out contestants and create unnecessary drama. Why is something that is so important and crucial to our survival, so painful and dreadful? How can we make it more awesome? What do we do with collaboration? Part 1: Why you hate group work. Before our winter holiday break, I informally polled students in my classes. In all of my sections but one, 100% of my students noted that they hate doing group work. In one class two students said that they love group assignments because they can usually con their group mates into doing all of the work. Wh...

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...

The following review deals with a book about Stencyl. Stencyl is "a drag-and-drop gameplay designer " ( Stencyl ), modeled after the MIT Scratch project. Basically, it's blocks-based programming made specifically for game design. The sweet part for teachers is that it is free. Now, on to the book review... Have a Go, Hero... I've spent some enjoyable moments over the last two weeks working through Packt Publishing's " Learning Stencyl 3.x Game Development: Beginner's Guide ", by Innes Borkwood. This is a great book for teachers who want to do more with game design and development in their classroom, but aren't that well versed with coding and programming.   I've been using Stencyl, off and on, with students for two years now. It has still managed to elude me up to this point. I had done the crash course and watched plenty of YouTube Videos. None of it helped. My students would ask me questions, and I would feel clueless. I think th...

Okay, so I realize that everyone and their sister, at this point, has posted their own curated roundup of videos on Game Based Learning and Gamification in the classroom. I'm certainly not doing anything new here. Occasionally, though, I want to share with a colleague or fifty, during workshops or conferences, my cannon of inspirational videos of gaming goodness. It's just more simple to put them all in one place, so here they are. Ultimately, these videos speak for themselves. I'll keep my commentary to a minimum. I will say that these videos actually started me down the path of actually taking games and game design seriously in my classroom. If I hadn't seen Chellman & Mcgonigal's TED talks one fateful day in 2011, I never would have attended break out sessions on games and gamification with Jeff Mummert at the first Tech.it.u or taken an online course called, " Simulations and Gaming Technologies for the Classroom ". I certainly wouldn't be...

Last week, Dr. Justin Marquis mentioned on Twitter that this coming week's # GBLFriday topic would be, How Games Help Students Learn Failure. Failure is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately and hitting on in previous posts. Alas, I have decided to to tackle this topic a bit here and put in my two cents worth... Failure shouldn't be fatal   There are a lot of popular articles out there that say students should be failing regularly in school and activities (just Google "failure good for kids" or something similar), that point to various studies into the benefits of failure. My conservative crotchety old windbag friends love these articles. The driving idea is that children benefit from plenty of experiences with frustration, failure and defeat. Without a doubt, this will motivate them to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and try even harder the next time. It will give them grit and prepare them for the "Real World...

Lately, I've been doing a lot with games in my classroom. I've also been teaching other educators about ways they can use games and game design in their classroom. One thing that often frustrates and confuses newcomers to this discussion is the differences between Game Based Learning (#GBL), Gamification (#Gamification), and Game Design. Often the lines between these three distinct fields are blurred in conversation as well as practice. This isn't a good or bad thing; it just is. Sometimes though, it is helpful to make a distinction. For example, If I'm telling someone how successful Game Based Learning or Game design has been in my classroom only to have them ask questions about Gamification, the whole conversation can get confusing. Don't get me wrong, Gamification is awesome, and I use it to an extent, but it is not Game Based Learning or Game design. As a n00b* myself, I'm creating this n00b's guide to help clear up these topics and how they apply to our...

Thoughts on learning, grading, gamification, and motivation from a n00b . I'm just wrestling with these ideas. Conversation is more than welcome. Games & Gamification: Addictive vs. Additive  When the concept of Gamification is mentioned to most teachers, the reaction is neutral at best. I'm sure many people are visualizing trying to turn their subject matter, which they take very seriously, into something resembling Dungeons & Dragons meets Angry Birds. I'm not saying that's good bad or indifferent (See my earlier posts on games). There are others who would (legitimately so) argue that great games function a lot like great teaching. Therefore, Gamification is just a gimmick and really just good teaching. For an example, see the below graphs on "Flow" (a key concept in game design) and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (educational psychology). Flow: A key Concept in Game Design Zone of Proximal Development...

Getting there (a not-so-brief introduction) About two years ago now, I started down the path of actually taking games and game design seriously in my classroom. This is a topic, I've been thinking about since 2008, when I read Dennis Southwood’s article, “ It's Not Just a Game—It's Skills for Life” from Educators' eZine. From 2008 to to 2011 I built a CIT class around the idea of Applying computer skills in Project Based Learning. It was marginally successful, but I still wasn't getting the results I wanted with at least half of my students, in terms of engagement, deep thinking, & over technology fluency . In 2011, I attended the first Tech.it.u , spending a lot of time in break out sessions with Game Based Learning & Gamification expert, Jeff Mummert . I also took a course from PLS called, "Simulations and Gaming Technologies for the Classroom™ Online". During this time I read What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Liter...

Context: ARIS is a user-friendly, open-source platform for creating and playing mobile games, tours and interactive stories. Using GPS and QR Codes, ARIS players experience a hybrid world of virtual interactive characters, items, and media placed in physical space. ( ARIS homepage ) Some of my students are making ARIS games, and they wanted to be able to create character interactions within the game. Here's a quick video tut I made... I'll roll out a more polished version later. Enjoy.

Hey peeps & tweeps! I'll be facilitating a course in games, games based learning, and gamification this Fall, called, "Simulations and Gaming Technologies for the Classroom™ Online". Head on over to PLS to sign up! We'll talk about current beliefs & assumptions about using video and computer games in the classroom. We'll look at some serious games. We'll even look at the mysterious art of game design. I hope to see some of you there!