Guest Blogger Steve Isaacs Shares Tales from the Game Design Classroom
Posted by Andrew Gardner on
Guest Blogger and BrainPOP Educator Steve Isaacs share his methods for incorporating game design into his classroom. You can find the post in its original form on Steve’s blog, games and learning.
Recently @techucation reached out to ask for some resources and ideas related to teaching Video Game Design and Development. I responded to his inquiry and realized it would serve as a worthwhile blog post to share with the educational community. Below is a general description of my 7th and 8th grade courses. In 7th grade, I teach a six week introduction to video game design and digital storytelling. In 8th grade I teach a full semester course in video game design and development. I have also developed and teach the full semester course as an online high school course for The VHS Collaborative (http://thevhscollaborative.org/). I hope you find the information helpful as I would love to see more courses evolve that teach important 21st century skills through game design.
Currently, I am enrolled in the doctoral program in Educational Technology at Boise State University and the focus of my research is the pedagogical benefits of game design and development. Some of the concepts I find most worthwhile to research further include constructionism, design based thinking, increasing female involvement in computer science, and ultimately the notion behind developing a scalable curriculum to teach game design and development from upper elementary school through high school.
Gamestar Mechanic is a great point of entry (and beyond). My 7th graders spend about 3 weeks in a unit using Gamestar Mechanic (http://www.gamestarmechanic.com). In that unit, I have them work through the Free Quest Line (Addison Joins the League) which takes them through the 5 episodes ending with the ability to create original games from scratch. After that I have students create their own game. Typically, it is a 5 level game of increasing difficulty that exemplifies good game design principles. Prior to starting their game I have them complete a design document that is used for brainstorming / pre-writing.
Another unit in my 7th grade class involves Digital Storytelling. I have them explore classic folk tales (http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/folk.html) and choose one to recreate as a team of 2. Typically we have used storytelling Alice (http://www.alice.org/kelleher/storytelling/) but recently I communicated with Caitlin Kelleher (the project lead and she indicated that there is now a successor to storytelling Alice called Looking Glass (https://lookingglass.wustl.edu/). I plan to shift to this with upcoming students or use Scratch (http://www.scratch.mit.edu/). More likely, I will expose students to both and allow them to choose one of the tools.
My 8th graders primarily use Game Maker (http://www.yoyogames.com) and they learn the basics and create at least 4 original games (a simple maze game, an adventure game, a platformer, and a scrolling shooter). I offer a bonus opportunity for students to engage in reverse engineering and recreate a classic game (arcade or console).
My final unit with my 8th graders is a project using Portal 2 and the Puzzle Maker. You can find out more about the Teach with Portals program here: http://www.teachwithportals.com/. My students play through a reasonable part of Portal 2 to understand the basics of the game and then create their own puzzles using the iterative design process of planning, creating, testing, and refining.
