Game Making Tools for kids help them become creators of their content

Kids get excited about designing their own digital games. And so do we! Teachers are assisting children to transition from content consumers to content creators by introducing them to the latest digital and gaming productivity tools. Game design in particular offers many opportunities to develop higher order thinking skills like understanding and applying systems thinking, creative problem solving, storytelling, programming and collaborating with others.

Check out these student created games, and inspire your students to design their own!

These games were made by students using Flash as part of the Globaloria Curriculum.

PaleoQuest

Science Game: This game teaches how organisms travels through the chain of evolution.

Adventuring with Mr. Factor

Math Stem Game: This game teaches the rules of factoring.

These games were made by students using Gamestar Mechanic.

The Water Cycle

Science Game: Teaches the steps of the water cycle.

Lewis & Clark Expedition

History Game: Highlights explorers Lewis & Clark as they journey across America.

Graph It: Treasure Hunt

Math Game: This game teaches how to plot points on a graph.

When teaching game design, we recommend beginning with the following game making tools.

Gamestar Mechanic

This freemium platform is designed to teach principles of game design and systems thinking. They have many excellent materials to get educators started.

Scratch

Created by MIT's Media Lab this free programming environment & online educator community where kids create, share and remix animations & video games.

Minecraft Edu

The version of Minecraft for teachers and students, officially supported by Mojang. They offer educator discounts and a custom mod designed for education.

Game Salad

This freemium tool allows you to make games rapidly using a simple drag & drop interface and no coding required.

Tynker

Tynker is a new computing platform designed to teach children computational thinking and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way.

Game Maker

This is another easy entry game making tool that can produce HTML5 web-games. They are currently holding a STEM GameMaker Challenge until November 15th, 2013.

Globaloria (paid)

This subscription based learning network (K-12 MOOC) teaches youth computer programming, design, making educational games & interactive simulations.

Aris Games

This free, open source, mobile game building platform is perfect for exploring GEO-Location based games with smartphones.

Inkle

Creator of interactive stories that will let students make and play them with no programming required.

Pixel Press

Draw your own video game simply by drawing. Best of all, Pixel Press offers Educator Lesson Plans for free!

Filed as: Blended Classrooms, design tools, game making tools, student made games

Game Making and Design Tools