3dedrats - A Month of Festivities

Recently at MacICT we have launched our new 3dedrats festival celebrating the latest 3D technologies in education, arts and sciences. We invite you to come join us and play with robots, virtual worlds and video games!

3dedrats is an exciting opportunity to get involved in games, virtual worlds, robotics, arts and science in Australian contemporary education.

Throughout the month of October there will be world first interactive experiences, events, fun competitions, exhibitions and workshops designed for students, families, schools and the general public.

Participation is open to a worldwide audience through online content and virtual experiences as well as events held at multiple venues such as Macquarie University and Sydney College of the Arts. Aimed at all ages, the 3dedrats festival will include world class experiences. Click on the images below to find out how you can be involved:

Right now, if you have a flair for writing, enter our GAME backstory narrative writing competition for a chance to win a prize. The most popular narratives will be chosen to be used in our next challenge - designing a game! Read more on how to enter our competition on the 3dedrats website.

How Video Games are Changing Education - Infographics

Check out this infographic with information provided by Online Colleges

Via: Online Colleges Guide

Invasion of the Shadow Plague Micro Pilot: Midway Musings

Seven weeks ago MacICT launched a micro-trial of its new metagame, ‘Invasion of the Shadow Plague’ with two primary schools and three high schools, totalling 700 students. This project uses a socio-constructivist approach to teaching game design and is centered within a Word Press Blog. It requires students to complete nine missions and write nine mission reports earning the students digital badges allowing them to level up and complete the next mission. While playing the game through completing the missions, students are learning how to design and build games using Kodu Game Lab and practice the skills of good game design. Embedded in the metagame are good game design principles, strong links to literacy, cyber citizenship, problem solving, collaboration and modeled 21st Century skills in the uses of technology. Through participating in an online MacICT games community, the sharing of learning, ideas and games is encouraged and rewarded.

For more information on how the project is going, visit the MacICT Innovative Teaching blog

 

Gamifying Education

An excellent video from the team at Extra Credits.

Invasion of the Shadow Plague - our new Kodu Metagame

After months of researching, planning and finally building, our new project website has finally gone live. Read about MacICT's new narrative based metagame created by the Game Design team to teach students from Year 3 to Year 10 how to design and build using Kodu on MacICT's Innovative teaching blog.

Game2Design: Directions in 2011

Wow, I can't believe so much time has passed since our last post. I thought we should fill you in on our direction in 2011. My team and I have been madly designing our new project, 'Game2Design: play, analyse, build' where our aim is to move students from playing to building – transforming students from consumers to creators of digital content. We believe that the process of understanding and applying the principles of good game design to student created games not only improves literacy, collaboration and higher-order thinking skills, but can lay the foundations for deep learning, innovation and change in 21^st century classroom

We are continuing to deliver our Game2Design project using Kahootz and are excited to have on board both Primary and High schools. We are particularly excited to have a High School from remote NSW join us on this project. All training and support will be delivered via video conferencing facilities to our remote schools.


We are almost ready to pilot our Game2Design using Kodu project. As part of this, we have been building and extensive library of short videos explaining various aspects of using Kodu to design games. We have also been working on the framework for a metagame which we intend to use to teach good game design and Kodu. This project will be very student directed, aiming to build confidence in teachers and relieving them of the stress associated in teaching something that is often very foreign to them. Anthony, Simon and I are very excited about this project, and it has absorbed a lot of our time this year. We expect this project to evolve through repeated iterations.

We have also designed a new 'Good Game Design' workshop which will seek to evaluate innovative applications of game design principles in teaching and learning. The focus is on teachers employing a constructivist approach that promotes inquiry learning to achieve curriculum outcomes across most key learning areas and addresses dimensions from the quality teaching framework. This workshop will give teachers a fundamental understanding of design principles and how these can be applied when teaching students to build games. Teachers can apply these new understandings to any game creation software. We hope to run our first game design workshop later this term.

What else is the Game Design team up to this year?

This year, Anthony has returned to Uni (while still working 2 days/week at MacICT) to train as a Primary School teacher and complete his Bachelor of Education. With the experience he has gained from working at the Centre last year, he should do very well!

Simon still works one day/week at the centre, and this year has a composite Year 5/6 class at Gordon East Public School. He is as enthusiastic as ever and committed to introducing teachers to engaging their students as game designers.

I am still working two days/week at MacICT and, for the remainder of the week, I am ICT RFF teacher at Cromer Public School. This term my Year 6 students are designing LAMS sequences around government and democracy. Year 5 are designing web pages that address real world issues and persuading readers to adopt their solutions to these authentic problems. Year 4 are designing digital stories to share with their buddies in Japan and Year 3 are learning to use Web 2.0 tools and Edmodo. All students are using Edmodo to post reflections on their learning. Next term, Simon and I will involve all our students in designing games.

In two weeks I will be travelling to Thailand to attend Microsoft's 7th Asia Pacific Regional Innovative Education Forum as the New South Wales Innovative teacher representative. I am really looking forward to the challenges the forum will bring and global connections I will make during this time.

We will be blogging about our Game2Design project on MacICT's new blog: http://web2.macquarieict.schools.nsw.edu.au/. We hope to see you there.

Cathie

Reflections: Student as Designers Showcase

Last Thursday, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre hosted as 'Students as Designers Showcase' where Department of Education teachers and Macquarie University academic staff participated in sessions led by Year 5 and 6 students from Cromer Public School on students as game designers and participative narratives, and Year 11 Caringbah High School students on Learning Design using LAMS. What an incredible job all the students did!

2010 Student Presenters: MacICT Students as Designers Showcase from Cathie Howe on Vimeo.

During our Game Design session, five Cromer Public School students talked about their journey as designers and what they learned from this experience. In the guise of investigators, the teachers and University staff then sat with the student game designers, talking to them about their games, what they liked best about their games, how they could improve them and what they learned from designing and building computer games.

1.

We were also very excited to have Sam Doust, Creative Director, Strategic Development at ABC Innovation talk to the students and adults about the augmented reality drama, Bluebird, that he helped write and produce which is set around the leak of Bluebird, a clandestine geo-engineering initiative created by eco-billionaire Harrison Wyld. This presentation highlighted some of the exciting developments in the way we see digital narratives and games in literacy. The possibilities this type of narrative brings to students designing their own interactive narratives, and the depth of learning that would occur, has captured the imaginations of the staff at MacICT.

The hit of the day with the students (and many of the adults present) was the visit from ABC's Good Game hosts Bajo and Hex (aka Steven O'Donnell and Stephanie Bendixen). To the absolute delight of the students, Bajo and Hex mingled with them, chatted about the games the students had made and played some of them. They also talked to the students and adults for 40 minutes about what they like about games, what makes a good game from a player's perspective, how to make a game enjoyable and answered many questions from students and adults. Afterwards, Bajo and Hex stayed around and mixed with the students and were swamped with more and more questions about games and their jobs. This was certainly an experience many students claim has been a highlight of their year!

At both Sam, and Bajo and Hex's session, we had teachers and students from various schools join with us via video conference!

Bajo and Hex visit Students as Designers Showcase from Cathie Howe on Vimeo.

Students and adults also had the opportunity to participate together on an interactive adventure and explore a narrative that Anthony and I wrote with collaboration from my Year 6 students at Cromer Public School. Real and fiction were blended together in this participative narrative that invited the readers to be a part of the story.

When we reflect on what occurred during the sessions we saw, collaboration, cooperation, creativity, innovation, great discussions, teamwork and, we can't forget... some fun thrown in! Thank you to the teachers and academic staff who joined us on this fabulous day and, most importantly, a HUGE congratulations to all the students who, despite some feeling a little anxious, willingly shared with the adults present, their journey into game design. You guys are simply awesome!

On Our Way...

Hi my name is Laura and I am a year 5 teacher at Collaroy Plateau PS. After attending the TPL at MacICT I decided to go ahead with the Game Design Project. It was a full-on day of learning and I came away enthused but also a little apprehensive, wondering whether I would be able to teach Kahootz well enough to my students for them to be able to understand the basics in order to create a game. I shouldn't have worried - not because I was spectacular at teaching it but because they have no fear and just jumped right in and went for it.

The students have really enjoyed the training phase and many of them go to the library at lunchtime and continually create or update their expressions. We are about to start the written phase of the project and are scheduled to have our VC with Anthony next week. So it will be interesting to see how the students actually move from 'mucking around' with Kahootz to actually creating a game. They will be working in pairs, and the game will be loosely based on our HSIE unit 'Gold!'.

Student Experience - Gladesville PS

Our Kahootz experience was enjoyable but there were a few minor problems along the way. We discovered very early on in our Kahootz experience that some of the effects didn’t work and it was very difficult to use some of the worlds and objects. Even though we had some problems we still all managed to finish our games. Our games were all based on the theme gold, which is what we have been learning about.

I would recommend this program to Year 5 and above as it is quite complicated to use, sometimes it quit unexpectedly and it was frustrating. No one in our class had ever used Kahootz before so we all learnt how to use the software. We also learnt a lot more about animation and game design as we completed the game. We were so proud of our games. It was a real accomplishment.

Chloe Year 5

Beginnings at Calare PS

Hi I am Julie and I teach a Year 6 class at Calare Public School. The class is full of 32 students ready for High School.

I decided to take the project on with Rob, our computer wiz. I thought it would be an activity that would help keep them focused in their final term of primary school.

After talking to the students in my class, there was a lot of excitement with the prospect of creating their own game.

For the past few weeks we have been running though the learning phase of Kahootz. We dedicate 2 hours a week to Kahootz. Rob has been leading the lessons and I have been the extra set of hands in the lab. Team teaching allows us to get to each student group in the class.

During these first few weeks we have encountered some difficulties when saving. Students were losing their work – disappearing into server space. With a more time consuming method, we have been able now to save the students work, in their own directory, so they don’t have to use the same computer each time.

Each student keeps a Kahootz journal where they can record their thoughts, their initial ideas and any information that they need to remember, for example, where to find a particular scene or object they like.

We are now getting reading for the planning phase and the “Good Game Design” VC with Anthony.

Hi, I’m Rob, our school’s computer coordinator. It’s a joy to be involved in the Game Design Project. What a fantastic opportunity!
Julie and I are really looking forward to the next phase of the project (not to mention the students!)
Our team teaching approach is working well and after overcoming some technical hitches, the students are almost ready to attack the game design task. Bring it on!

First Post :)

Hi Everyone,

My name is Sally and I teach a very mixed ability 5/6 at Greenwich Public School. We recently spent the better part of a day at MacICT "cramming" the first few hours of the project into one day (due to time and technology restraints). The day went really well and the kids were all extremely engaged and were all super keen to get started. However, that was last term and I'm sure they have forgotten most of it, but once we get back into it I'm hoping it will all come rushing back (time will tell!).

I was impressed how most of the kids who picked things up really fast were willing to help their friends and teach each other, that made my job 1000 times easier!

Starting our game design project at West Pymble

Hi everyone, my name is Lisa Gielis and I am a Year 5/6 teacher at West Pymble Public school. My class is full of very bright students who are always up for a challenge so I figured I would sign us up for this project! We are studying The Hobbit at the moment and I also felt that was a great tie-in for a role playing game and another great way to explore narratives.

The class is just about to start storyboarding and designing their games after spending the past 7 weeks or so exploring Kahootz. Some students are fairly tentative, many are happily animating and keypointing away and a few are really roaring ahead - one student has already designed a game and it works quite well! Everyone is enjoying Kahootz and a session in the lab is always loud and engaging. Many students are working at a level that exceeds my own but I encourage them to team up and work things through and usually they come up with a solution (excellent higher order thinking here!). Although, Anthony, I am encouraging them to keep a list of questions for you for our first VC!

I'm looking forward to seeing how the students go with the pen and paper work and I'm not really sure whether to make them fully complete this section before they can create in Kahootz or whether to work a scene or section at a time?

Anyway, it's all systems go at West Pymble and we are really enjoying the project so far.

Game Design Project

I am a Year 4 teacher at Allambie Heights PS and have just started using Kahootz this year. One afternoon a week I work with a Year 4 and 5 Enrichment Group as part of our Gifted and Talented program. The students have been participating in different projects with me this year, but Kahootz is definitely their favourite.
Kahootz is brand new to our school so it has been a learning experience for everyone. While I think I am up to date with technology I have discovered there is so much more to learn.
The group has finished the training stage of Kahootz and have proved to be very fast learners. Initially the children were blown away by the software and what they could do. Most of the children are very confident in using computers and love exploring the new software.
The theme for our game design project is based on an environmental theme. This links to a previous project, Murder Under the Microscope. The children are currently working on their storyboards, but can't wait to get back on the computers to actually start creating their games.

Along for the Ride

I have just got back from attending the Australian Council of Educational Leaders Conference where I was presented with the Microsoft NSW Innovative Teachers Award for 2010. I received this award for work I have done in the area of game design both with my own class at Cromer Public School, and with my MacICT project, Engaging Students as Game Designers, including the new work we are doing with Kodu.

I met with the other State winners, a group of amazing innovative teachers, who are all doing incredible projects in their classrooms and across their regions. What a privilege it was to spend time with such a diverse group of teachers and, after bonding very quickly, we are all looking forward to getting together next March.

Next March I will be off to Phuket, Thailand to participate in the Regional Microsoft Innovative Teachers Awards. I will be presented with many new experiences including working in cross cultural teams on different challenges. What an opportunity and what a journey I've been on. I'm definitely along for the ride and who knows where it will take me!

The huge screen at the Awards ceremony.

This award reflects the combined efforts of the amazing team I work with, particularly my immediate team, Anthony and Simon, and also all my colleagues at MacICT where we have the opportunity to collaborate around ideas, share intelligent conversations, debate and spark off one another. All the projects developed at MacICT are what they are because of the leadership of the Director (and my mentor) Debbie Evans whose leadership at the Centre promotes the process of innovation and creates incentives through giving project teams autonomy, the freedom to strive for mastery and a purpose for what we are doing. While perfection may not be attainable, the culture at MacICT is to chase perfection through repeated iterations of our projects and in chasing perfection, hopefully, we can catch excellence! (Vince Lombardi, American Football Coach)

In addition to this award, two students in my Year 6 class won first and second place in Australia in Kodu Kup, a game design skill competition aimed to recognise students who demonstrate excellence in a diverse range of technical, creative and game play depth and design in the use of Kodu Games Lab. What a fantastic achievement by these two students. I am one very proud teacher!

Playing to Learn

This is a fabulous Prezi by Maria Anderson. It is well worth taking the time to view it.

Playing to Learn? on Prezi

Let's Make a Game - Part 5: Talking Without Words

Welcome back!

Last episode we dealt very briefly with a fascinating element of Game Design called Player Feedback. I just wanted to delve quickly back into it and maybe flesh out a couple of points before we get into the next topic. So, what is Player Feedback? Player Feedback is incredibly important to any good game, it's how your game speaks to you, how it tells you things, how you know what you're trying to achieve.

Good games are difficult to play. It's at the core of any gaming experience, it's the reward for playing. Things have to be difficult so that when you beat the game you really feel like you've achieved something.

Or you could just pull the stickers off.

But here is the important distinction: a good game has to be difficult, not impossible! There has to be someway for you to stumble your way into the right course of action and make it feel like you (as the player) knew what you were doing the entire time.

I'm free! I mean, I knew where I was the whole time!

How do you tell your player to go this direction rather than that one? How do you make them learn that the red apples are healthy but the green ones are poisonous?

This is where Game Designers use Player Feedback. Computer games are (obviously) highly visual. Think of them like a TV show or a movie. When you're watching a movie, you don't need words to know that that's the evil guy when he comes on screen. No one needs to hold up a huge sign that says "Look! The hero is now being brave!"

Movies prefer to use music and action on the screen to explain what's going on. Words tend to just get in the way. It's more exciting and the audience isn't getting sidetracked with huge blocks of text.

Oh wow! They're just about to start the gun-fight!

Last episode we used the way the forest looked and sounded to suggest that it was scary, and we designed the castle in such a way that it seemed daunting but exciting nonetheless. The players don't need to read anything - they just know that the forest is scary, or that the castle is exciting, just like it would be in a movie. Both levels make it very clear that the player doesn't want to stay there. The player almost instinctively knows that they have to get out, that to win the level means leaving.

And that's Player Feedback, simply: explaining a game without words. It can be very difficult, but it's always important to try to reduce the amount of pure text in your game. We've rushed through a lot today, well done! Don't worry if you're still a little confused, the Teacher- and Student-Handouts go into a lot more detail about Player Feedback, and suggest a few ways you can implement it into your game.

So we'll leave it here for now. Next week we'll be wrapping up our Let's Make a Game series with the fun part: Testing!

Stay tuned!

Anthony

Games Sharing Day - a Huge Success

Recently we held a highly successful games sharing day at Cromer Public School at the conclusion of the MacICT Game Design with Kahootz project. With 107 Year 5 students participating in the project, we had to plan carefully so that everyone had enough access to the computers in the lab to play each others' games.

We decided to host one session in the morning for two classes and an afternoon session for the remaining two classes. For a hour and a half, students played each others' games and evaluated the games using a rubric which provided specific feedback to designers in the following areas:

• Technical
• Navigation
• Spelling and grammar
• Design
• Game idea
• Enjoyment

All students took their evaluation role seriously and provided constructive feedback to the designers. Parents were invited to attend a part of each of the sessions.  They also played their child's game and were encouraged to provide constructive feedback. Students were asked to demonstrate to their parents how they constructed some of the scenes in their games. The parents were overwhelming positive about the whole experience. They were amazed at the problem solving and critical thinking that it took to create the games and were surprised at the quality of many of the games.

Anthony and I were amazed at how engaged the students remained for the entire session. Despite a lot of movement and a great crowd of people, we did not see a student who was not either playing a game, evaluating a game, sharing their game with their parents or watching their parents play. It was fantastic to see so many Dads come along to play their child's game and also Debbie Evans, the Director of Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre joined in the fun. What a great time was had by all!

My Game Design Experience with Kahootz by Angelica - A Year 5 Student

I absolutely loved working on Kahootz with my fabulous teachers, Ms Howe and Mr Fennell. Kahootz was something I’d learnt about before, but when I revised it with my class last term, I learnt a lot of new things that I had never even seen before! It also built up my confidence a little, too. I remember playing on Kahootz before and seeing that little pink tab spelling out ‘Sound’ but I had been too nervous to click on it, in case I stuffed something up.

Making my game was a mixture of fun and challenge. I loved working with my friends and sharing ideas with them. Sometimes, while making my game on Kahootz, I found myself in the middle of nowhere-not sure what to do at all! I thought and thought, and finally ended up finding my way back home.

Presenting at the conference was a bit nerve-racking at first, but as I practiced and finally came to the stage of presenting in front people, I found it really fun. I am really thankful that I was chosen, and received the opportunity to do something as cool as that. I didn't think that just making a game on a computer program would take me to where I am now.

Overall, I absolutely loved everything about Kahootz; the designing, making and presenting. If I had the opportunity to, I would do it all again!

Student Designed Games

A short video showcasing games made in Kahootz and Kodu.

Student Games - MacICT Game Design Project 2010 from MacICT on Vimeo.

Teacher Post Gladesville Public School

My name is Maria Kotouc and I am currently a computer RFF teacher at Gladesville Public school. I have been teaching computer classes for 2 years. Previous to this I have been a classroom teacher K-6.

I gained plenty of experience with ICT whilst being the computer RFF teacher. I came across Kahootz through another Macquarie ICT course. I thought it would be a great way for stage 3 students to enhance their movie making skills. For the past 10 years stage 3 students at Gladesville Public School have been working on developing their movie making skills – planning, storyboarding, filming, editing clips & sound using the i-movie program. With these skills stage 3 students have created their own video clips that have incorporated – special effects, titles and animation (stop-motion & computer generated using Powerpoint) Kahootz seemed to be another extension, particularly with its 3D worlds and gaming options.

When stage 3 students were told that they were going to create their own video games they were really excited. There are currently 4 stage 3 classes but I am limiting the program with the two year 6 classes until I become more familiar with it. Year 6 have an hour and a half lesson every week with me, which will enable them to really get into the program. For the first 3 weeks I allowed them to explore and create simple animations. However, during this time we were going through several technical problems running the program with our Mac computers and being on our network. Students could not save, the program was crashing and some of the functions worked for some students and not for others. This was getting very frustrating not just for me but for the students, especially when they could not save. Luckily there was a solution – Get the students off the network and let them work on the computer hard drive, which meant they had to stay on that computer all the time. This seemed to solve all the problems we were having. The students got their enthusiasm back for the program.

When Anthony came from ICT, he showed the students the more difficult steps (using variables) and he showed them how to storyboard. At this stage the year 6 students became extremely motivated. Back in class, learning about Gold as their HSIE topic students began the process of storyboarding with their teacher Ben Grant (did the Kahootz course as well) who also initiated this process with the other year 6 class. Currently, we are at storyboarding stage and are highly motivated to get started.

Hi my name is Ben Grant and I’m the Grade Six teacher here at Gladesville Public School. I have experience in being Computer Coordinator on a temporary basis at a previous school. I also studied ICT as my minor study at University. I am quite comfortable using and teaching ICT in the classroom and school environment.

I came across Kahootz through Maria (see above) and attended the one-day introduction course at MACICT with Anthony and Cathie. I found the course extremely useful and the program very easy to navigate and work. Maria was very interested in running the program with two Stage 3 classes. I was happy to support her from the classroom supporting the students in planning & storyboarding. The kids are really excited about the program and are enjoying the planning and storyboarding process thus far.

We are studying ‘Gold’ during this term and have asked the kids to base their game loosely around gold as a theme. All game-plans are unique and the students really get the chance to be creative as well as become competent users of technology in a fun environment.

Both the students and teachers are very excited about the ongoing project and are looking forward to a very worthwhile and successful program.