The second round of computer is due on Friday. Students were allowed to partner with one other student to develop their games this time and the results are amazing.

Several groups went with more abstract concepts that have an engaging look and intriguing game play. One group is making a Galaga-Space Invaders cross-over game, while a couple of other groups are creating maze games.

On Wednesday, November 12 we had our first release party. Students presented their games to the class, discussed some of the design decisions, and talked about issues they faced in creating their first game and how they overcame their obstacles. Afterward, students rotated through their classmates' games, playing them and providing feedback.

One of our Assistant Principals attended the party. Overall we had an impressive array of games, everything from some maze games to pong-style games, to track/race games.

I am piloting the game programming curriculum using Greenfoot with five students who are in their second semester of computer science. I am also using parts of the curriculum with 20 first semester computer science students but using Scratch as the programming platform. All students are in the computer lab at the same time.

The first semester students are in the process of creating their first games. What is exciting to see is how the students are trying to follow the tenets of humane games. Only one game is a shooter and that is shooting at a bouncing target.

Attached below you will find a zipped version of our group game. We were challenged to make a game about the political system here in the US. We chose to make a game about the 270 Electoral votes needed to win the election.

We did some research, and found on http://www.270towin.com a wealth of information regarding how states are leaning now, how they've voted in the past, and how many times they voted for the winner. All of this went into the algorithms we developed during game development.

Take a look at the curriculum I've been developing.

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dr84rr8_22fvdxb9ht

Read my regular blog post at:
http://mhobkirk.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/teacher-game-institute-continue...

Before beginning my evaluation discussion on the Assessment Rubric, I'd like to revisit the conversation we had during one of the first pedagogy sessions.

The question asked was do we use rubrics. As I remember, most did, but there was one participant who argued against them vehemently. The example given by this person was that when grading with rubrics she found that those that really weren't good programs scored high, and those that were good programs scored low.

Here are some notes on accessibility in game design from Henry Jenkins and Eitan Glinert (one of his students). Glinert has written a thesis on designing games that are accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. He shares two key ideas:

This has been a helpful metaphor for the act method during the class taught at Martin Luther King Jr. Early College. For example, instead of saying "in the act method, do this..." you would describe the act method as the heartbeat of the actor and consistently use the heartbeat metaphor throughout your instruction.

You can check my blog at
http://mhobkirk.wordpress.com for my experiences on Day 6, and a reflection on the week.