I am excited to be welcoming you all to the first offering of Globaloria at George Washington High School. It is going to be an awesome year! Throughout the entire year, we ALL will be learning, including myself, your teacher. .
Ok guys, I know that you have been waiting all summer for Globaloria to begin, that time is finally here!
This is going to be a different type of class - I won't be up in front of the class telling you what to do and how to do it.
Instead, we are going to be working together, helping each other. Your game won't just happen - it is going to be a lot of work, research, and teaching each other. We are going to be working in flash, how many of you have worked with flash before?
Where to start - at the beginning is the obvious answer, but sometimes just getting started is quite the battle. It has been one week since our Globaloria training;
I was going to give myself the weekend and then start in this past Monday. Well, that didn't happen, I just kept putting it off....now a week has passed and I have accomplished nothing for Globaloria. (I did get quite a bit of house cleaning done, spent some time tutoring, and ran my Mom to Huntington for a Dr. appointment). Today I received an e-mail from Cindy Daniel asking if I would help out the next two weeks with kids doing math credit recovery. Of course I said Yes. OK - so much for time in July. How about August? Let's see, I have training on Aug 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11 and we start back to school on the 17th. My summer is essentially over - I actually didn't have one. I had one week that I was not at school or attending training....so, I have to crack down and do some work on Globaloria.
1. Decide on a Knowledge Area and explain why you're interested in making games on this topic.
Play with multimedia - upload a video, picture, and hyperlink to your post.
2. Update your blog elements (blogroll, design, etc) to reflect your Knowledge Area
I originally thought that I would like to create games that dealt just with Math (duh? I teach math). But I have changed my mind. Today while I was waiting for everyone to get 'on the same page' I kept playing the "Third-World Farmer" and became addicted. I found out that the game was much more involved than I thought yesterday. It was great. You had to watch the 'health' of your people (or else they might die). I built a clinic so it was cheaper for me to give them medicine. You could add a road and communications. I had the wife have another baby and let the daughter get married and move to another farm. I really got into it. I think that it would take a very long time to create such a game, but it would be so much fun. The resulting game would be much more fun to play.
I think that I could create a real life/strategy game that is in the STEM Knowledge Area. There are a lot of issues that deal with Science that also deal with real life - such as using a robot to help fix BP's broken oil well. (You can watch a live video link.)
I taught Robotics for 4 years to 5 graders at Sacred Heart Grade School in Charleston, WV. It was fun, but a challenge. After talking with C.K., I thought that a game that involved robots would be fun. I'm not sure exactly how it would proceed, would the player build a robot, then use it, would they learn about different kinds of robots and different uses and then play games based on this new knowledge? Not sure yet.
I know that when I was teaching Robotics, the kids learned a lot - again, due to the hands on, just dig in and learn. I went to a NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) in San Antonio and met two gentlemen who taught Robotics to a students from a high school in Arizona. The kids were labeled "from the wrong side of the tracks". If you want to see an awesome video about how constructive learning can take our "kids" far, you need to watch this!
So I think that I will focus on Robotics.
Why am I interested in this? I have discussed this a little. I am interested for many reasons. I used to teach it and I saw first hand how excited my kids would get. This excitement made them WANT to learn. I saw how the hands-on learning made them begin to be real problem solvers rather than number crunchers. I know the need to robots in the real world. I was a programmer, contracted to the military for 16 years - I know what robots can do.
What would I like to include in my game? What genre would my game be?
Gosh, really don't know yet...I had looked over some of the games earlier in the year to show my kids at school, We all really loved the 'Learn the Bones' game and would play it on the SmartBoard, so I thought that I would like to build a game something like that. But after playing the games this afternoon I am a little overwhelmed :)
I got hooked on the "Third-World Farmer' game, I was really happy when I was successful enough to buy an elephant. So now I really don't know what kind of game I want to create.
Maybe I am just getting tired - I get up at 3:42 every morning to walk/run with my dog (oops got off topic - sorry :)
I think that I want to make sure and include artificial intelligence (how cool), collision detection (fun), working with random events (that's life). But back to the question - what genre....don't really know....do you think that you could decide this quickly?......
Hmmm....Who is my favorite Beatle and why? I really don't have a favorite Beatle so I will just pick one and pretend....
Looks like someone has already delved into this subject - check out this blog about who is the favorite Beatle.
I think that poor ol' John Lennon is my favorite - poor ol' guy was assassinated. This is pretty interesting, watch the 1980 MyFox New York coverage of this tragic event.
OK - back to John Lennon....what are some of his life events? Here are some links:
So this still doesn't convince you that he is/was the best Beatle....let's look at some facts about his life.
He was successful not only musically, but also in art and literature. You can check out this website to see some of his artwork.
He was a musician, song writer, (Listen to some of his songs for free) poet, artist, and a philosopher. He spoke out against such things as inequality and the Vietnam War.
Did these qualities make John Lennon "the best Beatle"? Did they make the best singer, song writer, the best hsuband, the best man, the best human being?
What makes a person "the best"? What qualities make one person stand out among all the others?
Think on this, think about it as you go through your day tomorrow, think about it as you interact with your classmates, friends, strangers...think about it....Do YOU have these qualities? Are the qualities subjective? Think about it and let me know your feelings and ideas.....just think
