KimP’s Blog

Spoke yesterday morning at the Centre for Learning Innovation about the Game2Learn Project that my school and class took part in last year. The Game2Learn project used the digital gamemaking software Game Maker with Stage 3 (Years 5 & 6 students) to design and make their own arcade game. The purpose of the project was to produce a set of “How To”  tutorials to place online so that teachers from around the state would have the opportunity to use digital game-making to enhance learning. There have been a number of different projects using Game Maker software in different states of Australia over the last few years, and this Game2Learn Project was a way of the NSW Department of Education dipping their toes in and trying it out for themselves.

Nicholas Perkins from the CLI, visited the school once a week for an hour per class to lead the hands-on, computer lab actual game making strand of the project. In-class time was spent on a “Critical Literacy” strand during the rest of the week as well. In this strand we looked at what games were, who plays games, types of digital games, features of games, games reviews, games narratives and game design. This strand was vitally important as it gave the students the language to talk about games, as well as some important concepts (such as immersion, challenge, fairness etc), it also provided the basis for some writing work we did on games narratives. I’m really interested in this aspect of using games in education – the other learning possibilities and connections that are part of games and game making.

The students (with a partner) all started off making the same game each, as they worked through the activities/tutorials that the tutor had prepared on a game that he had made himself. This  gave the students the opportunity to become familiar with the program and to become aware of the basic features of the Game Maker software. After a couple of sessions, the students were encouraged to start a game of their own, using the skills they were learning in the whole group session. This really pleased the kids as they were excited and enthusiastic about making their own games – which we had been discussing, planning, thinking about and writing about in the classroom.

The kids worked hard to complete their games in the short period, the filming took place, and the various sections (Teacher talk, tutorials, and student responses) are ready to be re-packaged into a single presentation that hopefully will be trialled in a larger number of schools next term, and ready for public release later in the year.