Academic Camp to Teach Teens Game Design

This news story has caught my eye this week.  This innovative, 21st century teaching is inspirational and it will be extremely interesting to find out how it goes.  I wish more of this happened in the UK (see my case study on Code Club, to see what there is to offer in the UK).

Teenage students in Idaho will have the opportunity to participate in an online camp in game design/programming from March.  The Idaho Teen Game Lab (ITGL) is intended for people who are interested in a career in digital gaming and computer programming.  It is open to 200 middle and high school students across the state of Idaho.

ITGL is a six week, online camp that teaches digital game design and allows for career exploration in this area.  ITGL is taught using 3D GameLab, which is a quest-based learning platform.  Students level up by playing educational “quests” within Gamemaker Studio, Sploder, Unity, Minecraft and adventure maps at their own pace.  Students will be able to collaborate in virtual worlds to plan and build civilizations, create personalized games and test and provide feedback on fellow-developers games.  ITGL is co-sponsored by Idaho Digital Learning (IDLA) and GoGo Labs.

“At Idaho Digital Learning, we are always searching for innovative ways to improve learning opportunities for Idaho Students.  Idaho Teen Game Lab provides a rich learning experience that promotes creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking which are essential skills in todays work environment.  We are really excited about our partnership with GoGo Labs and have enjoyed working with them on this project” said Mike Caldwell, Idaho Digital Learning Director of Program Development.

“Ninety-nine percent of teens play video games.  GoGo Labs is focused on engaging students and inspiring teachers through gamified learning opportunities, and what could be more interesting than designing the games themselves?  We’re excited to be working with IDLA to bring this opportunity to Idaho teens” said Lisa Dawley, GoGo Labs CEO & Founder.

Registration will open on February 5th 2014, in celebration of Digital Learning Day.  ITGL will be great for beginner and intermediate game designers.  For more information, go to http://idahoteengamelab.org/.

Please follow @paulladley on Twitter, games-ED on Pinterest and like games-ED’s Facebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and interesting games based learning findings.

Part 5: Case Study - Code Club

Code Club is a U.K. network of free after-school clubs to teach children between the ages 9 and 11 to program.  It is volunteer-led and it provides groups with specially written projects to help them learn basic programming.  The projects teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites.

Their mission is to give every child in the UK the chance to learn to code.  They aim to have Code Club in 25% of primary schools in the UK by the end of 2015.  So far they have 899 clubs across the UK.

Each term, children learn new skills.  Terms 1 & 2 use Scratch to teach programming basics.  Term 3 teaches the basics of web development using HTML and CSS.  Term 4 teaches Python and so on.  Volunteers go to their local club for an hour a week and teach one project per week.  Clubs are usually held in schools, but also can be held in libraries, community centres etc.

Their philosophy: “Code Club is about fun, creativity and learning through exploring. It’s important that the children enjoy their time at Code Club and that it doesn’t feel like another school lesson. They should understand that they’re in charge of the computer, and can (and should) make it do what they want, not the other way around.”

They have also launched Code Club World and already have some clubs in other countries.  The mission of CodeClubWorld.org is to give every child in the world the chance to learn to code by providing project materials and a volunteering framework that supports the running of after-school coding clubs.  So far, they have materials in English, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, German, Norwegian and Ukranian.  They also welcome any offers to translate the materials into your native language.

If you want to learn more, support Code Club or even start your own visit: codeclub.org.uk or for Code Club World: codeclubworld.org.

Please follow @paulladley on Twitter, games-ED on Pinterest and like games-ED’sFacebook and Google+ pages for blog updates and interesting games based learning findings.