Information Technology Education

My students have been working on the National STEM Video Game Challenge in pairs and it's been great, but I really wanted them to have access to experts beyond the classroom.  To this end, I invited guests from a Women in Computing organization from a local university to visit.  Wow!  What an incredible time.  We talked about the internet of things, women in CS pioneers, and much more. Here's a video of our time: Following their talk with the class, they went around and worked with groups of students.  The conversations were amazing as they guided my students through thinking about their game creation.  They really led them to reflect more deeply on the player and how they would experience the game.  Would a player find this interesting? Challenging?  How can you add more challenge? Look forward to future collaboration with this amazing group.

It's time to MYOVideoGame (make-you-own-video-game).  I was inspired by the National STEM video game challenge. More about that here : The best part about this project is the opportunity to integrate so many skills and practices across the curriculum.  First off, came the two-pronged approach to brainstorming.  Since there are two aspects to this project, it required thinking along two tracks.  One was the STEM content where I had students identify and research a topic on the central theme of explorers/exploration.  There was some useful information on National Geographic on this topic.  The other track was that of the video game design itself.  They had to plan out how the game would run and how the player would experience their game.  These two tracks were then put together into their game design document.  I provided an authentic game design document example from a team of video game developers for them to reference.  Based on the Nat...