Motivating Others - You can't do it. (please keep reading)

Here we are midway through the school year. During these shorter winter days, we can all struggle at times with staying energized. As students and teachers who entered classes in the fall fresh and excited, we may now find ourselves struggling to "keep the faith" with whatever it is we're doing. Our goals in regards to progress in game design, as well as other school related expectations, may now seem harder to reach. It's not hard to see how one could lose motivation at this time of the year.

So, how do we stay motivated, and how can we motivate others? This question has been around for years, and there have been many theories and possibilities have been tested.

You could try to hire a motivational speaker:


But ladies & gentlemen, I have to tell you something. Something you probably know, but don't want to believe.

The truth is, you can't really motivate someone else. Not in a lasting, significant way.

You cannot motivate someone else whuh.....

That's right: You can't motivate someone else, but you can motivate yourself. And through your self motivation, it is very possible that you might just inspire others around you to motivate themselves.

I've seen this for years in the world of high school band. If I am not excited about something that we are working on, often the students will reflect this attitude. But, if I am excited (sometimes it takes personal motivation on my part to get there), I put more energy into it. And when I put more energy into something, whether it be a piece of music or a lesson about ActionScript, students around me seem to get inspired and show more excitement themselves.

As a Globaloria educator, I have found that the more I invest myself in self-learning, the more motivated I become to teach the next lesson. It is exciting to share new information. (why do you think gossip shows and magazines are so popular?) And those around us are sure to pick up on this excitement and become more self motivated.

This comes a little "back to the basics", but I believe the best way that I can motivate others is by being prepared and learning the skills myself. In music, this involves studying scores, listening to professional recordings, in some cases communicating with the composer, and researching the story behind the composition. In Globarloria, it is accomplished by taking on personal flash projects, finding tutorials, looking for things to blog about, and keeping up the wiki.

Through this preparation, we make ourselves more confident, proficient, and MOTIVATED. This type of motivation is sure to rub off on others.

For more reading and insightful theories on this, download the free eBook How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) by Mark McGuinness.

Or, you could just hire a motivational speaker....

Assignments for Friday's Class

Students,

As you know, I will not be in class on Friday. So.....

Here are your assignments:

1. Complete any work from Wednesday that is still incomplete.

2. Read the "New Year's Resolutions for Globaloria" post. Then write your own post listing your accomplishments and three resolutions you have for yourself in Globaloria in 2010.

3. Check out the "Top Down RPG Tutorial" post. Download the RPG fla file and study the notated ActionScript. Be prepared to discuss this code in next Wednesday's class. What actions do you think you might use in your game?

Good Luck and Have Fun!!!

New Year's Resolutions for Globaloria

Happy New Year everyone!

author's note: The inspiration for this post came from Mr. Bill Dorsey of Capital High School who has a great post on New Year's Resolutions.

As we conclude the first semester of Globaloria we have a great opportunity to look back on the successes we've had so far. At Greenbrier East we are half way through our year long curriculum, while other schools are finished or getting ready to complete their semester long class.

I am amazed at the accomplishments I have seen in my class to this point. We have had great mini-game projects, active blogs, creative wiki pages, and we have tackled some big chunks of actionscript! Our team game projects are on track and have potential to produce some nice final games. Check out some of our class' work:

Here is Tyler's first complete mini game!

And some nice Title Screen/Button work by Team Tangerine (Silas & Casey)!

Of course all you have to do is check out some of the blogs from our classes blog roll to see the progress that we have made there.

However, with all the success we have had so far, now is not the time to rest on our proverbial laurels. Instead, we should all take advantage of the knowledge we have gained and build on it as we move forward. We all can take the opportunity that "New Year's Resolutions" offer to make progress in our Globaloria endeavors.

Here are my personal resolutions as a Globaloria educator:

1. Continue to build my personal Flash skills in order to demonstrate best practice for my students.

2. Keep up the Main Page of the GEHS wiki so that it is an exciting and dynamic website for students and visitors. I would like to do this with regularly updated tutorials and links to insightful blogs and game examples. I would also like to get Mr. Warfield and Mrs. Daigle involved in this process.

3. Allow my blog experience to evolve as I find new ways to utilize the medium. To do this, I must keep an open mind and a fluid perspective as I observe other blogs and consider my needs and those of my students.

Now, I want to pass on the challenge that Mr. Dorsey of Capital H.S. first proposed.

What are your New Year's Resolutions for Globaloria? Write your own blogpost where you consider your past successes and list the resolutions that you have for 2010 in your Globaloria experience!

Snowed-in Tutorial: Top Down classic RPG

So, we've had a little bit of an extended break, and how have I cured my cabin fever? By trying to get a leg up on my game design skills. Since several of our teams are planning to make old school style, top down RPGs I thought I would hunt for a good tutorial.

I found this great AS2 RPG tutorial on a blog called Tagify. While this tutorial is loaded with great info, it does have its drawbacks for our purposes.

First of all, the script is not written in an "Actions" layer the way we write it, but rather it is encoded on the movie clip it refers to. Therefore you will see some unfamiliar scripts. For instance, you will see "onClipEvent" instead of "onEnterFrame". Another difference is the use of "this" or "_root.MovieClipName" in place of the instance name of a particular movie clip.

I have made the necessary adjustments (and some additions) in my version.

Here is a link to the fla. I have included descriptions of what each chunk of code does.

For those of you planning a top down RPG, this will be of great help. And of course there is more we can do and explore in class.

Good Luck - I'll see everyone soon!