Getting Better at Flash

Well, I was inspired after the Globaloria Academy workshop this past weekend and decided that I should see what else I could do using Flash.  So, I went home and had my 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son tell me what they would like to have in a game.  My daughter suggested a butterfly that could land on a tree branch...and with the ActionScript that Brian walked us through on Saturday, I was able to make a little flash game that my kids ask to play over and over.  Pretty cool.  Also, I showed some of the students, and they are pretty excited to apply the coding into their own game designs.  THANK YOU WORLD WIDE WORKSHOP TEAM!!! Especially Maitreyi, Steward, Jeff, Lee, Shannon, and Brian.

Discussions, Games, and New Evaluations/Assessments

Today, Abbie and I had a nice discussion on how we can move our students' games forward a little faster.  We have been putting a lot of thought recently into the idea that we can hold them to greater accountability through individual assessment.  So, on Friday, we will be meeting with the class to discuss daily grading on their individual roles.  

We have decided that the teams need to have playable demos of their games ready by January 16th.  This will have them ready to present to the World Wide Workshop representatives the following week.  It is good for our students (and teachers....) to have a solid deadline to be working toward.  

All in all, both teams are working to finish their game planning by the end of class today, and their doing very well.

That's all, I hope to blog more often in the next few weeks....

It's been a long time since I rock & rolled...

Well I am coming back to life after my post-marching band season coma.  Globaloria has been going well.  Mrs. Franks and I have been able to keep the students pretty well on task.  So far, they have created paper prototypes for their game which they recorded on video and posted to their wiki.  In addition, they have re-created their paper prototypes using flash.  These are also posted on the wiki under the group projects pages under assets. 

Next class period, we plan to have the students working on the Planning Your Game lesson.  We would really like the students to be able to take their laptops home to work on their games, but we are still trying to resolve the issue of being able to sign into the computers away from the school network.  Once we take care of this, we should open up more opportunities for the students to work outside of class.

Again, all is going well.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get myself to blog more often once again...

Until next time.