Some students

I have two to three students who I think have given up. They do a good job of looking busy but don't seem to achieve much. I have tried to encourage them. Two of the students have Fs and that doesn't seem to matter. Any suggestions? I have one young man that this class is a real struggle for him but he stills asks questions or ask the girl beside his for help. His ability is far below the ability of the two who are not working. I have had this problem before and try different things with the students but I think I am getting old and can not think of anything to try. Please help the old lady in need.

Coding

We had a live WebEx session on different coding. I have learned so much. It is interesting to see the students who understand and those who struggle. I had a few surprises. We have a long way to go but they seem to be gaining the skills they need to continue.

Making Games

My students are to the point that are going to be using their time to create their games. I am having the students create on Monday the plan for each student for the week and have them post on their personal pages what they worked on creating. They are then to upload work to the group project page. I am also telling them if they are off task I will cut their grade. If a student is absent they do not get credit for that day. Thus is they work all five days their weekly grade is 100--if they are absent a day their grade is 80. They can stay after school if they want to make up that time. The reports have to have details--they can't say I created a button. There are other grades that they will have but the weekly reports are worth the most points. This is a hard time for me to grade. If you have other ideas please let me know.

End of the 9 Weeks

We had 9 weeks tests and are getting ready to start the new 9 weeks on Monday. I had the students create a Flash that demonstrated and/or explained 5 things that they had learned in this class. It was interesting to see what they did.

It was also a time for me to look back and think what I would do different next time. One I would spend a longer time discussing and developing global issues. Most of my students choose education games because I think that is in their comfort zone. I want them to move outside that comfort zone because they will have to research more thus learn more as they develop their game.

The progress of my students is so much greater than last year because of the new structure of the wiki. My students have already completed the lesson on interaction and sound. Sound was tough on the ears and I had to frequently say turn down your volume but they were laughing and watching each others. They were learning and having fun at the same time. Of course we have a little blood and but all well.

I am not totally please with how a couple of the groups are managing and want to make changes. I am just not sure how to make changes or moviate certain students at this point in the game making process.

Over all I am extremely please with the abilities and achievement of my students thus far. I look forward to their final games.

Global World--why we are doing this

Recently our family had a German exchange student. My brother teased him saying, "You are the funniest looking German I have ever seen." My brother is not a mean person and here is the reason for the joke. Yihan was born in Germany to parents who were both Chinese. His main language is German but he also speaks Chinese (he says he can write very little Chinese). So as you can image he did not have what we would call the "typical" German appearence. We enjoyed his visit and learned a tremendous amount about his country and home town. I just wanted to use this as an example that our students need to be prepared for this world that is no longer "typical."

Presentations

Last week I had my students go back and redo or add information to their game plans. I wanted them to be a little more discriptive. I had the students create a presentation and we discussed presentation skills. On Friday the students did presentations but I was not here. The sub had students video tape them but I have decided not to watch them yet. I am going to have the groups download their video and then create a mini movie and upload it to viddler and then the wiki. I will watch the finished product. I told them the presentation was for a test grade. I am anxious to see how well they did.

Students have gotten the concept of buttons and naviagating. I want them to work a little more on adding animation so I am going to add an extra assignment here. I am having each member of the group take a different section of the game and draw and animate it. In the end they may not use it but I want all students to have a good understanding of animating and how hard it is.

Also so check out the work of one of the second year students. Selena's Work

More game

My night school students were taking a test so I decided to take the quiet time to work on my game. If you click on the Play button it now plays an intro to the main character. My Projects Take a look at my character and see if you can help me name it. I will take all APPROPRIATE suggestions. I created this from a picture that I took last fall. It took me a LONG time to cut the little guy out. I then imported him into Flash and converted him to a vector. I have a jpg and a psd saved of the original cutout so that I need to make changes throughout the game HOPEFULLY I will be able to do that.