Don’t Play Video Games: Make Them
Here is an interesting article that discusses how the creation of video games can be an excellend tool for teaching students. The article Computer games as liberal arts? provides some interesting insights into how creating games can teach a number of subjects.
[Making video games]…turns out to be perhaps the ultimate form of liberal arts. In order to create a computer game you have to think about the content. You have to write a script. The programming involves logic, math and science. And to understand how you distribute a game you have to get into issues of marketing, sociology, and Internet culture. Panelist Rafael Fajardo, a professor at the University of Denver, says that his program, which teaches teachers how to teach kids to make games, is working to “change the culture of education.” The National Science Foundation has contributed funding.
What a wonderful “constructivistic” concept.
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There's a program called 3d gamestudio that I believe is the easiest program so far to create decent video games with no programming. I found a tutorial on the web at http://www.juniorgamemaker.com that can have you creating a video game in about an hour. The good thing is that all the software are free or give a free trial so you don't have to spend any money on software if it's something your not interested in.
This looks like something I could throw at summer freshman in a few months. I’ve been trying to find a low-level game programming platform to use, just haven’t found the right one yet.
Wasn’t there a big movement around using LOGO programming for this purpose?
My daughter would love to do something like this. Do you have any resources you could recommend to get us started?