My video game
Wow! I have to say experimenting with Gamestarmechanic was quite an experience for me! I grew up in the 70's where the only game available was a video condole that had ping pong game that was in black in white. It had three speeds as I recall. Later in the 80's we got an Atari. My favorite games was Pac Man and Pit Fall. Many of the games in the quest reminded me of Pit Fall. Children today have a wonderful advantage of developing technology.
Gamestarmechanic fosters creative thinking as well as problem solving. Teachers can use this tool to engage and motivate students in grades 4-9 in all content areas. Background knowledge is not required because the game design site takes participants through a quest. Throughout the quest you venture through a narrative, interact with games, practice designing, editing, and fixing issues. As a reward, items are earned after each game that can be used later for designing. All you need is internet and flashplayer 10 and the games can be played and designed at home or school.
My favorite part of this experience was designing the game. Since I have no game playing experience, some of the levels in the quest were very challenging for me.
Theresa, my experience with videogames is prettey much the same (I was there in the beginning!). This particular site, seems to be geared for the primary students versus the high schoolers I teach currently, but I definately understand how students could learn skills and have fun at the same time. Since I teach Trades and Industry content, my deployment of the site would be more of a reward for good performance, or I could use it a competition tool (most HS students are competitive).
ReplyDeleteTheresa, same here, my experience with games has been zero, at least for this generation of gamers, I too grew up in the 70's and played with something called "telepong" I wonder if that was the same as what you mentioned about ping-pong. Playing video games in school was just on people's dreams, I don't think we could even imagined having computers in every-classroom and be able to play something educational. Now kids have it really good, with so many "amenities"to work with. I definitely would like to use technology in my future classroom, especially I would like my students to see my games and beat me, that would make it more personal.
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