Fall 2009

After a few months on sabbatical from the Globaloria program, Man High School is getting set to embark on our second attempt at conducting the gaming class. After facing many problems/challenges both personal and with technology accessibility conflicts, a break from the program was deemed necessary. However, I think the break has given me new perspective and a renewed determination to make this coming semester better for the students and myself. I really felt that my class could have done so much more with their ideas, but the limited time and access to computers "stunted" their games. So, even though I am still scared, nervous, and overwhelmed, I'm looking forward to the challenges I will face this coming semester with a new class and a little more knowledge of the game creation process.

Technology Workshop at RCTC

The WVBEA sponsored a Technology Workshop at the Randolph County Technical Center. Denise Stalnaker was the presenter/trainer. Loretta and I attended the workshop along with a couple of other teachers from our county. We participated in various activities which included Flash and Adobe Photoshop. We really enjoyed the presentation and I learned some things and got a refresher on some others. We started off with a Flash activity with some of Denise's students and they did a really good job of helping everyone. I felt like this workshop was really good for us to attend as Globaloria educators. Not only did it involve the Flash program, but there were also other technology tools and programs that will be useful in my class. I'm really glad that we were able to attend the class.

Plans for Blogging and Maintaining Wiki Pages for Now and Next Year

As a reminder to myself, I copied the open feedback portion of my progress report. I want to encourage myself to be sure to encourage my students to blog and maintain their team wiki pages!!

Open Feedback from March 31st Progress Report:
As a first year participant in the Globaloria program, I have faced many challenges in learning all the in’s and out’s. When I first was introduced to the wiki pages and blogs, I felt that they would be a really good classroom tool. As I have used them over this past year, I have found them to be so. However, it seems that this is a tool that I don’t use frequently enough. I myself am so busy with day-to-day details of teaching my own class in addition to trying to teach this brand new class as well as learn “how” to teach this class that I feel I neglect this portion of the program. This in turn leads my students to neglect it. This is not a conscious thing, but it happens. We all get so wound up in our gaming process that I forget to have them blog. So, I am going to use the forms that Maitreyi emailed to us for our last WebEx session to let my students see what they need to be doing and what their final evaluations will be based upon. I am going to give them a copy each week to keep in the class folders and have them check off each item that they are to complete and then review it on Fridays to make sure that they have done their weekly assignments. I think that with this new organizational tool that has been developed for us that I will do a better job of “recordkeeping” and hopefully this will lead them to be more responsible for updating their blogs and not relying on me to remind them. I also will have Loretta double check their blog entries to be sure they have posted and if not, remind them to do so. I plan to have them blog at least twice a week – once in class and once on their own time – until the end of the year. I want to try this to see how it works and then hopefully next year, this will be a common practice in the class for my students and myself.

Happy Spring

It's been a long winter and I'm glad spring is here. My Globaloria students have been drawing all of their graphics for their games. I told them we have to start getting our games ready to go during the next two weeks. I hope to have the games in at least a demo working order by spring break. The school is currently using the computer labs to do writing assessment and we're working in my room in their teams. They have commented to our mentor Denise on their discussion page, uploaded files to their individual and then team pages (when we found out we were putting them in the wrong place), and have worked on their team project pages. It seems like we're making some progress, but still need to get sooooo much done!

February Progress

As the month has progressed, my Globaloria students have been making some progress on their game graphics. We have been working as much as possible on our graphics for our games. The students have been out of 7th period pretty often (plus I have been out once again for family illness), but are working when they are in the lab. From reading their blogs, I can see that they seem to be really enjoying this and have really begun to get into their games. I'm getting as excited as they are, but am also concerned about putting it all together to actually make a game.

My principal has requested that we offer this class 2 times a day next year. I will contact Maitreyi about this soon and also our local middle school has a teacher interested in teaching the class at that level. I have also been recruiting for next year. I have a few students who have shown an interest for next year.

Snow days ...

It's back to school .... well, for one day and then snow day again. Actually I missed yesterday due to illness, but my substitute had the students draw some for their game. She said they all did their assignment. I'm anxious to get them into their games. I really enjoyed the flash workshop on Saturday, Jan. 24, and it was a nice refresher and I learned a bunch of new things too. It's nice to actually have time to work on flash without interruptions and with help right there. I know the expense is a problem, but it really gave me a chance to feel more comfortable with the program. It's hard to find time to work like I want to and that was really nice. We have a 2 hour delay scheduled tomorrow so that will cut into my class time with my globaloria students, but I will be glad to get the chance to tell them about some of the things we learned and show them my simple beginning of a game. Hopefully they will be more excited too.

January 2009

We have been back to school for a week and a half and the students have done some drawing. We have still had trouble getting computer time. I had the program installed on our library computers, but have found that it stops letting installs after so many. We are trying to have a back-up spot to use when the lab is busy and it's very frustrating to have to work around trying to find a place to go. Anyway, we are drawing now and getting into flash some and I hope to get some things uploaded this week. They were out 2 days last week and had a 2 hour delay one day. So, we have been limited. The trouble we seem to be having more than anything is getting their game ideas to a point that they can create something. I can't seem to get them to finalize their ideas. They keep changing things. Any pointers on this? I have given them the rubric for their game too. Also, I found out that I may lose 2 of my students. One is moving back to North Carolina and one keeps talking about quitting and getting his GED. I keep telling him he is not allowed to quit! I need him too much! ha! ha!