Leveraging Creativity

In my last post I talked about the importance of project based learning as a better way to:

1. Prepare kids for working outside of education
2. Assess kids understanding of standards and skills
3. Retaining knowledge and skills over time

Now I want to talk about how I am planning on putting this into practice in my classroom next school year. After listening to the latest Son's of Technology podcast I found my inspiration for next school year. In this podcast they presenters talked about kids needing to create and the easy of which the create in relation to gaming they also talked about how video games are a double edged sword when it comes to education and kids well being. I am going to focus more on the part of kids needing to create.

In this day an age it is easy for kids to jump on a game and share what they are doing with friends and strangers. You have platforms like discord, youtube, and various console sharing apps that allow kids to share their gaming experience. I will say I was/am a bit skeptical of this as a way of interacting with others as well as putting kids online too much. However as a parent I can manage the screen time but as for the social interaction portion my son is helping to open my eyes to the possibilities of this platforms.  As we all know social emotional learning is vital to a kids development. I think sometimes we think that video games serve as a negative influence but I am reading about and seeing where they have a positive influence, to a point. But I digress the topic I want to talk about is how I am going to leverage kids need to create and gaming in my classroom as it relates to project based learning.

For those of you who don't know I teach 2 to 3 different classes at a local middle school. I teach: Robotics and Programming (Based off of the FIRST Tech Challenge & using the REV robotics platform), Introduction to Engineering (Curriculum changes from year to year), and sometimes the PLTW course Flight & Space. Robotics and Flight & Space are your standard curriculum in a box type courses with me doing a few little tweaks here and there. My Intro to Engineering class is the one I have a lot of flexibility with. The primary focus is on teaching kids the Engineering/Design process so they are prepared for robotics or Flight & Space. I have had a set curriculum based such as code.org's CS Discoveries, to a choose your own project type course (similar to my old shop classes in middle school). to various others. However this year I am think I am going to try a variation on project type course that will allow me to focus more a a common goal and will let me both teach the engineering process as well as how to work cooperatively. The later is probably more important as we move from a manufacturing economy to a innovative economy. 

My plan is to have kids work on designing, creating, & marketing a game. However it will not necessarily be a video game. My goal is to have them make a board game that can have video components. In my classroom kids have access to a variety of tools ranging from 3d printers to vinyl cutters, programming language, 2d design apps, etc. In the past I have had kids work on these tools individually on projects of their choice which was good but there was little cooperative work other than just showing classmates how to do things they may not have known how to do I want to take it to the next level. Working together with others in class as well as with others outside of their class (in other periods.). I have tried this before and it didn't go so well but with new inspiration and kids better prepared with background knowledge of social tools I think this could go well. My ultimate goal is to have a game that kids could take home and play with friends and family. We will see how this goes as the year progresses.

I welcome your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc.

Go Forth & Do Great Things!

Podcast version