Game Presentations Preperation

It is the middle of the year, so you know what that means, Game Demo presentations.  Many of the teams are almost completely ready for presentations.  Hopefully the rest will be ready by Thursday.  Although we are in a run of four snow days in the past week and a half and that may set us back a little.  I really enjoy game demo presentations for several reasons.  The students realize that there are several other people monitoring their work, and that gives them more motivation.  Also the Globaloria staff always offers great suggestions for all of the teams.  The most important part, in my opinion, is that it always raises student engagement and excitement levels.  I am hoping that all of my students will be in attendance for demos and will receive some great information about their games. I will post all of the game demos to viddler to allows all of my students to add them to their team page.

Adding Animation and Sound

After a few struggles and a loss of excitement, adding animation and adding sound has helped regain students engagement. As stated earlier, many students became frustrated with flash programming. After the unit on adding animation, they now enjoy working with flash. To this point Adding Animation has been the most enjoyed unit the students have worked through. I had to force them to continue on with the course schedule. They all wanted to continue to make animations and show what they had done. Adding sound has also been a fun topic for the students. I am glad that these two units are placed where they are in the curriculum. Both years I have taught Globaloria, students became frustrated around the same time. I think we are back on the correct path and hopefully on our way to success.

This year in Globaloria

Once again in the beginning of the year student excitement was at a high level.  All of the students are working hard and seem to be enjoying the class.  They update their blogs and wikis continuously, as this still seems to be their favorite part of the course.  When we started working with flash, I saw many similarities from last years group.  The start of flash usually brings a little frustration to the class and student attitude seems to be at its lowest.  This only lasts for a small time.  I feel that I have done a better job this year utilizing Globaloria helpdesk, which has decreased some of the frustration.  I am confident that this years class will be just as successful as last years.

Creating Game Scenes

Many of my students are working hard on creating their scenes in flash. They have really enjoyed drawing in flash and creating objects for their game. We are having a few technical difficulties when it comes to uploading projects to our page. Although there are a few teams that have their scenes posted to their team page.I did not have this many problems last year uploading to projects page. We are working through our struggles and making some progress. I have learned a few things from last year. I am making sure students are given plenty of time to finished topics. Last year I felt that they were rushed and needed more time on certain topics.

Math topics for 7th grade students

The groups have been set and students have now chosen their math CSO that their game will be based on.  Last year I made the mistake of letting my students choose any math topic they wanted, well we ended up with games that were for students in elementary school.  My last year students worked really hard, and were very successful.  I just wanted this years students to create games on their grade level.  We walked through all of the seventh grade content standards and each group picked one for their game.  We have games on topics such as graphing, taxes, tips, discounts, scientific notation, and integers.  No more than two groups are working on the same topic.  We have a wide variety of topics and I am really excited about of the game ideas.  There are a lot of creative minds in Globaloria this year, so I have high expectations for them all!!!!

Globaloria progress in 2010

A year experience has made a tremendous difference in the comfort level for me as an educator in the Globaloria classroom.  Our class seems to be off to a great start.  My students have edited their wiki and made them their own.  Of course the girls love this part of the course.  They are constantly updating and adding pictures, videos, and links.  They love to change the colors of the font and background.  Some of the students have been working on home on their wikis and blogs.  The students have enjoyed creating their blog accounts on blogger. One thing that I have seen that has been consistent from last year is that the girls are the ones who are more interested in the beginning.  I am looking forward to a great year!

Welcome Sandy River Globaloria Students!

It is time to put away the beach clothes and stop pulling the "all nighters", summer break is over. This doesn't mean that the fun has to stop. The Globaloria Program prepares young people ages 12 and up to create educational games and interactive simulations, for their own personal and professional development, and for the social and economic benefit of their communities. We will all create educational math games on your grade level. In our new journey we will experience some fun times creating our wikis and blogs. Some of you will enjoy tinkering with the wiki more than others, but we all will get familiar with them. All of you will work collaboratively with a partner in your class, but also with many others around the state, as well as the Globaloria team in New York.

I am so excited to get all of you started. I just can't wait to see all of the creativity that will be shown in the upcoming year. We will have many visitors from many places wanting to see your progress you have made throughout the year. One important component of this course is that I learn along with you, so you will have to help me along the way as well. I hope everyone will enjoy our class and learn so much more.