Summer Camp

[thom]

I use 'computer games' to attract the guys and 'interactive storytelling'
to attract the girls so my workshosp are called 'Interactive Storytelling
and computer game design.' I never use the word 'programming' media design
also works well and anything with software has to be 'programmed' anyway
so the end result is the same.

i also go out and find the audience I want if possible, visit schools,
show work aimed at attracting a particular group.

--thom

On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Edwin Pilobello wrote:

> Awesome!  I will try these ideas.
> 
> QUESTION :  How do you get more girls to sign up for a computer
> programming class/camp?  Saturday Academy has a lot of restricted funds
> targetted for 1) getting girls into nursing, 2) getting girls into
> science, engineering and math.
> 
> They sure would like to use those funds successfully.
> 
> Cheers,
> Edwin
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-squeakland at squeakland.org
> [mailto:owner-squeakland at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of thom
> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 11:29 PM
> To: squeakland at squeakland.org
> Subject: RE: Summer Camp
> 
> 
> On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Edwin Pilobello wrote:
> 
> > Of course it's going to be fun!  Sometimes it's hard fun.
> > 
> > The hat trick is inspiring them to create a design document. Double 
> > the difficulty level for OOD.
> 
> start out with anything by Scott McCloud. Maybe show them 'ghost World'
> or 'from Hell' and explain storyboards from that perspective. they will
> get it immediately and then you explain that the 'comic' also needs
> notes for all sorts of sounds and interactivity. If they are real young
> maybe start them with 'Miss Spider's Tea Party' which is a great picture
> book and then show them the Cd which was created from the Book. there is
> a great storyboard/design doc example for Ludtke's Bad At The Midway.
> Lots of stuff on Gamasutra.com. Maus, the book, and Maus the Cd is
> pretty good. Show the movie Final Fantasy, the book 'The Making of' and
> then run the game on a PS2.
> 
> I have done this with kids from 10 to 50; age almost doesn't matter. I
> have tons of this stuff from my grad students and find that I can take a
> grad design doc and show it to kids 15 and up and they get the idea and
> will create a document as good as the grad level document.
> 
> I get them to run ideas by giving them index cards and limiting them to
> 50 word ideas with 'no names', very important that no one can be
> identified when running ideas. Shuffle the deck, break them up into
> groups of 4-5 and tell them you want the 1 good idea in the pack. Some
> will come back with 1, some with more than 1 and some with none. You do
> this two days in a row in the morning and by the 3rd day 2-3 of the kids
> will be coming in with bunches of ideas. Figure out if the idea is a
> story or an interactive.
> 
> Make them show at the end of the camp to mom & dad and any one you can
> round up. 
> 
> --Thom
> 
> 
>