Summer Camp

[Edwin Pilobello]

Squeak and interactive story-telling go hand in hand, doesn't it?

I dragged myself, kicking and screaming, into the game development
theme.  It's only in the past few months that I've started to develop
pedagogy for the Nintendo Generation.

Currently, we're pushing "Programming" as "The Language of Technology".
That seems to sell real well along with changing class titles. It used
to be "Logo Programming".  Its now a series of repeatable classes
anchored by "Code Programming : Game Development".  I've also switched
to ELICA (Educational Logo Interface for Creative Arts) which uses
OpenGL to render 3D graphics and has an object oriented design.  

In addition, I'm also preparing to co-teaching a Flash 5 course. I'll
teach Actionscript while the other instructor, a professional graphics
artist, teaches the art animation.  This is a long way from my teaching
VB, C++ and Java.

Right now, I'm trying to learn Squeak Alice.  I want to explore the
creation of a "specially for girls" role playing/simulation game where
each player programs a character in the story.  I'm taking my cues from
IBM's Robocode "mostly boys" programming battle tank game.

Does the computer amplify the teacher's ability?  Most certainly!  Of
course, I've been a programmer for 25 years.

Cheers,
Edwin

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-squeakland at squeakland.org
[mailto:owner-squeakland at squeakland.org] On Behalf Of thom
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 12:03 AM
To: squeakland at squeakland.org
Subject: RE: Summer Camp


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
>