Anna Holen

From Gamewiki

How will I introduce Scalable Game Design in my school?

• Place: Overland Trail Middle School, Brighton

• How: I plan to use the week long Frogger game lesson with all of my 7th grade general computing classes. (Each class lasts approximately 45 minutes.) I hope to be able to use it early in the term; preferable the 3rd week or so, once the kids have stopped switching classes and the dust has settled.

Outline of Frogger lessons

Materials:

• • One computer per student, either in computer lab or 1 laptop per student in regular class. Students will be buddied up with one or two other students to help each other out.
  • Agentsheets program loaded on all machines.
  • Internet connectivity for each computer and/or tutorial as separate document on each computer

Level 1

Day 1:

• • Share unit objective, end product requirements and grading rubric
  • Optional: Have students play several Frogger games to see what they’re like.
  • Point out that the frog needs a starting strip of land, 2-4 lanes of traffic, optional land strip between road and river, at least 3 lanes of river, and a final landing strip. This will be important in planning placement of agents. Poor planning will force kids to move things around and redraw/retest sheet.
  • Initially teacher to model each step rather than have students use the tutorial unassisted-use Synchroneyes or similar program to force students to watch-broadcast to each computer if possible.
  • Create frog agent
  • Create a worksheet – stress importance of saving sheet, and resetting before creating new things on the sheet.
  • Frog able to move in all four directions frog

Day 2:

• • Create street and car agents
  • Add streets and cars to worksheet
  • Car agents programmed to move on road, left to right
  • Note on test run - cars stack up.
  • Create tunnel agent - Generation and absorption of cars
  • Remind students not to spend too much time on artwork- can always modify the agents later

Day 3: (perhaps try having kids just build river, logs and turtles on this day if collision lesson is too time consuming to allow catch-up for absent kids.)

• • Collision of frog and truck
  • Create bloody frog agent, add sound

-Extension – regeneration of frog after death (optional instead of hitting reset button)

HELP STUDENTS WHO MISSED A DAY

Level 2

Day 4:

• • Create river agent, log agent
  • Make the log move on water, left to right
  • Log generator (bridges) generates and absorbs logs
  • Make frog unable to swim, type in “I cannot swim” or make splash sound
  • Transport computational thinking pattern – use video or model for students with log and frog

Day 5:

• • Create turtle agent
  • Make the log move on water, right to left
  • Turtle generator (palm trees) generates and absorbs turtles
  • Transport computational thinking pattern.
  • Check for understanding- see if student can create the turtle agent and set up transport independently

Final assessment – each student uploads game to scalable game design arcade, can play each other’s games.

Extension activities:

• • Lives for frog.
  • Frog regeneration tied to lives, for example, can only play 3 times before “game over” like arcade game
  • Scoring – for example, more points for landing on a more difficult to reach grotto (typically in the upper right corner) or for the least amount of traveling (steps taken)