Gamestar Mechanic Goes to Minneapolis
For a group of teens attending the Design Camp at the University of Minnesota in August, seeing the world as a potential game space took on new meaning. Eric Socolofsky and I--two members of the Gamestar Mechanic design team (a game developed by Gamelab--spent the week working with the teens to design and playtest games in the alpha build of the editor we currently have for the game.
As part of the game's larger playtesting and assessment plan, design camp proved to be a remarkably fruitful site for learning about the kinds of games the teens were able to make. We worked with 12 participants, ages 14-17. Most were boys, 2 girls, some were gamers, some not. All loved to play, however, as evidenced in the many rounds of playtesting held throughout the week. Each teen's experience varied widely but by the end of the week everyone had gained an enormous amount of confidence in their ability to design fun, playable games.
Internship this summer at IOP: Ice cream and Games
Institute of Play is seeking game enthusiasts who can commit a little or a lot of time during this summer to help us work on building a game database. Your tasks would be to play as many games as you want as much as you want inside or outside the office. School credit and ice cream will be offered. Interested? Contact - chloe@instituteofplay.org
Students Want More Use of Gaming Technology in Schools
Featured article on Converge Online -
"Project Tomorrow's fifth annual Speak Up Survey -- which addresses the attitudes and opinions of K-12 students, teachers, parents and school administrators toward the use of technology in education -- reveals this year that online or electronic gaming is one of the technologies that students use most frequently, and that educational gaming is one of the emerging technologies that students would most like to see implemented in their schools." Read full article.
