Game Designer Interview and Original Digital Games Activity

This is part of a series of posts about the Game Design Club I am running for middle schoolers while school is closed.

Participation in the club was waning, so I made a simple activity for this week that asked students to play some digital games created in Scratch and answer some questions about them. It was meant to help them practice my Tip #1 (play and learn about as many games as possible). It also gives them a good idea what type of things they could program using Scratch.

Here's a copy of that activity.

I also finished up the first part of a second game designer interview this week. I'm really excited to share this one here and in the club. 

It's with my friend Dominic Crapuchettes. As I say in the interview, he is definitely one of the most talented, dedicated and successful game designers I know. His experience and skill is invaluable and I was so grateful he took the time to help us this way. Please watch the video and share it with anyone interested in the hobby of creating games.

In Part 1 of the interview, Dominic talks about why he's still making games and he shares three "templates" that he has used to create new, original games.

I plan to share the second part of this interview next week.

Continuing the Game Design Club for Middle School

Here are a few more resources from the virtual game design club I've been running at our middle school. If you want some background first, see my introduction and this first tip I shared with the students.

Last week I started a badge system and listed some achievements. This post explains how I make the badges and share them with students. As an example, the image at the right is a badge students can earn by telling me a few games they learned about after practicing Tip #1.

If we were meeting face to face I'd be playing new and unique games with them to help them expand their knowledge. As it is, I have to encourage research. I created this document to get them started. Some of those game suggestions came from designers I've been contacting. More information on my work with them will come in later posts.

I should add that it's been a big challenge to have to teach kids about games through reading and watching videos. I have not been effective at it so far, so I'm working on ways to improve that.

Finally, I introduced the Tip #2 video and asked them a few questions about it. The tip is to start keeping game ideas in a notebook. Not all designers do that, but it has been a practice of mine from the start and I find it invaluable. Here's the video.

And later this week I will post this video. It's the first part of an interview with Stephen Glenn, a friend and successful game designer who started taking the hobby seriously right about when I did. He's had several more games published over the past two decades than I have and I appreciated his willingness to share it with me and the club.

In this first four-minute interview he talks about why he still makes games (it's not for the money!) and he gives a little insight into how he gets ideas for games. We had some issues with video in our Google Meet, so most of the visuals in the interview are just slides summing up his points.

How to be a game designer - Tip #1

I recently wrote about the virtual game design club I'm running for students in grades 5 - 8. I'll regularly post my resources so you can do the same or a similar program with your students.

This week I posted the following video to teach them a good first step toward becoming a game designer. If you want the short version, Tip #1 is to learn about as many games as possible.

I also used this image to promote the club on our school's social media.

And coming up soon in the club:

• I'll post an activity later this week that will help them get started with the habit of learning about many games.
• I just finished my first game designer interview this week with a friend. I hope to have that edited soon.

Inspiring students when school is closed: Game Design Club for middle school

In Michigan our students will be out of school from March 13 through the end of summer. In an effort to inspire students to create and learn during this time, I revisited my idea of running a virtual game design club. Here's how I've started and a little about what I've learned.

I have big plans for the club, including:

• A short series of tips for being a game designer.
• Interviews through Google Meet with my friends who have made games.
• Helping students publish their games online, whether they make digital or non-digital games.
• Sharing everything we learn here on the blog, so students know there's a platform for the work we're doing.

First, I made a survey in Google Forms to check for interest. I asked our middle school teachers (grades 5 - 8) to post the survey in their Google Classrooms. The survey asked students about their favorite games, what types of games they'd like to make and what they hoped to get out of the club. In our school of about 360 students, I had 30 complete the survey. Most of those students were in grades 5 and 7. That's not many, but it was enough to get started.

I then created a class in Google Classroom. That's where we're managing all the classes at our secondary level. I invited the students who took the survey and I posted the introductory video below. I had a few goals with the video:

• I wanted to let students know the club is meant to encourage them to create rather than just consume entertainment.
• Of course a lot of the students are focused on making computer games. I normally design only board and card games. Programming can take a long time and be a challenge. I anticipate those being even more difficult obstacles as we work remotely. So I used this video to point out the huge number of games many people haven't discovered yet.
• I wanted to pose the "big question":  Do they want to make games badly enough to do the work required.

I made this video quickly, just talking as a clicked through a Google Slides presentation. (I started upping my game quickly for videos that I'll share soon.)

After watching the video, students were asked to complete another short Google Form. I asked the "big question" I referred to in the video. I also checked on their interest about making computer games versus board and card games.

Here are some things I've learned so far from this:

• As we knew already, it is a challenge to encourage engagement when grades and credit are removed from the equation. That's what they're used to and now the rules have changed. The open ended questions I asked were sometimes answered with just a word or short phrase. That's not uncommon even during normal school, but I expected a little more enthusiasm for the topic of games and game design. Some of them did answer with thought and excitement behind it, of course.
• Making engaging content is good practice for me. I hope to learn some tricks that helps me encourage the teachers I work with. It takes time and I wonder if what I'm putting into this club idea (not required for my job in any way) is sustainable. I completed the next video (which I'll write about in my next blog post). It was half as long and it took me probably four times longer to create.
• Students are open to creating simple board and card games, but most interest still is leaning toward computer games. I'm hopeful I can keep their attention on non-digital games, since I think those are faster to go from idea to playable game (at least before one knows how to program). I'm hoping that faster cycle will keep them excited enough to continue learning.

Up next, we'll look at my first tip for aspiring game designers. If you're interested in following along with this, please let me know in the comments or by email. Follow me on Twitter for updates too.

Creating Simple Google Sites to Keep in Touch With Students

When schools were closed in Michigan some elementary teachers in my district wanted to keep in touch with students using a website. I made these two short videos to help them get started. They are meant for beginners. Also, please understand they were done quickly and are quite informal.

I'm happy to say they helped teachers create sites who had never made one before. I got some sincere thanks for the effort.

This first one shows how to start a Site and add text, images and links.

This second video shows how to publish the site the first time and how to find the link so others can view it. Note that you have to publish the site again each time you edit it.

Recording Online Lessons With Screencastify

I compiled a brief document to help my teachers use Screencastify for screen recording. It's my tool of choice for making quick screen recordings and video lessons, because it's easy to use and it saves directly to Google Drive.

Most secondary teachers in my district have used it already, but this resource was meant to be a reminder and a way to help them set it up on their home devices.

You can find the document here.

In it, there's a link to the video below, where I show briefly how to record the screen and share the video file.

Recording Audio and Adding It to Your Google Slides Presentation

It's a simple process to add audio to Google Slides presentations now. Students can use the feature for many things, including their narration on each slide. Here's a simple example I made to show how this might work.

While it's easy to add audio, there are at least three steps that students might need help with, especially when using Chromebooks. I made a document (at the link below) that will walk them through the process. It is intended to be useful for a variety of different classes and projects. 

Those three things they might need some help with (or reminders for) are:

• How can you easily record the audio for the slides?
• Don't forget you have to upload those audio files to Google Drive.
• And if you share the Slides presentation, you also have to share those audio files with the same people.

All of those details and more are addressed in this one-page document. Feel free to share that document with others and edit as you like. Please keep the link to my blog at the top.

These tutorials are linked within the document:

• A video tutorial for using Bear Audio Tool to record the files for each slide
• A video with tips for how to add the audio files and be sure they play how you want them to (including how to upload them to Drive)
• A brief explanation in the document of how to easily share the audio files so when someone presents them, they will play.

Our Best Interactive Story Project Yet

I've been experimenting with interactive story projects for a couple years now and this past week we worked through our best one yet. Sample resources and tutorials are included below.

What Is an Interactive Story?
Like the others I've written about, this project gave older students (from high school Creative Writing this time) a chance to write short stories for younger students (3rd graders in this case). It's interactive, because after each short piece of the story we include a feedback survey. The younger students fill out the survey to give the authors input on what happens next.

I originally started working on these projects as a way to motivate writers and to encourage younger students to read for pleasure. I was able to be in the classes at both grade levels this time and it really seemed to accomplish that goal. We had high engagement at the high school, since they knew the younger students would be reading their work. And the younger students loved seeing what the high schoolers had written. All teachers involved were very pleased with the project.

How Did We Do It This Time?
In this case, students wrote their introductory "chapter" in a Google Doc. The teacher required three parts:

First came the introduction to the story. We encouraged students to introduce a character or two, establish a setting and lead up to a problem. 

Next, students added a link to a Google Form that asked some questions of the readers. We required students to ask at least two multiple choice questions and one open ended question. See below for more information about gathering feedback.

Finally, we required an author bio that included the students' interests and goals. In our case, most of the stories were written by two students working together. 

You can see the sample document we showed the class here. Check out the sample story (written by a student, with a few edits) and the sample survey to see how those might look.

The survey and link to the survey were the only steps of the project that required the students to learn some tech skills. I walked them through the process in class, but this document shows all the steps. The final part of it includes a link to a video tutorial. 

Other Details

• We were pressed for time at the end of our semester, so we only did two sections of the story that asked for reader feedback, then a third part that wrapped the stories up. It took us just about two weeks of class time to complete that. In the future we hope to keep the project going longer, with at least two more chapters.
• I shared the stories with the younger students by creating a Google Site that linked to each story document. Whenever I share stories like this, I make a copy of the student document, edit it if necessary, then post the shareable link to the document on the Google Site. 
• The authors should be encouraged to use some of the reader input, but they certainly don't have to incorporate it all. The open ended questions especially can bring in too many ideas. Ultimately the decision is up to the author on how the story proceeds.
• For the second chapter, we had students write an author note in place of the "About the Author" section. The note thanked the readers for their input, then explained just a little about how they used that input to write their story. Again, most of these documents, including the story, link to the survey and the authors' note, were only a page long.
• If you want more information about gathering feedback, see this summary I made for a similar comic project. You can read more about that in this post from a couple years ago.

Holiday Classroom Game and Creativity Activity

Here's a free resource that can be used for a few fun, creative activities in the classroom. At its heart, it's just a way to generate a random pair of words that students use to write a holiday themed haiku.

I'll list a few ways I've used similar activities in class, along with a brief explanation of each. Some will link to previous posts with more details.

First, click here to get your copy of the Google Slides presentation. It will open in your Google Drive.

Generating a Prompt
No matter which way you choose to use the activity, you will be generating a random prompt and students will use it to write a haiku. To generate the prompt, open the presentation so the class can see slide 2. Don't present it. Just display it as shown below. Draw two random words from behind the gift. You can grab them and drag them by the circle at the far right of the screen.

In the above example, the two words drawn are "gift" and "peace".

Students will then create a haiku using the two random words. You can require them to use the exact words, any variation (such as singular or plural) or maybe they just have to use the general idea of the word in their haiku. Of course, if you're using it for the holidays, that will be an implied general theme for all haikus they write. How generally or specifically you want to make this is up to you, but be sure to explain your requirements before they start any of the activities explained below.

Note that you can change the words too if you want. Just drag the words off to the side of the slide, so you can see the word. Double click on the word and it should let you delete the text and replace it with whatever you want. If it's a long word, you might have to stretch the text box to make it fit. Then drag the word back under the present, so it can be randomly selected during the activity.

A Class Writing Prompt
This is the easiest way to use the activity. The teacher can draw two random words from behind the gift. Every student in the class uses those two words (and any other requirements the teacher provides) to write their own haikus.

The writing can be done in class or as an assignment outside of class. Once the teacher has time to look at the submitted haikus, she can choose up to five of her favorites and type them on the A - E spaces  of that slide. At any time after that, the class can vote on their favorite using a poll/quiz application like Socrative or Kahoot, or they could just use a show of hands or submit a vote on a paper slip.

A "Game Show" With a Few Contestants
I used to do all my creativity games this way. It is a challenging exercise for the contestants, but if you have a creative group it can be fun. In this case, 3 - 5 contestants sit at the front of the class. The teacher draws two random words from behind the gift to form the prompt. The contestants each write a haiku using those words and the teacher's requirements. They should have 3 - 5 minutes to write it.

When they are finished, the haikus are read aloud and typed into the spaces A - E (or just summarized). The class votes on their favorite using a poll/quiz application or some other non-digital method. Each contestant gets points equal to the number of votes they receive. Points can be kept on the Score slide. Usually we have time for about three rounds when we do games like this.

If you don't want to give such a strict time limit, you could combine this format with the above activity. The contestants could write their haikus outside of class and turn them in the next day for the vote.

See this post for more details and tips for running these "game show" style creativity games.

A Game Played in Small Groups
More recently I started running these creativity games in small groups. In this case, you can do a sample round with the whole class, just so they see how to play. Then have them work in groups of 3 or 4 students. Each group will have one device to access their copy of the Holiday Haiku slide presentation.

They will play multiple rounds. Each round one student will be the judge. He or she will randomly draw out two words from behind the gift and show the other group members. Everyone other than the judge gets a limited amount of time to write a haiku that uses the two words and follows any other requirements the teacher has given.

When finished, the haikus are gathered and shuffled up. One student reads each of them to the judge. The judge chooses one as his or her favorite. The player who writes it gets a point.

Now the next player becomes the judge and another round is played. Rounds are repeated until each player has been the judge once. The player or players with the most points wins.

See this post for more details about playing creativity games in groups.

Reflection
No matter how I use these activities in class, I like to seal the learning by adding some reflection.  Here's the reflection sheet I used with one class after doing a similar small group version of a creativity game. Depending on how you presented the material and what the lesson content was, you will probably want to modify the questions somewhat.

Fun Holiday Tech Project With Google Slides

Students can use this process to make animated holiday cards for family members or just for fun. Everything can be created using Google Slides.

I'll give a brief overview of the process below. If you want to see my usual directions with video tutorials (not just for holiday animations), you can find everything you need to introduce it in class for $2 on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Here's a summary of the process:

1)  Make a Plan - Students really need to decide in advance what shapes they'll use and what's going to happen in the animation. Once they get going on later steps, it's hard to make a big change. In my example above, I knew I wanted the ornaments to float up on the tree and some words to appear.

2)  Create the Shapes - When you first use this process, it's easiest to make everything and have it be part of the first frame. Just start a new Google Slides presentation and start building.

I like to have students create their art using basic shapes in Google Slides (instead of looking for clip art online). In my example, I did use a graphic from Pixabay for the border. I created the other elements myself. Here's how my first frame looked*:

3)  Create the Animation - This is the heart of the process. You duplicate the current frame, then move the animated elements on that frame just slightly. To duplicate the frame, click on it in the left panel and (if you're on a Chromebook or PC) press ctrl-d. (You can also right click on it and select Duplicate slide.)

So in my example, I duplicated the first slide. Then on the second (new) slide I moved some of those ornaments on the floor up, just a centimeter or so.

You continue that process of duplicating the slide and moving the objects until all the animation is complete. As I said above, it's hard to fix a mistake once you get going with this. That's why a plan is important. Here are some other tips:

• I frequently click through the slides to preview my animation to make sure the objects are moving like I want them to. Sometimes they're not and I have to delete some frames to do a section over.
• Some frames should display a little longer, so I duplicate those a few times without changing anything. For example, I made several copies of the first frame, the last frame and that frame where the star lands on top of the tree. I wanted a pause at those points.
• You can animate text the same way. I made the text box, then had one word at a time appear. I've seen some people who like to have each letter appear one by one. It's up to you. When you do text, you especially will want to duplicate some frames multiple times to pause it at times. Otherwise the words go by too quickly. 

Click here to see all 40+ slides of my animation in slideshow format.

4)  Publish the Slides - You can publish the animation so it plays as a full page in a browser tab. Click here to see how this would look.

You can publish a presentation by going to the File menu and selecting Publish to the web. This window will open up. Check the boxes as shown, then click Publish.

That will make a link that appears as shown below. Copy that, as it says, by pressing ctrl-c. That's the link (more or less) that you need to share with others so they can see your animation. But don't share it yet! See the next step.

5)  Share the Link - You can paste that link in an email, add it to a website or share it any other way you like. Just remember one important thing. At the end of the link you'll see a 3000 when you paste it. Change that 3000 to a smaller number such as 100 or 150. 

I usually paste it into the address bar in a new tab and then change the number, so I can play the animation and see how it will look. You can keep doing this, adjusting the number how you want, with larger numbers making it play slower. Experiment with a number that works how you like it to. Once I've got a good number, I paste the link again, change the number, copy it again, then share that link.

6)  You can also turn it into an animated GIF! - I use the site Tall Tweets to do this. They have something called Tall Tweets Studio now, but I suggest scrolling down and clicking the Classic version. I also recommend teachers make copies of students' presentations and convert those for them, since there are some privacy and terms of service matters involved with granting access to Google Drive for this process. Since it has some other settings to experiment with, this option is only recommended for older students.

Again, the above 6 steps are a brief overview of the process. See my published lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers for a "ready to assign" document with everything students need. You'll want to show them my examples from this post, though, since the general directions are not just for holiday animations.

*Actually, if you want some behind the scenes info on my animation, I used a slightly different process. I worked backward to build my animation, because I wanted to start with the final image of the decorated tree. I did this just to be sure I had enough bulbs and that they'd look right. 

This is an advanced technique and I'd only recommend it to students who have made a few animations as described above. Besides thinking backwards, the only real change is that after duplicating a slide, I dragged it above the slide I just duplicated. So instead of duplicating slide 10 and moving the objects on frame 11, for example, I was always duplicating frame 1, then dragging the new frame up so it became frame 1. Then I moved the objects (in a backwards direction) on frame 1. This is harder to describe than it is to do, but I don't recommend it for beginners.

Chromebook Activity for Kindergarten

The kindergarten teachers in my district asked me to do some very simple activities that would introduce their students to Chromebooks. Below you'll find the link to the one I've been staring out with this year.

The goal of the activity is to let students practice using the keys and touchpad and to show them the joy of creating with technology. See the notes below about how I set it up and get started in the class with it.

Click here to get a copy of the Google Slides presentation I use for the activity.

It is simply a series of images with clip art objects (all from Pixabay.com) that the students can move around to "tell their story". Every class I've used this with has greatly enjoyed it and the teachers thank me for sharing it. It takes about 30 - 45 minutes of class time.

Setting Up the Activity

• We use a generic Google account with a short username for many early elementary activities. I and a classroom helper log onto all the Chromebooks using that account. 
• As the admin for our Google domain, I set that account up so the Chromebooks will open to our elementary "launch page". If you don't have these options, talk to the person who manages your Google domain to have it set up.
• On that launch page, I post a simple graphic (like a sun in this case) with a link that will force a copy of the Google Slides presentation. It's important that the link will open as a copy (like my link does above). This helpful post from Kasey Bell shows how to get the link you will need for your slideshow.
• Usually I and the class helper sign into all the Chromebooks when the students are at lunch or recess. Sometimes we do it during some other activity that has them away from their desks.

Introducing It to the Students

• I prefer to have students sitting on the floor at the board when I first talk to them. If they're at their seats with the Chromebooks set up, I make a point that they have to know when to listen and when to use the technology. The students are always good about this! Of course, I'm the guest speaker, so I always get my free 5 - 15 minutes of their undivided attention!
• I tell students that I enjoy using my iPad and Chromebook to play games, but in school I can't use them to play. Instead they should be used for learning and making. This is so important, as it's tempting to use the tech as a plaything during less focused time at that early age. "Just get on Starfall or ABCYa," I often hear. I am so grateful for the chance to plant seeds early on about the appropriate use of tech in school.
• Using the teacher's computer and projecting on the board, I show them exactly how they will click the icon on the launch page to get a copy of their presentation. I show them that the computer does some thinking time after I click "make a copy", so they shouldn't keep clicking the link. 
• I show them how they can add their name to the first page, so we will know who made the stories. I also let the teacher and any class helper know most students will need some help at this point double-clicking in the text box. 
• I model how they can click to the next slide using the thumbnail images on the left. 
• On the first page with the clip art, I show the students how to select it and move it to where we want it. There's the option of dragging it, but that is hard for some students (and adults) on a touchpad. I also show them how they can move it with arrow keys. It's helpful to have a Chromebook handy too, so they can see where those keys are or how I'd use the touchpad. 
• We talk a little about how the image can be arranged to make a story. They like the idea that maybe the crab was holding the umbrella and blew into the sky for the beach scene, for example.
• As a challenge, I show them how they can make a shape bigger or smaller by dragging the handles. I just like to plant this seed and see later who figures it out.
• I then review the directions to get started then I set them loose.

As I mentioned, we usually have a helper in the class and the teacher. With me as well, a class of 25 or so students is fairly easy to manage. Some students definitely will struggle at first, but they do quite well once they realize they can use the arrow keys. 

There are plenty of things that can go wrong as they try to use the touchpad. Here are some common ones:

• They end up swiping with two fingers and go back to the previous page. Just click the forward button and their slideshow will load.
• They accidentally right click and open the right click menu. Just press the esc key. Show them clearly so they remember how to solve this themselves the next time.
• They might double click an object, putting it in crop mode. One student had a good laugh when he cropped the kids' heads off on one slide and I was a little surprised how he did it myself at first! If this happens, just double click again if necessary and slide the crop handles so the full image displays correctly.
• Remember the goal is to give them practice and to let them create. I really have no expectations for how they make their images look. 

Getting Access to the Stories

When students are working more independently, I sign in on one Chromebook using that same generic login. I go to Google Drive, create a new folder and then drag all the newly created slideshows into it. 

For whatever reason, there are always several more than I'd expect based on the size of the class. I'm sure some students start over a couple times when we don't realize and maybe creating all those copies at about the same time cause an odd error. All the extra copies can be spotted pretty easily (since they usually do not have a name on the first slide), so they're easily disregarded. 

I then share that folder with the teacher's Google account so she has access to the students' stories.

Using the name on the first slide, it's fairly easy to see who made each one just by browsing the thumbnails on the teacher computer. Sometimes we have enough time in class to show some stories, which is always fun for the class. Students who successfully stretched the images to large proportions become quite popular.

I hope you and your students also have as much fun with this activity as we have!

Practice Making Comics with Google Slides

For over five years I've been teaching students and teachers how to make comics with Google Slides. We still use the process in my district and students still love the creative possibilities.

Recently I started introducing it in a new, interactive way that has worked well. It will allow you to just assign it and let students learn and practice right in the one presentation. It's basically a hyperdoc created in Google Slides.

Click here to get your own copy of the Google Slides presentation.

Some notes:

• The easiest way to assign this would be through Google Classroom, with the option to make a copy for each student.
• This is written on the first slide, but remind students not to click Present to go through the slideshow. They need to keep it in edit mode so they can do the practice on the later slides.
• The final slide tells them to download it as a PDF and turn it in through Classroom. I like them to get the practice of downloading as a PDF, but you can change that if it's not a priority for your class.
• We use this presentation as the first step in a comic creation project. You might have a specific project in mind or you could introduce them to the process just so they have it as a creative option for any project in the future.
• Usually after students learn the process, I show them a tutorial like this one so they can use the Google Slides app to take photos on a phone or tablet.

If you like this simple, self-contained introduction to comics, please consider purchasing one of my inexpensive tech activities on Teachers Pay Teachers:

• Comic Projects with Google Tools Bundle
• Animation and Interactive Stories Using Google Slides

Simple Informational Video Projects With WeVideo

Our high school Communications class creates video announcements each week. We have three teams responsible for "features" that are created in advance, usually outside of the studio. This year it seems they only want to focus on interviews and challenges, which result in similar interactions with staff and students week after week.

To get them thinking of other options, I recently made a tipsheet for what I call Informational Video Features. While that could be extremely general, for our class it means:

• It's scripted.
• Most likely it will have a narrator rather than someone on camera, talking to the audience.
• It uses graphics, text and still images to enhance the narration.

Here's an example we made based on a survey we gave students just before Halloween. (I know the audio is pretty bad. We have upgraded our audio equipment since making this!)

I love using WeVideo for this because (as you see in the example) they have a lot of quality, easy to use motion titles. They even have a growing list of seasonal ones, which worked great for our Halloween poll. That combined with plenty of good transitions and tons of feature video clips and images to choose from makes it the perfect choice for the classroom. (It's not free, but check out their educational pricing here.)

Here's the direction document I created to help students get started on this. It is not a tutorial for how to use WeVideo, since our students already have a lot of experience with the basics. If you need more tips to get started, WeVideo has a lot of tutorials here.

Some additional tips for using this in class:

• We often do a "Quick Poll" on our student website to gather opinions and information from our students. We use Google Forms to make the surveys and they're a great source of information for these quick video features.
• As noted in the directions, there are a few options for recording the narration. If you want to use TwistedWave, here's something I posted on this blog a few years ago about that online audio recorder.
• The directions say, "Write the script", but that can be a big challenge for students. Concisely summing up dozens of open ended responses from a survey, some percentages and possibly facts from other sources is likely an assignment in itself. Start with a small list of facts for the first time and use a rubric to help them know exactly what you're looking for.

Updated Creativity Game for 2019

This week I presented an updated version of what has been the most popular post on this blog for years. I used a different tech tool this time (Google Sheets) and I run the game part of it completely differently. (Click here for the original post and here for another recent way I've used it.)

I led this version of the activity for a class of about 30 students from grades 9 - 12. It was very well received and the teacher told me the students asked to play more the next day. 

Since I've written at length about these activities elsewhere, I will just link to the new resources below and explain this updated process.

The creativity exercise is based on a game system I designed with my friend, Kory Heath. The lesson follows this outline:

1. Talk to the class about the importance of creativity for success in today's world.
2. Lead into the creativity game Why Did the Chicken...?
3. Show them how the game works. Ideally this will include tips on how to make creative answers.
4. Run at least one round with a group of students from the class.
5. Show how students will use the spreadsheet when they play on their own.
6. Let them play the game in small groups of 3 - 5.
7. Have them complete a reflection sheet.

Resources:  (Most of these are Google files that will open as a copy in your Google Drive.)

• This is the presentation I used. Read the speaker notes for details, as I explain what I talk about for each slide.
• Here is the spreadsheet students will use to play the game. It's a sample way to generate random riddles without printing and cutting out tons of cards.
• This video shows how to use the spreadsheet to make riddles.
• Here is the reflection sheet students should complete at the end of the lesson.

Other Notes:

• I used to provide a lot more time to practice making good answers. The problem was we didn't have much time to play the game. After presenting it this last time, I plan to put a maybe five to ten minutes more practice and practical advice in the talk next time.
• There's no doubt students will find it difficult to come up with answers. Remind them that they're probably trying to get an answer that makes perfect sense. Sometimes the key is just coming up with the answer that makes the judge laugh!
• There are just over 50 words in the spreadsheet, but ideally it should be well over one hundred. Feel free to add to it. The best lists contain things from the students' school or community.
• Remind everyone to keep answers school appropriate and to be kind to each other! Everyone needs to feel safe writing down a dud response. This is an important lesson for working creatively with a group.
• Make sure students understand the role of judge passes from player to player each round. (See the detailed rules below for the flow of the game.)

Here are the steps to playing Why Did the Chicken...? this way:

• Each group of 3 - 5 students will need:
• One device to open the spreadsheet and make a copy. (I suggest sharing the link with them through Google Classroom.)
• Pencils
• Several slips of paper.
• Pick a judge for the first round. The judge will use the spreadsheet to generate a random riddle.
• The judge reads the riddle to the other members of the group.
• They get two minutes to write as many possible answers as they can think of. Each answer should go on a separate slip of paper. After writing an idea, they put it in the center of the table face down.
• After two minutes, no new answers can be started. Anyone can finish writing their current idea if still writing. Then all slips are gathered by the player to the left of the judge.
• That player reads each answer to the judge. We like to have the judge read the question aloud each time, then hear the answer. It adds to the fun of the riddles.
• After hearing all the possible answers, the judge must pick a favorite (or two favorites if they want).
• The player(s) whose ideas were selected get a point.
• The judge passes the device to the player on his or her left and the process continues.
• Play until everyone has been the judge at least twice.

Creating Student Tutorials with Published Google Slides Instead of Videos

Here's something I just started doing and I'd love to hear comments from other teachers who make a lot of tutorials.

Instead of making a video tutorial as usual for new lessons, I put all the steps in a Google Slide presentation and published it to the web.

Besides being examples of this process, I hope you find the tutorials themselves useful for tech projects in your class.

Here's the first example, about using Stop Motion Studio.
And here's a very useful one for importing photos using Google Slides on the iPad.

Why?

Why do tutorials as Slides instead of video? Well, generally I'd say this is much faster to create at first. Especially if a series of screenshots will do the trick, it should be faster than recording, editing out mistakes, adding callouts, etc.

Another plus is that I can update it almost immediately if I find out students need more information or if I have a mistake. All the students have to do is refresh the page and they'll see my changes.

I think students might like this better, since they can more easily quickly jump just to the parts they need as they work with the app the first time. If nothing else, it is a change of pace from the many videos from me that they normally have to watch.

I'll have more to say about their preferences after we try these with a class next month. I'm also going to try it with some staff tutorials.

The Reality So Far

I will point out a couple delays I had when making the first tutorial.

It did take a little while to make the animated GIF I used in the animation tutorial. Such GIFs often are not necessary, but sometimes a moving image conveys a lot of useful information. I still think the whole thing was faster than editing a video tutorial. (And by the way, I use this site to change most of my video clips to GIFs.)

More significantly, I ran into a very time consuming delay when I tried to insert the screenshots into the first tutorial. I actually used a process similar to what's shown in the second tutorial. I suspect the very large screenshots I grabbed from the iPad choked up my home WiFi, though, and the app gave up trying to sync them.

I did almost the same process for creating the second tutorial and I had no problems. I did go a little more slowly as I inserted each image on the slides.

Making Video Slideshows from Photos With iMovie for iPad

I just finished this introductory lesson (along with four related video tutorials) for our redesigned Middle School STEM course. It walks students through the process of making a video from photos using iMovie on an iPad.

As the course goes on, our students will be expected to use this process to create short videos about their other projects.

The document at the link below contains all the links to the short video tutorials. It will require students to:

• Take seven photos
• Add them to a new iMovie video project
• Change the order, length and transitions as they like
• Add movement to each photo using the pan and zoom effects
• Add titles to at least two photos
• Export the video to the Photos area on the iPad
• Upload the video to Google Drive using the Google Drive app

Note that our students share iPads, so the directions instruct them to share the video file from the iPad's Google account to their personal Google account. As with any part of the document, you can edit those directions to fit your needs.

Click here to get a copy of the document with all the directions.

If you find that free lesson helpful, be sure to check out these other tech based activities I created for Teachers Pay Teachers.

• Bundle #1:  Animation Projects and Interactive Stories Using Google Slides - Only $3!
• Bundle #2:  Comics with Google Slides - Only $2!

My Updated Animation and Interactive Stories Projects

I updated two of my popular lessons recently:

• Simple Animations Using Google Slides
• Interactive Stories Using Google Slides

Students love both of these simple projects and the lessons come "ready to assign".

You'll get access to student directions in a Google Doc that you can simply post in Google Classroom. Students will follow the step by step instructions and watch video tutorials as they go. 

Both projects work well in any subject area for grades 5 - 12. The students will create their projects using Google Slides.

The lessons are $2 each on Teachers Pay Teachers, but you can buy both in a bundle for just $3. Here are the links.

• Simple Animations
• Interactive Stories
• The Bundle of both projects

Thoughts on Game Based Learning and Gamifying the Classroom

I started this blog eight years ago as part of my master's program. As it changed over the years, I drifted quite a bit from my initial purpose of sharing my classroom games on it.

Of course, the ed-tech landscape has changed a lot since 2011. In my district at the time we had just installed a big round of interactive whiteboards. Only one or two teachers had an iPad. I had never touched a Chromebook and no school I knew of was using Google Apps for Education (as we called them when they first came along).

A decline in classroom games on interactive whiteboards is just a part of the overall trend I've seen in recent years. It's been a gradual shift away from the bells and whistles with more emphasis on the learning. Even though I'm a game designer and even though I had a blast in those years using those bells and whistles for fun projects, the shift toward effective use of tech for deeper learning has always been my real passion.

After returning from Michigan's largest ed-tech conference in March, I was thrilled to tweet this observation. 

The best thing for me about the sessions I attended at #macul19 was the focus on instruction, relationships and culture instead of the tech tools. Tech can support and amplify the things that matter most.

— Mike Petty (@mpetty39) March 24, 2019

But what does this changing landscape mean for a blog with "classroom games" right in the title? Will it necessarily be a thing of the past? I sure hope not!

As we know, right along with the other changes in the ed-tech landscape, we have heard more about gamifying the classroom or game based learning. I actually stayed away from those terms on this blog for the most part, at least in any formal sense. But now as trends change and my blog title stays the same, I figured I'd touch on them directly.

Defining the Terms

Some people have mistakenly referred to gamification of the classroom and game based learning as if they're the same thing. Gamification can be a form of game based learning, but it doesn't have to be. I'll define them this way:

• Game Based Learning - Using a game to teach a specific topic.
• Gamification of the Classroom - Using elements of successful games to increase student motivation and engagement.

So if I have students play an online game about genetics to learn about basic terms and concepts, that's Game Based Learning (GBL). In these cases the students could tell you the game they played and what they learned about the topic at hand after participating in the lesson. Though I often didn't use the term and didn't always specify the learning objectives, most of my games highlighted on this site lend themselves to these types of lessons.

Gamification, on the other hand, just borrows elements from games that make them fun and uses that in the classroom. So maybe we take something like leveling up, getting a new avatar or scoring points and we make ways to do that in science class over the course of a marking period. It might be giving students digital badges for meeting specific objectives. We don't necessarily stop and play a game to learn, but the lesson or the overall progression through the course might feel more like a game.

My Observations

After years of experimenting with these two concepts in classrooms, here are some general observations I've made:

• Students definitely learn from playing games. The challenge (and it's a big one) is to get them to learn what you want them to. I love games and I love playing them in school. They can be a distraction from the content, though, and any actual learning in that regard often is superficial.
• I maintain that gamification in education is nothing new. School has, in a sense, always been a game. What else can we call it when the players acquire points and earn scores, hoping for credit that at best abstractly reflects their knowledge and skills? One can cheat at chess and on a math test. When I would write my syllabus for high school math, I couldn't deny it felt a lot like writing rules for my game designs. So school has always been gamified. The problem is it hasn't been a very fun game. In fact by today's standards, where gaming outside of school is a huge industry grabbing the hearts and minds of so many of our kids, it's laughable to think of year-long courses and rewards of letter grades as parts of a game anyone would want to play. 
• So it isn't gamification that's new, it's that we have learned new things from modern, more engaging games.
• I have not been a fan of gamification, because it's essentially about extrinsic rewards. Certainly badges, upgraded avatars and grading systems based on big scores are more exciting than working for that A- in math. In the end, though, it's tacked on. Call me idealistic, but I still long for the day students will be excited about learning the subject because it can better their lives.
• While I don't embrace gamification as an approach to teaching, my experience with and study of it point to four very important elements of an engaging, effective learning experience. These same things come out of research that has nothing to do with games. So it's not the games that bring the magic to a good lesson. It's just that game designers have put that magic to use more effectively than most teachers have. The four elements are:
• A clear goal - Effective teachers make sure the students know where they are headed overall in their learning and what the goal is in the current lesson.
• Student agency - Students can have some choice and control in how they reach the goal (and possibly in how they show they reached the goal). 
• Appropriate challenges - Each student is learning at the point he or she needs to be learning. It's not too hard and it's not too easy.
• Timely, actionable feedback - The learner finds out quickly if he or she is on track and gets some information on how to get back on track when needed.

So there are a few statements about games on my blog about classroom games. Maybe that will provide fertile soil for further on-topic posts in the months ahead! If not, at least I had the foresight to put "and tech" in the title.

Making a Story Together - High school and elementary connections for authentic audience and engagement

We recently tried another interactive story experiment connecting older students with younger students. As always, the goal with this is to encourage reading in the earlier grades and creativity with the older students. All feedback so far indicates this was a success.

I've written previously about ways to do this with comics or just writing in a Google Doc and one very different method with less input from the younger students.

This story we just finished up is more like the latter case, with a twist inspired by our Boomwriter activity from last winter. The final result can be read at the links below, but first here is the process we used.

• I found five high school students who were interested in trying this and their teacher agreed they could work with me. I managed it all through Google Classroom.
• I also gave a survey to elementary students asking them to name some characters, choose a general setting and choose some character traits. This was presented to all students in grades K - 4, but only a few classrooms really participated. 
• In pairs or individually, the high school students wrote short introductions to a story that fit the criteria generated by that survey. Alone or in groups, they generated a total of three different starters.
• I made a second survey presenting those story starters to the elementary class so they could pick their favorite.
• For the next round of writing, the high school students added to the story starter that the elementary students liked best. Again, each of those groups or individuals wrote the next part as they wanted the story to turn out. That again produced three different possible stories. 
• We continued this for a couple rounds of elementary students voting on their favorite, writing the next parts, voting again and so on. Along with asking which story the elementary students liked best, I'd also ask for suggestions for dialogue or action. It gave them a fun chance to be creative.
• Then since school was getting out soon, I had the high school students work together on bringing the story to a conclusion.

As you might imagine, the students wanted it to be humorous. That and the disjointed way we built the story definitely made it silly. You can read the story here:

• This page has the first three parts.
• This page has the final parts.
• I also had the students at the high school write these short bios so the younger students could get to know them.

The teachers told me that both groups of students, young and old, really got into the activity. We had to rush a few stages, so by the last round only one 3rd grade class was still voting. Their input showed enthusiasm, though, and the teacher told me they were excited to see where the story was going.

Which Method Is Best?

Having tried a few different methods now, I have to say my original approach (again, you can read it here) is still my favorite. In that one, the readers gave their input on the direction of the upcoming chapter, then the writers wrote it how they wanted to. I prefer that because:

• The writers have more control (and therefore more buy-in) over the outcome of each chapter.
• More importantly, they won't be disappointed when the ideas they worked hard on don't get picked. As I said with the Boomwriter activity, I can tell some students lose enthusiasm when their work isn't chosen.

There are still some downsides. You'll have to manage multiple stories if you have multiple groups of writers. Along with this, the readers will probably not be reading every story. They too will work in groups and probably will read only one or two different stories.

Quick Image Effects Without Green Screen

Who needs a green screen for image effects?Here's a simple process for making fun composite images using Google Slides and remove.bg. This can come in handy for making comics. (I've written about the comic creation process in many posts such as this one.)

The short video below shows you exactly how I do it on an iPad. Any phone or tablet should make this easy and then you can use another device to edit the slides (and possibly add the comic elements.) Here are the steps:

1. Go to remove.bg.
2. Tap the Select a Photo button and choose the option to take a photo.
3. The site will automatically remove the background. I've had great results so far! Copy the image that has no background.
4. Paste it into a slide using the Google Slides app. 

Ideally you'll have some other background you're pasting into. Those slides can all be set up ahead of time as needed either on the same device or a computer.

 You can watch the process here: