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Week of June 8-12, 2009
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I'm taking the Scalable Games Design class right now and having fun!
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Multimedia 1 Class Week of August 24-28, 2009
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I started my Multimedia classes on creating the Frogger game with AgentSheets. First, we had a group discussion on the basics of programming. Students were all over the board with their knowledge here. Most did not know the difference in using a program such as Microsoft Word to create a document and using a program such as AgentSheets to create other programs. After giving some background information we talked about lower and higher levels of programming. One student actually knew about Assembly language! Wow, even I hadn't learned Assembly language when I was studying computer science in college, so I would never expect a product of the Millennial Generation or after to have heard of the term. Students were anxious to stop talking and start programming. The excitement level was so high that I decided to postpone discussions until after they had gotten their feet wet in programming. Not only did they get their feet wet, but they cannon-balled in and made huge splashes. They were even excited to personalize their games with other characters besides the frog. One student is having flies navigate across the screen avoiding fly swatters. Another student replaces the frogs with pencils, which are dodging pencil sharpeners as they move across notebook paper rather than the highway. Yet another student is moving dogs across a yard to avoid dog catchers. One student decided to be clever and make cars move across the screen avoiding randomly generated giant frogs. Ha ha. So needless to say the excitement is there. I keep bringing up computational thinking skills as we discuss the logic involved in generating cars, absorbing cars, frogs colliding with cars, etc. We haven't gotten to logs transporting frogs, as we are starting with the basic street first. But next week we will get there. Hopefully some games will begin to upload at the end of this week into the arcade.
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Multimedia 1 Class Week of August 31 - September 4, 2009
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This week my multimedia class continued working on their Frogger games, implementing the computational thinking skills such as the following: user-controlled movement of frog, automatic movement of trucks, random generation of new trucks, absorption of trucks at the street's end, collision (trucks and frog), winning a level (frog getting to other side). Students also wanted to add controlled generation of new frogs with a key press, so we implemented that as well (in case a frog dies and you don't want to press "run" again). Some students realized that you could keep pressing "space" and getting an infinite number of frogs. We talked about needing to change that code later when we talk about methods, global variables, and broadcasts. I like that the students are thinking of creative additions! On Friday we started the computational thinking skill of "transportation" of frogs by logs. This made sense conceptually to them, and most seemed to understand the implementation of it. This was the first time we introduced methods.
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Multimedia 1 Class Week of September 7 - 11, 2009
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Tuesday we finished the log implementation. Some students realized a few issues. If they didn't put a "once every" time for the log movement, the frogs and logs zoomed across the water once the frog jumped on. Also, if the students didn't put the log's code for checking to see if a frog was on top, it didn't always get checked, and presented problems. So we moved the rule to the top to check first. (Methods would help this, as I'll show them later.) Some students did creative things like make their water animate with a few different depictions, make their frogs animate when dying or winning, and put snakes on some logs. Wednesday was a day for checking in with students on their specific issues. It was difficult because I have 24 students, and about half needed some one on one time. So getting around to everyone while making sure the others were on task was challenging. A problem students have is creating agents multiple times, then not realizing it because they're outside of the worksheet's area or because they're underneath other agents. So random things would be happening that would only get "fixed" once the student started all over on the worksheet. On Friday (today) we will hopefully get everyone's games zipped and uploaded onto the Arcade. Cross your fingers! Oopsy. After Friday's class, the upload wasn't so successful. We realized that our cars/trucks weren't erasing because we used the "if empty -> then erase" code (which I had stolen from some tutorial somewhere). The cars going left were erasing because students had to put in eraser agents. I guess the cars weren't showing up in A.S. when they went to the right, so we assumed they were erasing ... or something. Regardless, we need to go back and change that in the code, making specific eraser agents. Kyuhan suggested making the car generators on the left be the car erasers from the right side cars, and vice versa. Sounds like a good plan.
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Multimedia 1 Class Week of September 14 - 18, 2009
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Ok, so there were issues of course with uploading the games to the Arcade. There are so many steps in the process, that a class of 28 students trying to follow 1 teacher's explanations becomes chaotic. There were an average of 15-20 hands up at a time often. I decided to create a step-by-step tutorial with snapshot images of the steps instead, hoping this would help the process next time. Most kids got there's uploaded, but there are still a few issues. The students also started playing each others' games on the arcade to rate them. Each student is required to have 3 people play and critique their games with things they liked and things that could use some work. They had fun!
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6th Grade Exploratory 1 Class Week of August 31 - September 4, 2009
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On Thursday I introduced Frogger to my 6th graders. We talked about the concepts of Agents with depictions and behaviors, and they brainstormed on all the agents we would need to create in our Frogger games. They also brainstormed about different behaviors each agent would need. The students were excited to get started, so we created the frog, street, truck, and tunnel. On Friday we made our frogs move all 4 directions.
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6th Grade Exploratory 1 Class Week of September 7 - 11, 2009
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Tuesday we made our tunnels randomly generate new trucks, and we made the trucks move. We played around with different numbers to control speed and quantity of trucks: "% chance" number, "once every" number for new trucks, and "once every" number for speed of trucks. Students got the feel of which numbers influenced which results. Some were confused a little by the "once every" number: the smaller the number, the faster the truck goes, and the more frequent trucks are created. On Thursday we implemented the collision of trucks and frogs, and the "winning." Undercover Agents Kyuhan and Vicki came, which was really fun! They added great energy and provided lots of help to students one on one. Some students are really thinking computationally, while others are still confused about how to do basic computer skills (like right click!) But they're all getting there. They found out about infinite loops while trying to "win" the game without resetting the simulation or "wait"-ing for some time. One of my students had an ingenious idea about how to generate new frogs after dying. Rather than pressing space (since you could create multiple frogs), he suggested putting the "new" action in the collision rule. Brilliant! Next Monday hopefully we will zip and upload onto the arcade!
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6th Grade Exploratory 1 Class Week of September 14 - 17, 2009
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On Mon. we finished changing the erasers for the trucks, and Tues. we started the process of uploading to the arcade. We tried to log in and upload, but lots of students' passwords weren't working, so we'll have to try again on Thurs. Some got theirs uploaded and started play each others'. Thurs. we will also rate each others' games. Fun!
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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS AT END OF ROUND 1, SEPT. 16, 2009
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Here are some minor and majors things I'll change for the next rounds of Frogger:
1.) Rather than just talking through the steps aloud at front, and rather than having a step-by-step tutorial for students to follow explicitly, I will make a sort-of fill the blank style tutorial for students to think about the programming, while still getting guidance. I felt like talking through the steps was quite difficult with 25 students because not everyone was with me, and therefore there were lots of missed steps and concepts and difficulty helping one-on-one. A tutorial with all steps filled in doesn't force them to think about the programming, but just follow rules. Instead, I'd like to create a tutorial where it prompts them to think about how to program a certain step and perhaps even explain in words why. Then they fill it in and try it out. I'll have a backup tutorial with the answers for those who tried and ran into problems. At the same time, I'll run a demo up front for the students who struggle more. I can ask them the same questions that come up in the tutorial (and have them answer there too). This of course would make the whole process slower, but I think it would solidify the concepts better. Students learn more when they have to think about the process themselves. It will also be harder to work one-on-one with students. Perhaps they could work in pairs or help each other out.
2.) After students upload games to the Arcade, rather than have them play and rate classmates' games on paper, I want them to rate them in the "comments" section of the arcade. For some reason, I missed that and didn't tell them about it. Other students found it and started commenting anyway. It will be the norm next time. That way there's immediate feedback without having to write on paper and accidentally lose the paper.
3.) Next time I will also give little formative type assessments along the way. As we're learning concepts I want to make sure they're understanding it. So I will have an actual piece of paper (or do it on the computer while they turn it into my "dropbox" folder). Diane's suggestion of having mock problems with errors that they have to try and debug seem appropriate. Also I'll use some questions about how one would program a certain event.
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POST COMMENTS Sept. 30, 2009
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OK, so this is funny. In my Multimedia class we started Claymation projects, which students usually jump all over. I told my students that we were starting Claymation, but if some wished to continue with AgentSheets on their own (with some help from me), then they could. Four boys opted for that. They wanted to learn about diffusion, so they read about it on the Wiki and implemented it. One boy made a football game today and got the diffusion to work. They were so ecstatic about the linemen chasing the runner. It was so cool to see the immediate results!
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After 4 rounds of 6th grade AgentSheets Feb. 19, 2010
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Now 4 groups of 6th graders have circulated through my class. All groups have loved building Frogger, and would say it's their favorite part of the 6-week class. Each time gets a bit easier for me, as I predict what questions will be asked and issues will be encountered. The 4th round of kids were able to use the newest version of AgentSheets, which was exciting. The conversational programming is a nice feature; the worksheets saving feature is a nice way to avoid problems; and the new way to upload games to the Arcade is nice. I did encounter some problems with a few students who tried to save their submitted program file within their program folder. Hopefully I'll make sure this doesn't happen next round.
In another class of mine (more like a study hall) I showed some students how to use AgentSheets, and they were stoked. Two boys worked together on a Frogger on steroids, where these haunted houses spit out ghosts which use diffusion to track down the frog. So not only does the frog have to avoid the trucks but the frog-seeking ghosts as well. Luckily the frog has the added feature of shooting bullets which kills the ghosts. And if 5 bullets shoot the haunted house, those go down in flames too! Creative boys.
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