Counselor Post #12 - Video Game Creation Class

This week at International Ivy I am the counselor for the Video Game Creation Class in the morning.  I have not been in this class before, and I am very impressed with what the students are able to learn and start doing so quickly.  Here are some things that the teacher taught the students before they began programming:

• The computer is only as smart as you make it.
• The computer only does what you tell it to do, so if you tell it something incorrectly you must go back and fix it.  
• For popular video games, it can take many people up to several years to create one game.  In our class, each student has one week to make a game.  

The students are able to make different rooms (which will eventually be like different levels), enemies which will attack the player, portals, bonuses, and weapons to attack the enemy.  Our students are a wide range of ages and skills, yet they are enthusiastically helping each other and learning some new things at the same time.    The class time is divided into direct instruction (where the students are able to learn the procedure from the teacher) and the rest is testing their game, designing it, and adding in new things on their own.  On Friday, they are able to play each others games and take them all home!  

Pictures will be up shortly! 

~Kalyna~