Rebecca Hogan

School

 * Trinity Lutheran School
 * Google Maps

How will I introduce Scalable Game Design in my school?
Scalable Design has been in use at my school for the past year. The upcomming 2010-2011 school year will give us the opportunity to incorporate the technology portion of Scalable Design with my science classes. Each class (grades 6-8) will be creating simulations representating material we have covered or will be covering. These simulations will be used as both a technology and science grade. Allowing the students the freedom to creatively design simulations will greatly increase their comprehension of the topics being discussed.

Project Journal
Summer Institute, June 1-11, 2010 Summer Institute 2010 Week one:

WOW! That’s really what comes to mind when I sit down and think of all the cool things we are going to be able to do with this program. I was not able to actually attend the first week so Mrs. Kite (our technology teacher at Trinity Lutheran in Pueblo) sat with me and ran me through the making of Frogger, Sokoban, and Space Invaders. Now, I know you are thinking that these are just games so what’s the big deal? Well the big deal is the opportunities that are opened by learning how to program these games. The programming is what opens the doors to so many other cool uses. I have to say that it is at times frustrating but when it clicks it really clicks. I can’t wait to actually get to Boulder and get started!

''Day1/Week 2 Reflection"

Day one for me was stressful but awesome. We created a virus simulation which was interesting. I added a hospital feature to my simulation where if you were infected you could go and get your "shot" to make you "well" again. The catch I added to this was the probablilty of reinfection. Just because you are immunized doesn't mean you won't catch the illness. For my sick people to "die" they had to be surrounded by two or more sick people for at least two seconds on the simulation. Once they died they remained stationary. Because of the ability of my people to get help at the hospital I did not impliment an "end" to my simulation. I really enjoyed learning how to implement the simulation properties tool which allows you to track the data your simulation is producing and export it to Excel for graphing. This is such a useful tool to have. Great day!

Day 2 and 3/Week 3 Reflection Day two brought about some challenges as we dove into the making of pacman. I had fiddled a bit with my own pacman game via the tutorial but decided to build a new game following our guest teachers. Three "second year" teachers (teachers who are in their second year or more of using the program) broke up the tutorial of pacman and exposed us to various teaching methods to use with our students. This was a great experience and offered some usable information for us all.

Day three was great as my group ventured over to Fred's Sicence Discovery (a summer youth program) to watch him work with the middle school aged kids in his program. Very well done Fred! My group's second session was involved in debuggin methods and things to look for. We were able to examine various "problem prone" Frogger games and see if we could figure out the issue which needed to be correcetd. From there we looked at ways to fluff up our pacman creations by adding a functional counter, utilizing absorption, and second levels. Great information. The afternoon was mind blowing as we worked with an ant simulation. I was completely absorbed with the ant simulation and got off course by trying to make my ants do directly to the food via diffusion and head straight back to the nest elliminating the randomness of the ant travel. Oh my.....

End Of Unit Reflection June 11, 2010

This has been such an amazing week for me. The practical application of this program to the science and math programs in schools is limitless. This is such an amazing way to engage students by combining technology and the core areas (or any area for that matter!) By teaching students science and math concepts and having them create simulations and games which demonstrate the concepts you are vastly increasing not only the retention of the concept but the underlying methodology behind what is being taught. This will help the students understand the "why" and "how" of what we are teaching AND allow the students to explore the "what if" situations they come up with. Can you imagine being able to answer those "what if" questions in your classroom by simply saying, "Well, let's see what happens by changing this or that." This program has endless possibilities to helping students. After all, that is why we are teachers right?

Lesson Plans
This is an example from Sandy Rea's page that linked lesson plans in documents.

Here's a website with my Frogger Tutorial, which also references and links to the Frogger Tutorial on the Scalable Game Design Wiki: http://schools.bvsd.org/aspencreek2/computer/Frogger/index.html


 * [[Media:Frogger_intro.ppt|SlideShow Intro into AgentSheets &amp; Frogger]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Outline_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plan Outline for Frogger (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Day_1_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plans for Frogger Day 1 (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Day_2_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plans for Frogger Day 2 (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Day_3_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plans for Frogger Day 3 (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Day_4_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plans for Frogger Day 4 (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:Frogger_Lesson_Plan_Day_5_sandy_rea.doc|Lesson Plans for Frogger Day 5 (in progress)]]
 * [[Media:UploadingGameToArcade.doc|Step-by-step guide for preparing and uploading game to Arcade]]

Contact Information
email me [mailto:rrtahogan@hotmail.com]