Megan Hollis

Broomfield Heights Middle School http://schools.bvsd.org/broomfieldheights/

I plan to use Scalable design to introduce my students to basic computer programming. Last year I taught frogger in a two week unit, which I definitely plan to do again this coming year. The students really enjoy doing this program. If time allows, I would love to incorporate the Sokobaun game and pacman as well. I would like other teachers in my school to learn this program as well. I think it would be useful to show math and science teachers so they are able to use it in their classrooms.

Week One Reflections: My initial thoughts about agent sheets are that they are going to be very useful in my classroom. I used them a few times last year, but I have not had previous training in order to do them. I had learned from another teacher at my school and I was able to teach frogger in a few of my classes. It was a good experience, but this class will be an incredible way for me to work out the kinks and learn how to trouble shoot when my students have issues in my classroom.

I think this would be a great program to get science and math teachers at my school to learn. The students would be able to create simulations and programs that would enable them to watch the concepts they are learning about in their classes. I think it would be great for those teachers to come into my room and watch the program works.

This program looks to be hard, but once you get a hang of it, I think it will be an incredible way toward learning basic computer programming. I think this is going to be a great program for the students to learn and get under their belt. It will be a great opportunity for them to see what goes into planning the video games and simulations they love to watch and play at home. I am really looking forward to this class and learning all that I can able this program.

Today we did a virus simulation that I think would be incredible for science teachers to use in their classes. It would be a great visual aid for the students to use in order to see how diseases spread and can rapidly take over. We got a bit more complicated with diffusion etc, which I think could be a bit tricky for our students to complete. Once they got some more practice I think it could be a lot easier for them to do. I am trying to think of ways in which I could use Agent Sheets in my Language Arts class as well. I think I could definitely incorporate the Wiki aspect in my classroom for journaling, reading responses, etc.
 * Week 2: Day 1 Reflection:***

Already, I have completed Frogger, Space Invaders, Virus Attack and Sokobaun and have learned an incredible amount about the use of Agent Sheets. I think the students will really get into this program and make the games that they really love. I want to make sure to incorporate Frogger into my class (which I did already last year.) The students were extremely interested and had a great time playing eachothers games. Working with Pacman today was a lot of fun. I found it very helpful that we walked through the programming of this game step by step. It was helpful for me to work through that in order to understand the functionality of the game.
 * Week 2: Day 2 Reflection:****

Today was a very valuable day to finish up our Pacman games and to collaborate with other teachers. IT was helpful to go upstairs and talk about the different rubrics we could use for Pacman, and what had been used in the past for Frogger. It was really helfpul to learn that a few of the teachers have posted their rubrics on their wiki for us to reference and get ideas from. The rest of the afternoon we worked on the Ants simulation. I think this would be a great for science classes to work with. I think Science and Agent Sheets go hand in hand and would be a great fit. You could definitely take the ant simulation and make it work for other things for the students to see (butterfly migratino patterns, etc)
 * Week 2: Day 3 Reflection:***

It was great seeing the STEM simulations this morning. I think there are some that we could even use in Language Arts classes, or even to show councilers at our school (The speading of gossip simulation) I found it very helpful to work with other teachers (in different content areas) to develop lesso plans for a specific lesson. Since I work in computers and Language Arts it was helpful to get the perspective of math and science teachers as well. The afternoon was great too so we know what the expectations are for us in our classrooms in the upcoming school year. I was a little confused as to what we are required to teach the kids and if we were supposed to teach them all of the games we learned in summer institute. Implimenting this in my classroom for the first time, I think Frogger is a great place to start with the kids. This morning we uploaded different lesson plans that I might be able to use during the school year. I am looking forward to implementing this program into my classroom, and I think my kids will really enjoy it as well.
 * Week 2: Day 4 Reflection:***

Today I am looking forward to implementing Agent Sheets into my classroom last year. I got an opportunity to see it get taught last year by a teacher at my school, but I think with the information at got during the Summer Institute, I will have a much more successful time teaching my own students. It was really helpful today to meet up with other teachers in my district and the college students who will be coming into my classroom to help teach Agent Sheets in my classroom. I think it will be great to collaborate on ideas for different lessons, and to see/hear how the other teachers are approaching the delivery of their lessons. I definitely plan to use the tutorials provided to me during the summer institute. I thought they were really helpful and I think they will really help out my students. I had a great time, thank sand I look forward to teachign this in the fall.
 * Week 2: Day 5 Reflection:****

Lesson Plans: Frogger: This worked out to be about a 2 week unit in my class. We built a few of the agents/aspects of the program each day and then would test out their games. Once we were finished we were able to play eachothers games and see what other students came up with. I plan to do the same with Sokobaun. The online tutorials were extremely useful and I plan to put those on an overhead projector for the students to look at and follow along with. That will also be available for students to look at if they want to jump ahead at all.

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 & 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: Megan Hollis

 * [mailto:name@youremail.com Email] : [mailto:megan.hollis@bvsd.org megan.hollis@bvsd.org]