Brandon Tortorelli

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How will I introduce Scalable Game Design in my school?
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Project Journal
Summer Institute, June 1-11, 2010

Reflection 1, June 1, 2010

Today was mostly review for me, since I've previously used AgentSheets to create the Frogger game. Regardless of that previous experience, making this game a second time was not boring or tedious; in fact, I learned several new tricks and tools of the software thanks to the help of the instructors. I greatly enjoyed Alex's presentation in the morning, mostly because it clarified the intentions of the developers when creating the AgentSheets software. I also appreciate how interactive and cooperative this class is...it makes learning easy. Overall, it was a fun learning experience that passed by much more quickly than I thought it would.

Reflection 2, June 2, 2010

Today was long...and a bit frustrating. Space Invaders was definitely more complex than Frogger, and took much more time to create. I nearly finished it, but I still have a few bugs I'd like to fix. I worked a lot more independently today, especially since some of the objects and actions I created weren't even on the tutorial. I did learn that there are various different ways to cause the same things to happen...and it's confusing because I don't know which method is the best to use. I guess I just use whichever one I like. My aliens were working fine, but I wanted to change them to go all the way to the edge, but I ran out of time. The modifications I made interfered with the ships and makes them go a few extra spaces off the page...I'll have to fix that this evening. It was definitely tough...but I learned a lot.

Reflection 3, June 3, 2010

Today was a really fun learning experience. We made The Sims, which beforehand seemed like it would be a complex nightmare. But once Alex explained the concept and methods of diffusion, it was actually fairly easy. I still had some problems later in the day with the more agents I was trying to add and program...but it wasn't nearly as stressful as yesterday, and Kyuhan and Alex helped me a bunch. My game is finished, but I'd like to add more to it tonight. That's about all.

Reflection 4, June 4, 2010

Today was an extremely fun and insightful day. We got to work on building our own games for most of the day, which was exciting because not only could I be creative, but I was able to do so effectively thanks to the skills I've learned the past couple days. I made a tower defense game, which is a type I have played before. It requires a lot of diffusion and hill-climbing, which makes it challenging but fun. It's mostly done now, but just has a couple bugs I still need to work out.

Reflection 5, June 5, 2010

I did not attend this optional day workshop because I had already finished all of my games. I did do more work on my tower defense game and uploaded it to the arcade. It is finished, but I'll keep adding fun little extras to make it more exciting and run more smoothly.

Reflection 6, June 7, 2010 Today was kinda boring for me as a student. It was a lot of introduction, review, and teaching methods mainly focused at the teachers. I did learn some good tips for helping in the classroom, and ways to keep kids engaged.

Reflection 7, June 8, 2010 Today was a really fun and productive day. PacMan is a great game to create, and makes you feel very accomplished afterwards. I liked how some of the teachers did presentations about certain parts of making PacMan. I learned a couple new features from them, and I definitely learned from their teaching examples, and will use similar methods when I'm helping teach a class. I did think that the bit with a person dressing up like PacMan and chasing people around the room was a little much. I'm pretty sure that the concept she was trying so hard to explain to everyone was simple enough for them to understand, and I personally think it even would be so for most middle school kids. Maybe a version of that, not quite as extreme, would be better to help middle school kids understand the concepts, without getting too out of hand and off topic.

Reflection 8, June 9, 2010 Today was very different from our other days, since we got to split up into groups. The Science Discovery class visit was really enjoyable. I could tell from the start that those students were very advanced, and they caught on to everything really quick. I helped them a little, but most of them figured it out on their own. The classes we teach, however, probably won't have as much of a background, and they won't be nearly as advanced, fast, or independent as those students. So, I know that they will require much help. The debugging class was really interesting as well, and I used what I learned in it afterwards to fix some of my previously made games. The ant simulation is a great example of how we can incorporate science into AgentSheets, and I will be sure to make suggestions for similar assignments when helping with classes.

Reflection 9, June 10, 2010 Today involved a lot of presentations and group cooperation, which was a very effective tool. We learned a lot about each other in the group activity, and our different beliefs on teaching and learning styles. I also got to know a lot of the different teachers, which may help me select one to work with. The presentations taught me great ways to help the teachers teach within the classroom this fall, and I'm greatly looking forward to it.

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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

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