Google Hangouts with Experts

Recently I have been trying to connect my classrooms more with other students as well as experts, through both Google Hangouts and Skype. I did this in my old school, by connecting with another school, in a different country, and having students in both schools compete on an interactive quiz using Kahoots and we also took part in a live session with the author Robert Muchamore through a Google Hangout!

Recently I have connected my Game 9 Game Design class (ICT and Robotics Option) with experts in the field. This is because they can give them a much more meaningful and relevant answers to questions like 'what is it like to work in game design' and "how has coding helped you in your tech career." I am sure the students also find it a lot more interesting to speak to someone working in an interesting job...instead of just talking to me, the teacher they see every day!

Usually when I have these video calls with experts my students brainstorm questions the lesson before, which we send to the person in advance. We connect through Google Hangouts or Skype and I introduce the experts, who then talk about themselves. We then take questions from the audience - but I usually have the pre-written questions printed out, so that there is no gap in conversation if the students are being shy. We were lucky enough to connect with people who work at both TellTale Games and GlassLabGames. Students asked questions about their careers, what it is like working in the tech field, why coding is important, what games they enjoyed playing and more.

Grade 9 talk with Game Designer Emily Garrison from TellTale Games. 

She is currently the lead game designer on Michonne, The Walking Dead.

Grade 9 and 10 having a Google Hangout with staff from Glass Lab Games during Computer Science Week. Jerry Fu works on Game Development, and has previously worked on Plants Vs Zombies at Pop Cap Games. Evan Rushton, former teacher, works on the education side.

This was incredibly easy to organize and I was so happy with how flexible, approachable and easy to work with all the experts were. If anything, my business was the only thing which caused delays! Using Google Hangouts was also super easy too and we connected a hangout to our Google Calendar Events. You can even add the questions as an attachment!

This was an extremely rewarding experience, which I could not replicate myself. I am extremely grateful for these experts who offered their time and thoughts to my students. I encourage other teachers and librarians to reach out to experts to do the same thing. If anyone wants any help or advice, please contact me.

Town Planning - SimCityEdu Tutorial

Unit Overview

I am doing a unit on Town Planning for MYP Design with my Grade 7s and I could not be more enthusiastic about it. Town planing may not sound like the most exciting unit, but believe me it is!

Students will be designing their own towns and will have a lot of criteria to meet. They will have to look at various city systems, from buses to recycling, as well as the needs and wants of the residents, they will decide on their town's main industry,  have to make sure there are enough jobs, homes and schools for everyone and they will have to take into consideration the town's age and geographical features. I think students will find the most fun part will be naming their town and adding in all the little details. I am pretty sure they will  start wanting  to name their towns after themselves and will probably add in far too many leisure and entertainment centres and will of course focus on the needs of young people, but will develop their cities into a great space for all!

We are going to compare an old and new town, (probably an area of London, compared to Milton Keynes) and we are going to look at Celebration, Florida, a town created and originally maintained by Disney! Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC produced a fantastic podcast with an episode called "American Icons: Disney Parks". In this they study Celebration and speak to some of the residents. The podcast itself is wonderfully informative and beautiful to listen to, (as it is full of great sound effects and edited wonderfully), so I will have to use the Celebration section with the students.

Students are most excited about the tools we are going to use, Minecraft and SimCityEdu! Students will be able to design their finished town on Minecraft, (some will opt to do it on paper), and will also produce a poster/leaflet to promote their town! Throughout the start of the unit students will also complete challenges on SimCityEdu, to get them to understand the different requirements town planners and councils must take into consideration when planning and running a town.

Sim City Edu

We started on SimCityEdu yesterday and they loved it! The game is easy to set up and navigate, but still challenges the students. It also teachers them valuable lessons, like how to create an efficient bus service, while still looking, feeling and sounding like a normal video game. Yesterday students completed a challenge to create the most efficient bus service for their town. All students completed the challenge, with varying levels of success, (measured in bronze, silver and gold medals) and every single student went on to repeat them game to try and create an even more effective system!

GlassLabGames provide great teaching resources for SimCityEdu, not only telling you how and why to play the game, but giving you a range of activities to do before and after the activity. Usually I ignore these sort of resources, as I often use tools and games not in the way they were intended, but these were perfect.

Please watch my video, as I explain what we did and how. This is such a great game for students and I encourage you to try it out too!

SimCityEdu Tutorial

P.S. In the video I said Grade 8, but meant Grade 7!