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Hey Folks, I recently picked up a job teaching children basic programming a couple hours a week for a local school. The kids are using things like Scratch currently to build their own storylines and games, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience in implementing games into a curriculum as an educational tool? I've been looking at minecraftEDU, specifically it's addon CodeCraftEDU, which looks like the perfect tool to teach the kids beginning concepts of Java, as well as incorporating things like Twine to teach them creative writing and storytelling. I have a young man in my class who excels beyond his peers and he is extremely interested in game modding, specifically the Fallout series and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for how to implement those interests into the classroom? I'm not super familiar with the process of what all goes into modding Fallout, but I know that a friend of mine growing up built his digital design portfolio through level design for Unreal Tournament, which later netted him a job working for a developer down in Texas and I was wondering if there was a similar tool that I could encourage him to use and foster his creativity with? Thanks for all the help or suggestions that folks can come up with.
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Feb 16, 2016 21:49
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 05:48 |
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I can't think of a worse choice than Java for a first language or for children. Maybe COBOL? I don't know COBOL probably makes more sense starting out. I get that everyone under 20 loves minecraft more than their family but man it bums me out thinking about all those kids getting interested in Java because of that and then getting turned off on all technical fields and careers for life as a result. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Feb 16, 2016 21:55
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There's that one Double Fine game where you have to use programming to solve puzzles and stuff, Hack n Slash was the name I think. It's not very good imo but it's the only game I can think of that really fits your criteria.
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Feb 16, 2016 22:00
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http://store.steampowered.com/app/375820/ Human Resource Machine?
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Feb 16, 2016 23:06
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TIS-100 is probably too low level and evil, but Spacechem is a programming-by-stealth game.
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Feb 16, 2016 23:15
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Pryor on Fire posted:I can't think of a worse choice than Java for a first language or for children. Maybe COBOL? I don't know COBOL probably makes more sense starting out. Back in the day at my school kids had to do with straight up C. The rule in the computer class was that if you wanted to play games there, you had to code them first. Worked pretty well.
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Feb 16, 2016 23:21
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Unlikely that it'll happen at this point, but it sounds like Code Hero would be pretty close to what you are looking for. Unfortunately, it's basically dead, but if you can get your hands on the existing beta build it might be somewhat helpful?
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Feb 16, 2016 23:24
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You could do a lot worse than introducing them to heavily modded Minecraft and teaching them how to automate things in a mod like Ender I/O.
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Feb 17, 2016 21:32
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SpaceChem is pretty much a programming game, and is superb.
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Feb 17, 2016 21:53
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jBrereton posted:SpaceChem is pretty much a programming game, and is superb. This. In general I think you'd have more success using games that cause people to think in an engineering mindset, as opposed to ones that literally use code. A few other quick suggestions: Human Resource Machine Infiniminer Factorio
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Feb 17, 2016 21:59
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WarioWare D.I.Y. on the DS may be perfect for certain students. There's a whole series of tutorial problems going through conditionals and flags and finding clever ways to do things with the seemingly limited capabilities of the scripting language (and the deliberately limited scope of games you can make.) To top it off students can make their own art and music in it, or tear apart any of the included microgames to examine and even use their assets, including code/scripts. There's a companion piece of software on Wii that lets you upload and play the created games on a TV.
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Feb 23, 2016 18:40
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Prenton posted:TIS-100 is probably too low level and evil, but Spacechem is a programming-by-stealth game. TIS-100 is awesome though and probably a good introduction to mulithreaded programming. Though you are writing assembly it does teach you good fundamentals of programming, start with what you want to do, then create the test code before doing the actual programming. It's probably not that good for kids starting out though.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:44
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Has there been anything like Colobot since, well, Colobot? All the programming games I've seen as of late are either assembly or one layer of abstraction away from assembly, and I've been itching for something that actually has its own scripting language that emulates high level programming.
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Feb 24, 2016 13:43
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 05:48 |
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I found NWN's toolset to be a good entry-level programming thing, what with all the spells and campaigns being open to bear for anyone willing to look under the wood-works. It helps that it is really flexible for editing as well.
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Feb 24, 2016 17:14
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