2DIY with Gifted and Talented groups

Tim Bleazard, ICT Consultant with Education Bradford and City Learning Centre Challenge (@idletim on Twitter) has kindly allowed his planning for a G&T group to be published; 

Objectives

• Introduce a small number of children from each school how to use 2diy
• Children design games to teach specific learning objectives.
• To learn some of the advanced features, level creator and action script.
• For each group of children to teach other children and staff how to use 2DIY back at school 

Session One

• All schools should be given copies of 2DIY to install in school and download codes for downloading at home. All pupils in school will be allowed to download the program.
• Pupils begin by playing 2DIY games created by the last cohort which are at 2diy.challengeclc.com
• Explain concept of creating own games Very basic introduction to 2diy. Focus on the catching game. show how to create a very basic game that only catches multiples of 6, explain drawing tools.  Get pupils to create own games and figure out for themselves how to change various facets of the game. They should share this info with each other. After 30 mins of creation talk about the following...

How do you...

• Change the time
• Change points including -ve points for minus scores
• Change ‘Time up’ message
• Change points scored
• Magnify drawings

• Pupils discuss an area of the curriculum they can create games to support. Look at the categories covered in the previous session and the games they created. Not all games supported learning objectives clearly and this needs addressing this time. How did each type of game support learning? Some are easier than others to pin down. Activities and quizzes are more explicit, games are harder.

• Discuss copyright with pupils. Discuss e-safety procedure, where and how to search for copyright free images. What to do if you see an inappropriate image.

• Show how to get copyright free images using http://primaryschoolict.com/ free, searchable copyright free clipart also available from fundraw.com - show how to download without the watermark.

• Ask pupils to demonstrate how you can import downloaded images into characters. Pupils lead the demonstration. Pupils add their own images into the catching game.

• Repeat this process for downloading sound effects. Get pupils to download from soungle.com 

• Also get pupils to record own sounds and experiment with sound creation tool.

• Add sounds to the game.

• Ask pupils to think over the next week about the theme for their games and what will they teach children who play them.

Session Two

• At the start of this session all groups are given A1 paper and a marker pen. They need to write down the theme for their games to focus on. They should identify what people will learn by playing games, EG Aztecs

1. To learn which foods the Aztecs ate
2. To recognise Aztec and non Aztec gods
3. To know why the Spaniards defeated the Aztecs.

• They then look at the game menu in2diy and link games to the objectives 

1 = catching, maze, cloze etc

• Remind pupils you can use a game style more than once, try to have a balance of work so not all games or all quizzes etc

• They can then assign group members to each game and begin creation. 

• Explain how to make games with different levels. Think how this fits in with your game and learning objectives EG in Maths it may be based on easier tables. Stress each level must be harder than the previous (obvious but....)
• Go through the introduction screen. Ask pupils to fill in all elements and write clear instructions for how to play the game including what to collect and what to avoid.

Session Three

• Time given to finish game created last week.

• Play each others games and give feedback- post it notes left around - post 2 stars and a wish comments on each others games. Make sure pupils (and teachers) move around from school to school and not just stay with their pals.

• More time given to refine game.

• 2DIY archive action script tutorial1

• Pupils open a part created maze game and add actionscript to make the character re appear at a location determined by them

• Pupils allocated one of the following actionscript tutorials and then teach others how to do it 2 pupils from each school use one of the following tutorials. Pair up with a pupil from another school to teach each other how to use the action script

• Also use actionscript tutorial 3 to make the apple element move away as you get closer to it.

• Action script tutorial 5 - One player avoids being caught by the other.

• Pupils are encourage to play with variables and share their finding with each other.

Session Four

• Most of the session is to be given over to pupils creating more games to support their learning objectives. Recap on action script, copyright free sound and images.

• Allow children to play each others games and use Google form on 2diy.challengeclc.com to vote for their best game. Stress it’s about teaching knowledge of practicing a skill, more than a  fun game. Results come through live on Google spreadsheet

Tim also added the following comments following his planning;

It was a project for five schools sending 4/5 G&T yr 5 pupils each. We spent a lot of time playing and experimenting. I'm running it again and being much more demanding re making the learning objectives.

One thing I have changed is using the Google site. In the first cycle I set up all children as users on our Google site. They created the forms to do market research with teachers and they uploaded their own games to a storage area on the site. The idea was that they could upload and download one document between school, home and the CLC. I decided to let the children decide on the learning area this time as not enough teachers filled in the form in the first cohort. This time I've just got them to create separate work at the clc. If they want to send things in from home I've given them an email address.