It is over...for now.

Thursday was MCTC's Gaming I presentations. It went fabulous. I am a little disappointed with my attrition rate this semester, but I must say, the students that stuck with the class have awesome game ideas. Each student is taking to their games because they are their own. I do like the aspect of team collaboration, but on the other hand, there is something to be said for the love my students have poured into an idea that is truly theirs. I screencasted the presentations so that I can show the students in my spring semester Gaming I class. I believe showing these students up front what Gaming I alumni have accomplished using this new curriculum will help inspire my spring students. It should also give them an idea of the expectations of Gaming I. I am still coping with the idea of how I am going to teach a class of 30+ students. Don't get me wrong, I have taught several different classes in the classroom that we have that holds 32 students, but never have those classes required a thorough presentation at the end of the semester. Usually that room is for our Intro. to Computers classes which give Powerpoint Presentations, but I know that our gaming presentations are much more involved than that. I suppose this is something I will be thinking about when I start Winter break this Tuesday. I will have to turn in my spring syllabii right after the first of the year, so the number of days to schedule for presentations will be one of main topics I will tackle when revamping my Gaming I syllabus for spring.

Hindsight

This semester is almost over, and I already know many things that I plan on changing in my syllabus for next semester. Attendance will be mandatory, grades will be taken more often, and if I have to "go hunting" for student assignments on the wiki, their will be points deducted. We are to treat our syllabii as pseudo-contracts with our students, laying out what is expected of them, and what they should expect of me. I have hesitated to enforce their new rules because I didn't have them on my syllabus this semester, but next semester they will definitely be on it. I am totally ecstatic about next semester because I checked my numbers on Friday, and I currently have 23 students enrolled!

Almost there...

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. When I got back from Salt Lake City, my students started working on the Adding Sound topic. During the same week we talked about Adding Interaction. I did a lecture on Adding Interaction where I talked about some of the code issues that may arise in Gaming II. I like to let my students see some advanced Flash every once in a while because I feel it helps hold their interest and excitement. This week we start the Assembling the Game topic.

Salt Lake City

This whole week I am at the League of Innovations's CIT 2008 in Salt Lake City. It is a 5 day meeting of community colleges. I have seen so many wonderful things here and attend many excellent workshops. Camtasia Relay, Wimba, EON Reality, Windows Server 2008 MOC and MOAC textbooks, and podcasting without a mac have been several of the interesting vendors and topics I have attend workshops on while here at CIT 2008. We did a poster session today on IT Certifications in Community College Curricula. We had a very large turn out, with many people interested how we have integrated the MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, A+, and Network+ certifications into our Associate of Applied Science degree at Marshall Community and Technical College. This conference has really energized and reinvigorated my passion for IT. I am thinking about submitting a Call for Proposal for next year's conference in Detroit on our Animation and Game Developer option and how we have used MyGLife to teach our students Web 2.0 skills and important incidental skills through game design.

Drawing With Flash

Today I showed my students several of the annoyances that a beginner in flash would run into. I showed them how to Group their drawings and told them to do this often. I even re-iterated the fundamental difference between frames and keyframes, a change in content. I finished off by showing a preview of Adding Animation by explaining how to animate with and without a motion guide. I did all of this to prep my students for next week, a week in which I will be gone to Salt Lake City for the Conference on Information Technology. Now my students should be ready to continue drawing in flash and start some early animation if they like.

On to Drawing with Flash...

Class slowed down a little during Paper Prototypes. Schedules, power outages, sickness, and creative block all played their part in the extension to the Paper Prototype topic. Now, my students know what they want to do, and we are pushing towards Drawing in Flash fast. All the topics after Paper Prototype build on your game idea, so it was important to make sure that everyone had a solid idea.

With the extension of Paper Prototypes I have also asked my students to blog on their experience creating their paper prototypes. I especially want to know about their difficulties and how I might be able to run that topic more smoothly in the future.

Paper Prototypes continue...

My class got off to a bit of a slow start on Paper Prototypes. I think this was because I asked them to come up a fantastic game idea one day, and then asked for them to start designing it on paper the next. Sometimes creativity doesn't work on a schedule. Either way, all of my students are now making their paper prototypes, game ideas in hand. So, I figure my initial estimation of two weeks for the paper prototype topic will stretch into three weeks, but if the ideas are solid, being a week late with be well worth it.

Paper Prototypes

Today will be the first official start of Paper Prototypes. Tuesday, the MyGLife website was down, and I took the time to talk one-on-one with each student about their game ideas. Today, many of them should be posting their game ideas to their wiki through the Imagining Your Game topic. I can't wait to read them!

Presentation Rubric

Today my students start on the Imagining your Game topic, and feel this is the perfect time to talk about the Presentation Rubric. Right now when there are about to embark on their own game idea, I can lay out the criteria for what is expected of their presentation. I can't wait to see what they come up with this semester.

Starting the trek...

Well, all of my students now officially have profiles in the Globaloria wiki and blogs. Now that the "paperwork" section is out of the way we can get to the exciting stuff... Game Design!!!

First day of Intro. to Gaming Concepts I

Today was the first day of Introduction to Gaming Concepts I. I had the students sign their consent forms and fill out the survey. I also tried to give them a taste of what Globaloria is all about by showing them games made by Globaloria Alumni, showing Alumni's wiki pages, and more. I feel this is the start of a really good semester!

August Globaloria Training

I am currently sitting here learning new techniques to use this coming semester for Introduction to Gaming Concepts I. The curriculum has totally been redone, and it is exponentially better than before. What excites me most is actually the semester 2 curriculum topics. There are many ancillary topics that my students will be able to learn if they pertain to their game projects. I have never had a student say "How do I create an array?", but I have often heard "How do I keep score?". This drastic change to the wiki curriculum will make learning easier because my students don't know if they need an array. If they knew if they needed it, they would already know what it was and what it does. But, knowing what functionality that they want in their game will then answer the question of what flash skills they need to learn to faciliate that skill.

It's Official!

It is official, today I was offered a full-time Instructor position at Marshall Community and Technical College. I accepted of course! This has been a goal I have been working towards for several years. The workload doesn't change much, but it does give me peace of mind to know that I have a stable job.

Almost over!

The last spring and summer semesters have been an experience to say the least.
On the academic front, I taught 15 hours of classes at Marshall Community and Technical College while concurrently taking 18 hours towards my undergraduate. This summer, I took 12 hours to finish my undergraduate degree while also teaching one class and becoming the IT 101 Coordinator at MCTC which requires me to create the syllabus template that all faculty members who teach IT 101 must go by, as well as planning and coordinating training for our returning IT 101 faculty. I also attended the first day of the July 2008 training for Globaloria while Dr. Randall Jones covered my summer IT 101 class for me.

On the personal business side, my girlfriend and I shot a wedding in Jamaica, shot a senior portraits session, took pictures of some handmade Amish furniture from which we made two brochures, shot a sweet 16 birthday party, then a family portrait session of the family of sweet 16's family, and finally, shot a local wedding.
Click here to see our business blog.

So, now, with August 15th, the last day of my summer classes, looming, I am reflecting on those previous hectic months, proud that I made it through them. I know there will be challenges this fall semester, but I plan to embrace them. This fall I am teaching 5 classes, all with different preps. The preparation that goes into these classes can be intense, but I like having a variety of classes. The saying "use it or lose it" comes to mind, and if I am constantly keeping my skills varied, then at the same time, I am keeping them up-to-date. If life didn't have challenges, I don't know if there would be much of a reason to get out of bed.

Gearing up for August 25th!

I am currently trying to get all of my proverbial "ducks in a row" getting ready to kick off the Fall 2008 semester on August 25th! Check back later for more info.