Patrick Smith's Blog

Merry Christmas everyone!

2010-12-25T17:21:00.002-05:00

MCTC game presentations/semester over

2010-12-15T17:15:00.002-05:00

MCTC had their game presentations over two days, December 9th and 14th. The presentations went well and can be viewed here. I look forward to Buffalo High School's presentations in January, and then Logan and Wheeling Park's at the end of the school year.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T17:14:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone enjoys their week off (if they are lucky like me!) from school to be thankful for all the wonderful friends and family they have in their lives!

Team game progress in full force

2010-11-10T16:55:00.002-05:00

Most of my mentees have completely the paper prototype topics and have moved on to having their students start to work on their team games. Team pages are now alive and well with activity!

Paper Prototypes just around the corner.

2010-10-21T01:14:00.002-04:00

My mentees are either actively involved with creating and filming their paper prototypes, or it is just around the corner. I always find it thrilling when students put pencil to paper and are forced to conceptually their game ideas on paper. This is where many of your student's game idea "blind spots" can be spotted. Quiz students on the intricacies of their game ideas. At this point, they should be able to answer all of your questions. If not, more work needs to be done to flesh out the idea.

Mini Game in full force!

2010-10-12T01:11:00.001-04:00

All of my mentees have started easing their way into the Mini Game topic. There have been (and will be) some bumps in the road along the way, but that is to be expected. It is our mistakes we learn from the most, the things we never forget. So, if a student hits a roadblock here and there, no sweat, once they fix that issue, they can learn from it and teach others how to avoid the same issue.

Progress Report 1 is dead and gone!

2010-09-27T12:13:00.002-04:00

Progress Report 1 is now history! Everyone made it through alive with minor flesh wounds. Now we must focus our attention to our next foe to vanquish, Progress Report 2. Make haste! :-)

Start of Fall semester

2010-09-20T03:03:00.002-04:00

Even though I am not actually teaching a Globaloria class, I am still knee deep in wikis and blogs this year through my third year as a Globaloria mentor. I always enjoy helping Globaloria educators work their way through the intricate web that is the Globaloria wiki. This year is no different, I have two new educators and two returning educators, and all of us are new to the fantastic changes to the wiki this year. Technology is not something that rests on its laurels, and all of our students need to learn that. They need to be exposed to a routine of self-learning and self-realization as young as possible because the workforce of the future needs to be a flexible and agile one.

My favorite beetle

2010-07-08T00:34:00.000-04:00

Seeing as how I was a little less than two months old when John Lennon was killed, picking my favorite Beatle would be a little hard. So, imagine my surprise when I instead decided to pick my favorite beetle and found the selection to be just as frustrating. Based on the Encyclopedia of Insects, there are currently 350,000 known species of beetles, with more being discovered everyday. It must be hard for someone to pick just one, after all, with a face like this little guy, the competition must be fierce. In the long run, after my extensive elimination process, I declare my favorite to be the Clytus arietis, or wasp beetle. It takes a serious case of hubris to crawl and fly around imitating a wasp. That is just the type of thing to provoke Vicky Neal into rolling up a newspaper and bashing your brains out Clytus arietis!

Game Analysis: Alan Wake

2010-05-31T05:45:00.000-04:00

I recently purchased Alan Wake for Xbox 360. I had been very saddened by the ending of ABC's LOST, and this game was just what I needed to pick up my spirits! The game has such a great atmosphere! The atmosphere brings me back to my first time playing the original Silent Hill and hearing the static on the radio knowing that some hell-spawned creature was close to me in the foggy city of Silent Hill. The game borrows from Twin Peaks, the Twilight Zone, and games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and the story is fantastic and leaves some answers to your imagination. For anyone who knows personally about the awesomeness that is Alan Wake, you may want to check out this Analysis of Alan Wake's story. WARNING: This link is extremely spoilerish. If you have not finished the game, I suggest you DO NOT read this analysis.

Week 18 - Post class

2010-05-14T23:24:00.000-04:00

Wow, this was a wonderful semester! I feel that each semester my student's games get consistently better. I feel this is due to the fact that each semester more and more games are available for new students to tinker with, which accelerates my student's progress.

All of Mountwest Community and Technical College's game presentations are now posted here.

Want to see our students final games? Click here.

Week 17 - Gaming I Presentations/Gaming II Presentations part 2

2010-05-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

This week is Finals week. Monday, Josh's Gaming I students did their presentations. I was thoroughly impressed with the progress made by each team. One team in particular, which had 4 members, had an awesome game. One of the members was already an advanced programmer and programmed the orbits of each planet completely in actionscript. I was very impressed with the caliber of Actionscript and design skills that each of Josh's students showed in him Gaming I class. Now, all that is left is for the rest of my Gaming II students to present tomorrow, Friday, May 7th. This year with Globaloria has been very fruitful for both my students and Josh and myself.

Week 16 - Gaming II Presentations Day One

2010-04-30T12:20:00.000-04:00

This week, on Wednesday, three of my students presented their Game Presentations. Bagh Nakh Kora, James0208, and KraZy's presentations were outstanding. I am so proud of the progress my students have made this semester, and the whole throughout the whole Globaloria experience. I have seen some amazing first-hand growth on my students' part. Below are links to some of the final team pages if you would like to see for yourself:

KraZy's team page

Bagh Nakh Kora's team page

James0208's team page

Week 15 - Project Deliverable Three Due

2010-04-21T01:43:00.000-04:00

Students are attempting get all assignments done before Friday's deadline. We had a lottery to see find the sequence order for the Gaming Presentations that will take place at the end of the semester. There will be seven presentations, so we are spreading the presentations out over two class periods. Next week is "Dead Week", a week that students have to prep for Final Exams. I plan on have the students do impromptu presentations on Monday to practice for the real presentations that will take place Wednesday, April 28 and Friday, May 7.

Week 14 - Work week

2010-04-16T01:41:00.000-04:00

This week students are working towards finishing their games. The Project Deliverable Three deadline is looming next Friday(4/23/10). Students are attempting to post all of their files, clean up their team pages, and prepare for presentations.

Week 13 - A light at the end of the tunnel

2010-04-07T00:07:00.000-04:00

This weekend, I graded all the topics covered in the Project Deliverable Two. At this point, my students still have two required game-related Flash topics to deliver in a couple of weeks for Project Deliverable Three. With the five combined game-realted topics that will have been created this semester, the students should be able to deliver a functional, if not complete, demo of their game at the end of the semester.

Week 12 - Work week before Project Deliverable Two is due

2010-04-02T02:41:00.000-04:00

This is the first week back from Spring Break, and my students are getting all of their files uploaded, linked in, etc. in anticipation of the deadline for Project Deliverable Two. This Project Deliverable wraps up all the individual topics covered in the Globaloria gaming wiki, and simply leaves a push for the student's last two game-related topics and the Game Demo itself! Hope to see you at the Publishing Your Game finish line!

Week 11 - Spring Break!

2010-03-23T21:11:00.000-04:00

Yeah, spring break is here! Now I can hopefully "recharge my batteries" and get excited for the upcoming Gaming II presentations.

Week 10 - Platforms part 2 / Coding "Enemies"

2010-03-17T01:23:00.000-04:00

This week is the tenth week of class at MCTC. Next week is Spring Break! It will be a well deserved week off! :-) On Monday, I showed my students how a simple movieclip below the stage of their Platforms file can create a "deadzone" for their characters. All of my students now enjoy their hero's falling off of their platforms in their games! They are slightly morbid that way. :-) Monday and Wednesday we also covered the Coding "Enemies" topic. When I go through this topic, I require my students to complete four separate flash projects. The first is based on the enemy following the mouse (as illustrated in Step 1 of the topic). The second is a slight derivative off the first, not allowing the "enemy" to follow the path of the mouse's current position till a mouse click occurs. This style creates more of a "waypoint" effect. And finally, the third and fourth are based on the two videos on Step 3 of the topic. These videos really bring back that statement my high school math teacher once said, "You will need and use geometry and trig one day!" My students definitely used Trig for the Coding "Enemies" topics. It was even fun to switch the code around to make the enemy run away from your character as opposed to chase it. Remember, some old horse caught another horse taking oats away! Sin = o/h; cos = a/h; Tan = o/a. Not bad for a guy who hasn't touched a math book for ten years. :-)

Week 9 - Running, Jumping, etc / Platforms

2010-03-11T22:23:00.001-05:00

This week, my students worked on the Running, Jumping, etc. and Platforms topics. We completed the topics in this order because it made sense to learn how to jump on flat land before we learned to jump on multi-tiered land. Here is an interesting skill game made by one of my students.

When you press the spacebar the character jumps in the air. The colored bars give you points. The goal of the game is to keep hitting spacebar to maintain your character's altitude. If the character hits the ground, your score returns to zero. If the character's altitude goes above the flash stage, no points are earned. Good Luck!

Week 8 - Character Effects / Drag and Drop

2010-03-01T01:18:00.000-05:00

This week we hit Week 8, half way through the spring semester. We are going to cover the Character Effects and Drag and Drop topics. When I cover Drag and Drop, I typically go over scripted tweening as well. I leave you with a fantastic Flash file from one of my students. Last fall, when John and Benji said they wanted to make a guitar hero style flash game to teach guitar to students, I was skeptical it could be pulled off. This semester, John continues the "good fight" since Benji graduated. He has recruited a fellow student, and John has just posted a demo that shows me that they might actually pull it off after all. Great start so far!

The strings of the guitar are pressed by using the number keys at the top of the keyboard (1-8).

Week 7 - prepping for the Project Deliverable One deadline

2010-02-27T01:14:00.000-05:00

Students had this week to get their files, wiki pages, and team pages in order before I grade everything covered in the Project Deliverable One.

Week 6 - Sound Effects/Timer

2010-02-20T23:46:00.000-05:00

This week we finished up the last two topics that will be graded during the first Project Deliverable. Next week I will give my students the week to do some "housekeeping" on their pages before I start grading all assignments and blogs Friday at midnight. I have also implemented a Class Structure area on MCTC's main wiki page here. The goal of this area is to explain to any newcomers to our wiki what the exact structure and expectations are for our students during their Gaming I and Gaming II classes.

Week 5 - Collision Detection/Projectiles

2010-02-11T11:15:00.000-05:00

This week we covered Collision Detection. I showed a couple of examples of increasing difficulty from my user page (http://www.myglife.org/usa/wv/mctcwiki/index.php/User:Smith288). The second day I showed students how to export symbol in actionscript so that they could run the attachmovie function to embed a dynamic number (similar to the carrot in the Mini Game tutorial). This allowed the students to spawn numerous enemies, and then destroy those enemies using numerous projectiles. Here are some of the highlights:

Bagh Nakh Kora
Use the W and S keys to move your gun up and down and to avoid the Troll King's projectiles. Click the Heal, Sniper, or Shoot buttons to do the action specified (Hint: aim for the head! sniper bullet does more damage than spread.). Be aware that when you fire the gun, there is a delayed reload time. Good Luck!

James0208

Week 4 - Project Planning Pages/Scrolling Background results

2010-02-01T22:46:00.000-05:00

Today I printed out and talked to my students about their game related FLAs and SWFs. I expect by the end of the semester that all students will have at least 5 different game-related FLA and SWF files based on the topics covered in the Game Development topics. I also went more in-depth on the Project Deliverables required in my Gaming II class. If you are curious to see how I have implemented this, please go here. I do all of these things to help curve my student's procrastination.

Last week we went over the Scrolling Background topic. Here are some highlights from that assignment.

JustDieuIt

KraZy

Bagh Nakh Kora

Gaming II - Week 3

2010-01-26T19:54:00.000-05:00

So far this semester, my students are energized and motivated about class. We have gone through most of the beginning brainstorming activities like Development Plan. Now, we are about to get into advanced flash skills. My students always find that time fun, learning new skills, but I always stress that the new skills are only worthwhile if you understand WHY and HOW they apply to your game idea. Technical skill can only go so far unless you have critical thinking skills to back it up. :-)

Student motivation

2010-01-16T08:47:00.000-05:00

This semester, I plan to try to show my students the value of all of the Globaloria tools and try to model good behavior. Why should my students use the tools if I don't use them myself? I plan to also regularly post work and comment on model students who are excelling in a particular area. I hope all of these things start to show that a student will be recognized if they exhibit excellence.

Final thoughts on the semester

2009-12-15T19:06:00.000-05:00

This weekend is currently THE weekend to get your Quarter 2 progress report done. They are due on Tuesday, which just so happens to be the second, and final, day of MCTC's Gaming I Fall 2009 presentations. The first day of presentations didn't go so well, they were very 11th hour-ish. I am happy to report that the second day of presentations went exponentially better. I guess I had put the fear of god into students who were going to be presenting that day, and they were fantastic presentations. I must find a way to make sure that students get their projects done in a timely manner and have these things taken care of. Ugh, if I can find that solution then I can become a rich man!

Still alive...

2009-12-04T02:03:00.001-05:00

It has been a while since I posted here, and quite a bit has transpired. We finally got all of our student's paper prototypes recorded and posted to YouTube since we were having severe problems with Viddler. We completed the flash topics at the end of the curriculum for this semester which was pretty much a review of the mini game topic. Now, at this point, our students are putting the finishing touches on their game presentations. This coming Monday is the first of two days of presentations. The second presentation day will not take place till Tuesday, December 15. The semester has been filled with minor setbacks (swine flu for example), but ultimately I fill it has been a success on many levels and I look forward to seeing a majority of these students continue their game ideas in Gaming II next semester.

The scourge of the flu...

2009-10-16T02:25:00.001-04:00

Paper prototype recording took place on both Monday and Wednesday this week, yet only half of the class has been recorded. The reason for this has not been long, in-depth recordings. The reason has been increased sickness-related absences. Several students missed both days, and my plan for Monday is have make-up recording sessions while Josh continues to start the Planning Your Game topic. From the few recorded thus far there have been some great game ideas. Stay tuned for links to some of the gems!

Paper Prototypes continue...

2009-10-09T19:59:00.000-04:00

Gaming I students continue to make progress on their paper prototypes. Student attendance has greatly decreased due to flu-related issues. I hope flu season doesn't totally grind progress to a halt. Next week we will start to record the paper prototypes and post them to Viddler. Next week will be week 8, leaving half the semester for students to turn paper ideas into flash reality.

The starting of Paper Prototypes

2009-10-01T13:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday officially started the beginning of Paper Prototypes in Josh's Gaming I class. Some students have yet to come up with a finalized game idea, but I feel they will solidify they ideas soon. In the meantime, I invite everyone to watch the following YouTube video for inspiration!

One of my many memorable games

2009-09-21T11:34:00.000-04:00

Before 950 different versions of Worms on the market, there was just plain old Worms on PC. This game, whose premise seems silly at best, is much more than what is shown on the surface.
Worms put you in a situation where you have 4 playable characters, that happen to be worms, on your team versus an opposing team of 4 worms. The object of the game is to use the varied arsenal of weapons at your disposal to kill the opposing team before they kill you.
This was one of the first games that I had an interest in "modding" or modifying or adapting my own content to.

With this game, you could create your own player maps and add your own .WAV sounds to add different voices to your worms. There was definitely a skill factor involved when using certain weapons that were affected by wind in the game. Overall, I have very fond memories of Worms. I am already wondering when I left my install disc...

First posted flash FLA/SWF - end of 4th week of class

2009-09-17T00:31:00.000-04:00

Wednesday signified the end of the 4th week of class. That class was the culmination of the students Mini Game project. The students learned the skills of publishing and posting their FLA and SWF files to the wiki. Several of the students went the extra mile and embellished their games. Some fantastic examples of student work can be found here at KraZy's page and Bagh Nakh Kora's file. These students went above and beyond adding some self-learned skills such as poisoned carrots (which caused negative points), timers, and rabbits moved in all four directions. I can see that this semester has some fantastic potential!

Mini Game Project

2009-09-14T23:37:00.000-04:00

Today I finished leading MCTC's Fall 09 Gaming I students through the Mini Game Project. I am Josh's support educator, so typically I try to add expertise where required. Last Wednesday and today though I temporarily put on my Lead Educator hat and led the students through the mini game. I hope leading this session allows our students to see that both Josh and I are there to support them with our expertise.

And so it begins again...

2009-08-27T10:24:00.000-04:00

Fall semester has official started at MCTC. This semester is a bit different in that Josh Joseph is teaching a gaming class this semester, and I am his support educator. I am not the lead educator because I am teaching 25 hours (8 classes) in a different area of focus than gaming this semester. I have been sitting in on Josh's classes so far to make sure that the students get off to a fantastic start and everything has been going perfect. This has been a new experience for me, sitting back and watching someone else teach the classes I have taught for two years. I hope to lend my experience and expertise to Josh and his students to make their first class a success.

My memorable learning experience...

2009-06-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

As a child, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would not have said a professor. I always had the ambition to become a carpenter and architect. My goal was to create the blueprints AND build the house. Even though my mother has been a teacher as long as I can remember, it never occurred to me as a possible career. So how did I get here? Well, as I discovered computers I decided to shift my career focus towards computers, but it still wasn't teaching computers. It wasn't until 2001 that teaching became a possibility in my mind. I was taking a Microsoft class that I found very interesting. One day, the instructor was verbally quizzing me and my fellow students about the reading assignment from the previous night. The rest of the class fell silent, I seemed to be the only answering the questions because apparently I was the only one that read my overnight assignment. After the instructor chastised the rest of the class for not doing their assignment, he sarcastically asked, "Since you seem to the only person to have read the chapter last night, do you want teach these idiots what they missed?" I agreed. For the next hour, I talked about the concepts and terms from that overnight assignment. I didn't feel like I was being put on the spot. I felt that I was able to talk about a subject that I found very exciting and hopeful foster excitement in the other students. Looking back, I feel that if I hadn't attended that class on that very night, I may have never had that learning experience, caught the teaching bug, and never loved a job as much as I do this one.

Day 1 Overnight assignment

2009-06-24T21:18:00.000-04:00

I created two blogrolls tonight. First, I decided to create a blogroll of my current Gaming class students, my summer Gaming II class. It was super easy because I already had all of my student's blogs in Google Reader, and I was able to import all of them with one simple click (see it is even MORE helpful Jeremy!). I also created a blogroll on two of my favorite sites to visit. Since I am a techie, I live at slashdot.org, so it made perfect sense to link it. Also, since I am photography nut, I also check dpreview.com religiously. Both of these sites have feeds that I check everyday and highly value, and maybe viewers of my blog will find them valuable as well.

June Academy/summer Gaming II

2009-06-24T17:12:00.000-04:00

Today is the first day of the June Academy. I am excited to see what new things are in store for Year 3! On the summer Gaming II front, I have finished teaching all the topics up to Testing and Debugging. Now, the students have an extensive code library created based on all the topics we have covered. I hope this will help them be more adequately prepared to continue their game ideas to completion.

a new approach

2009-05-14T13:41:00.001-04:00

Going into this Gaming II course, I plan to try a new approach. I plan to have a conference with each student. I want to make sure during this meeting that I discuss with the student which game development topics that I feel that are important to their game, the timeline in which the student expects to complete said topics, and the timeline for their completed game demo. Based on all this information, I want to be able to draw up an informal contract that the students can put on their wikis. I want students to stick to their schedules, or at least know what the schedule is. It needs to be more than instant gratification, there needs to be more planning. Hopefully this will get students to hold themselves more accountable for breaking timelines.

Spring classes are over, bring on the summer class!

2009-05-08T14:39:00.000-04:00

Spring classes, and presentations, are over. Monday starts the summer session of Gaming II. I plan to tweak my syllabus this weekend to implement some changes to the way I do deadlines/grades in Gaming II. I plan to create a way that students are force to do at least three different project deliverables. Maybe one around 4 weeks in, the second around 8 weeks, and the last at 12 weeks. This will help deter the rampant procrastination that I saw during my Gaming I and Gaming II presentations this spring. Or, at least I hope it does.

The light at the end of a tunnel ... is just another tunnel that is lit

2009-04-30T15:27:00.000-04:00

Ok, well, presentation time is here! For some reason, it seems I am more nervous about this time of year than my students. Some students don't have a care in the world, while others move at a frantic pace. There are even some students that I categorize as "presumed dead", by the fact that all forms of modern communication sent their way seems to get swallowed by a black hole.
So, next week is finals week. Finals week brings the last Gaming I presentation day, and Gaming II's presentation day. After that though, it is not over. The very next week after finals starts my Gaming II summer class, an accelerated version of the normal 16 weeks course.
Here we go!

Progess report 3 and the end of the semester

2009-04-02T14:36:00.001-04:00

Our third progress report has been submitted! Yeah! Now comes the task of finishing out spring semester. Since I only have four students in Gaming II, finding a time to do their presentation will be much easier than finding the time to do 26 game presentation for Gaming I. I am a bit worried that I won't schedule enough time to get through all of the presentations. So, my mission is sit down this weekend and hammer out a schedule for the presentations so there will not be any surprises for my students.

Drawing in Flash and CS4

2009-03-13T02:11:00.000-04:00

Paper prototypes are now finished, recorded, and posted. That is a heavy weight off my shoulders. Now though, we have started to work in Flash. We have done the Drawing in Flash topic and are getting ready to do Adding Animation/Navigation. This is where the next hurdles begins. The majority of our labs have Flash CS4 on them, and this is going to throw a big wrench into Adding Animation. CS4 has changed everything when it comes to tweening. Oh well. If everything was easy, why would we do it?

Paper prototypes

2009-02-18T13:13:00.000-05:00

My Gaming I students have started their paper prototypes. I think that this topic is the core of the first section curriculum. Everything that comes before this topic shapes it, and everything after calls back to it. My classroom is constantly abuzz with students showing their neighbor's their ideas, drawing, ideas, etc. In Gaming II, my students are further tweaking their games using the customized topics from the Game Development section.

Snow, snow, snow!

2009-02-02T23:27:00.000-05:00

If there is one think that is certain, besides death and taxes, it is that every few years ice, snow, sleet, cats and dogs (not really) all get dumped on West Virginia. The students love it, but I hate it. Unlike the public schools, there isn't any makeup snow days at Marshall. Classes end on a specific day in May, and if you haven't covered all of your curriculum, then oh well! So, because of this, I feel as though I am playing catch up. My Gaming I students will start the Imagining Your Game topic Wednesday, while my Gaming II students continue to work through the first couple of Gaming Development topics. They are anticipating beginning to learn advanced ActionScript features that they can implement in their games.
Here is to hoping that the weather front rolling this week doesn't bring lots of snow!

Syllabus time!

2009-01-10T02:31:00.000-05:00

Monday starts spring semester. It amazes me the amount of academic change that can happen in a single month. My schedule has completely changed with the exception of Gaming I and Gaming II. I finally finished my syllabi for this semester, all 7 of them! I revised my Gaming I syllabus with a couple of old rules and a few new ones as well. First and foremost, the attendance policy is alive and well again. My attrition rate was horrible last semester, and I blame poor attendance not negatively affecting student's grades as a contributing factor. When you miss work enough times, you are either reprimanded or fired. I believe that a similar negative effect should occur if you miss too much class time. We are supposed to be instilling in students ethics that employers are going to expect, and I feel this is a major one. Last semester I had found it frustrating when I had to "hunt down" student work on the wiki, so another revision to my syllabus mentions that work is expected to be organized and posted in the proper section of the student's project page, both SWF and FLA files. If this is not followed, the work will be viewed as incomplete and not graded. For each 24 hour period the work is incomplete, 10 percent will be deducted from the possible final grade for that project. Having 32 students this semester in Gaming I will require organization from everyone, and I wanted to make sure that was understood on Day 1.

It is over...for now.

2008-12-13T02:30:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-28T16:39:00.001-05:00

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...

2008-11-10T12:21:00.000-05:00

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

2008-10-21T01:31:00.000-04:00

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

2008-10-16T15:29:00.000-04:00

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...

2008-10-10T15:56:00.000-04:00

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...

2008-09-26T15:54:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-11T13:52:00.001-04:00

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...

2008-09-09T13:22:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-26T17:35:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-19T15:45:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-13T20:19:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-06T16:53:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-07-21T18:34:00.000-04:00

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.

Patrick Smith's Blog

Merry Christmas everyone!

MCTC game presentations/semester over

Happy Thanksgiving

Team game progress in full force

Paper Prototypes just around the corner.

Mini Game in full force!

Progress Report 1 is dead and gone!

Start of Fall semester

My favorite beetle

Game Analysis: Alan Wake

Week 18 - Post class

Week 17 - Gaming I Presentations/Gaming II Presentations part 2

Week 16 - Gaming II Presentations Day One

Week 15 - Project Deliverable Three Due

Week 14 - Work week

Week 13 - A light at the end of the tunnel

Week 12 - Work week before Project Deliverable Two is due

Week 11 - Spring Break!

Week 10 - Platforms part 2 / Coding "Enemies"

Week 9 - Running, Jumping, etc / Platforms

Week 8 - Character Effects / Drag and Drop

Week 7 - prepping for the Project Deliverable One deadline

Week 6 - Sound Effects/Timer

Week 5 - Collision Detection/Projectiles

Week 4 - Project Planning Pages/Scrolling Background results

Gaming II - Week 3

Student motivation

Final thoughts on the semester

Still alive...

The scourge of the flu...

Paper Prototypes continue...

The starting of Paper Prototypes

One of my many memorable games

First posted flash FLA/SWF - end of 4th week of class

Mini Game Project

And so it begins again...

My memorable learning experience...

Day 1 Overnight assignment

June Academy/summer Gaming II

Blogroll

a new approach

Spring classes are over, bring on the summer class!

The light at the end of a tunnel ... is just another tunnel that is lit

Progess report 3 and the end of the semester

Drawing in Flash and CS4

Paper prototypes

Snow, snow, snow!

Syllabus time!

It is over...for now.

Hindsight

Almost there...

Salt Lake City

Drawing With Flash

On to Drawing with Flash...

Paper Prototypes continue...

Paper Prototypes

Presentation Rubric

Starting the trek...

First day of Intro. to Gaming Concepts I

August Globaloria Training

It's Official!

Almost over!

Gearing up for August 25th!