Video Game Design/Developers

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

That would be fantastic if you're willing to share!

Can you send/share them with me at adeloach@dallasisd.org ?

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

sent a few folders on google drive

That would be fantastic if you're willing to share!

Can you send/share them with me at adeloach@dallasisd.org ?

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

I forgot to include my email, I forget if we swapped email last year at GDC.

peeryo@sfusd.edu

I have a boatload of resources done up for that book if you want them.

Woah, I'm sorry that happened to you! I hope that being with students works out quickly, but I'm glad you have those days saved up as a backup.

Thanks for sharing that GDC talk! I've used several of those shared in this group in my classes and this will probably be the next.

________________________________________________

My name's Austin DeLoach and I teach at New Tech HS at BF Darrell in Dallas, TX. We came back to work last Thursday and classes start this upcoming Monday. This is my:
- 6th year teaching
- 3rd year teaching programming
- 2nd year teaching game development
- 1st year teaching exclusively game development and also the first year having my full pathway of classes.

Texas named my classes for me, but this year I have four sections of Video Game Design (level 1), two sections of Video Game Programming (level 2), and one section of Advanced Video Game Programming (level 3).

This year, I'm planning on doing a bunch of the paper prototype challenges from Challenges for Game Designers by Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber in my game design classes. That'll probably be the main new thing for the class in addition to what we did last year - review game jam submissions; write design docs and pitch our ideas; kitbash 3D models of objects around the school to make a virtual tour of the building (to name a few).

In the Game Programming classes, I used Unity's Create With Code pretty directly, but I plan to use it as a bit more of a supplemental resource this time around. I hadn't seen the certified user programmer test until I took it last March, so I had to guess on the best way to prep them for most of the year. We're starting with a quarter-long project where we'll make "Pong, but cooler". Hoping that goes well now that I understand what their hang-ups will be a bit better.

For Advanced Game Programming, we'll do a faster-paced version of the Pong project as review and then I'm hoping to do some in-class game jams before letting them run crazy with their open-ended capstone-ish projects.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

We start next Tuesday with staff, and then the following Monday 8/19 with students.

I had a rough summer. I got hit by a car on my bicycle commute home on 5/31, in the ICU for a week, now a traumatic brain injury. I think I can start, but if being in front of kids all day right now is too overwhelming then I'll take some of my many days off for medical leave.

Some days the fog and confusion never leaves, some days it last a couple of hours, some days it dissipates by the end of breakfast. Hard to say what it will be like in a classroom.

Have you seen the GDC Vault video talk with Ralph Koster about his book Theory of Fun? It made me think of it when you mentioned you didn't think many even knew what they thought was fun. Here's the link if not, Revisiting Fun: 20 Years of

I certainly expect to do more with what makes games fun to play this year. I'm working on a study guide for watching this video, can't decide how deep or surface level to keep it and what to make out project be after it. I also have a class set of the book, but have never used it with class. We too still have lots of antisocial behavior and extreme absenteeism in some students but maybe this year I'll use it.

For new stuff, I worked virtually this summer with GDQuest to give more feedback and ideas for improvement on their curriculum for Godot. One of the best adjustments they made was in their UI module. Now they broke it down into 2 modules and have more lessons and more explicit instructions so I think it will go better for me.

A thing I will spend more time on this year, especially this Fall leading up to the elections, is information literacy. I hope to use the UI modules to have them build a game like experience that they can turn a CER paragraph into something in Godot. It will be a good way to focus on UI without having to make a whole game AND try to dispel all the disinformation out there by focusing on making a Claim, supporting it with Evidence, and providing sound Reasoning, CER. Supposedly they use it in English and History in my school so I shouldn't have to teach all the way from the beginning of it. Make some art, add some buttons, animate a sentence from the paragraph, click next to move on to the next sentence etc, all within CER, I hope it works.

These were the game trailers of my seniors who graduated last year in case you want to see what they built.https://docs.google.com/document/d/17R0Y4fyhWe2Et4HZnS2CNj3UDwIWHB3Gc4Uv2_faS84/edit?usp=sharing

Looking forward to connecting again this year. I think I'm going to drop Twitter finally. Not much good is happening on there anymore and spend more time in curated self selected groups like this, esp with other game dev teachers.

Have a great year.

Welcome BACK!!!

Inservice and Professional Development all start tomorrow for me. First day of school in Monday!!

This year 2 Game Design 1 classes and 1 Game Design 2

New for me? I plan this year to focus on student community. Thoughts on this include:

• Really want to make sure the kids understand and can articulate the idea of fun, what does it look like and how do I ensure my game is fun. I don't feel the kids know what they really enjoy and why.
• Not as focused on computer work this year (more teamwork and building relationships)- I needed a new approach as these kids are still suffering from COVID related antisocial behaviors.
• Creating an Analog version of Guess Who with the kids faces to get to know them and for us to build community
  • first test in class is knowing all the students names (test for me the and kids)

Happy first week to all--remember these classes should be fun too, not just WORK (for you and the students!)

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

I guess I also forgot to reintroduce myself, it might be my traumatic brain injury talking.

I'm Owen Peery, I work at Balboa HS in San Francisco. I teach 4 classes, 2 Game Design 1 and 2 Game Design 2 classes. I get an extra prep for running the Game Design Academy Pathway. It's my 21st year as a teacher and 4th year teaching Game Design. I taught CS in 6-8 and k-5 before and wrote curriculum and before that general technology teacher.

I used Unity and Create with Code my 1st 2 years but last year I moved to Godot and use the GDQuest Curriculum called Learn 2D Game Dev from 0. I really love Godot and their curriculum. I've had 2 internships with them to give them a current teachers perspective on what works and what needs improving and my feedback has been incorporated almost immediately. It's a breath of fresh air compared to trying to work with the Unity folks, who promised since they have an office in SF and my school is in SF, they'd sponsor a game jam, a career panel, job shadow day, but then they did NOTHING. 

My students come to me for 2 years. At the end of year 2, all students work on a team and take an original game idea and make it into a playable prototype. We have a bunch of community partners so they get engineering support, art support, coming this year sound support via the SF Conservatory of Music(they have a technology and applied composition major) and they present their projects at the Disney Museum at the end of the year.

I know I"m missing lots of stuff in a Game Design program because there isn't time and no one else teaches Game Design oriented content. I focus so much on programming because without that foundation, I don't see kids making decent games. We get to art and sound and a little about careers but so much could be expanded upon, if only there were more time and teachers. Ho Hum.

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hello Everyone!

I'm a long time teacher- over 20 years but mostly during that time regular art and digital art. I'm currently working at Huerta Middle School (part of Santa Clara Unified School district)  based in San Jose and trying to develop a pathway that starts at middle school and continues to high school.

We only have chromebooks, so most of the things in Unity can't be used. I've also emailed Melanie, Brian, Yyvie and  others on how best to get a pathway up and running at a high school, which is where I've spent 14 of my last 20 plus years. I'm still developing the pathway that has 3 courses in High School and hopefully a precursor course in Middle School. 

Does anyone have advice or books besides Theory of Fun or the Intro to Unity course that would work for students developing the key concepts in Video Game Design and having fun working together towards a common goal? This is for the 7th/8th grade level? I've used Amazon's Project Stem curriculum and also code.org before. Amazon's curriculum is much more engaging.It sounds like people that have used PLTW have reported mixed success.

I found a book on Amazon called "Become a video Game Concept Designer" that seems to have some relevant questions that I teenager might think about and get excited about for making games. I know there 

Has anyone tried making paper versions of video games before? What sort of games do you have them play- Monopoly, Checkers, and the like?

Anyways, very excited to be here and try out new things. Looking forward to this upcoming year!

Josh Sheridan

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hello Everyone!

I'm a long time teacher- over 20 years but mostly during that time regular art and digital art. I'm currently working at Huerta Middle School (part of Santa Clara Unified School district)  based in San Jose and trying to develop a pathway that starts at middle school and continues to high school.

We only have chromebooks, so most of the things in Unity can't be used. I've also emailed Melanie, Brian, Yyvie and  others on how best to get a pathway up and running at a high school, which is where I've spent 14 of my last 20 plus years. I'm still developing the pathway that has 3 courses in High School and hopefully a precursor course in Middle School. 

Does anyone have advice or books besides Theory of Fun or the Intro to Unity course that would work for students developing the key concepts in Video Game Design and having fun working together towards a common goal? This is for the 7th/8th grade level? I've used Amazon's Project Stem curriculum and also code.org before. Amazon's curriculum is much more engaging.It sounds like people that have used PLTW have reported mixed success.

I found a book on Amazon called "Become a video Game Concept Designer" that seems to have some relevant questions that I teenager might think about and get excited about for making games. I know there 

Has anyone tried making paper versions of video games before? What sort of games do you have them play- Monopoly, Checkers, and the like?

Anyways, very excited to be here and try out new things. Looking forward to this upcoming year!

Josh Sheridan

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hello Everyone!

I'm a long time teacher- over 20 years but mostly during that time regular art and digital art. I'm currently working at Huerta Middle School (part of Santa Clara Unified School district)  based in San Jose and trying to develop a pathway that starts at middle school and continues to high school.

We only have chromebooks, so most of the things in Unity can't be used. I've also emailed Melanie, Brian, Yyvie and  others on how best to get a pathway up and running at a high school, which is where I've spent 14 of my last 20 plus years. I'm still developing the pathway that has 3 courses in High School and hopefully a precursor course in Middle School. 

Does anyone have advice or books besides Theory of Fun or the Intro to Unity course that would work for students developing the key concepts in Video Game Design and having fun working together towards a common goal? This is for the 7th/8th grade level? I've used Amazon's Project Stem curriculum and also code.org before. Amazon's curriculum is much more engaging.It sounds like people that have used PLTW have reported mixed success.

I found a book on Amazon called "Become a video Game Concept Designer" that seems to have some relevant questions that I teenager might think about and get excited about for making games. I know there 

Has anyone tried making paper versions of video games before? What sort of games do you have them play- Monopoly, Checkers, and the like?

Anyways, very excited to be here and try out new things. Looking forward to this upcoming year!

Josh Sheridan

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.

Hey all!

I am back in my first in-service days for the semester, so I am guessing a few of us are going to start back up.

This is a good time to reintroduce ourselves and give some general updates.

Look forward to hearing from all of you!

________________________________________________

I am Brian Bautista. I am teaching at West Park High School in Roseville, CA. This is going to be year 11 teaching Game Dev for me.

This semester I am teaching one section of my computer graphics class and two of my intro tabletop design class. In the Spring I have one Intro, one graphics and one capstone course.

As far as general updates. I had a student hired into an indie studio while still in high school, which is a first for me. I also have my first run of projects up on itch.io from last semesters capstone. Super happy with the work my students did.