Video Game Design/Developers

What stuff do you guys do to market your programs? Do you feel like you need to?

I feel like I need to, one of the goals of my program is that it acts as a magnet, so I put a lot of effort into getting my program to be a public facing as possible.

We host a preview night for incoming 8th graders and I have a bunch of my capstone kids booth with me. I also go out to the feeder schools to get my program out in front of them earlier than that.

My CSP students build an arcade game (we use pygame) for their midterm grade. We create an arcade  in the main hallway that stays up during exam week. It's about 15 computers, so not everyone gets their program put on display. This generates a lot of interest as all middle school and upper school students walk by and give the games a try. The range of skills on display encourages many students to learn more about what we do.

This year, the CSA crew built a program to convert a bitmap image into a paint by numbers grid. We ran it through LaTeX to generate a 76"x48" mural (pixels turned into 1" squares) that was put on display at our School Maker Faire last week. We invited passers-by to each paint 10-15 non-contiguous squares and it was completed just before the two hours was up! 

Mike

the arcade library is a great idea, is it something you do on just your campus or do you take it to your feeders?

My district has been working overtime to promote CTE to our middle schoolers and admin with mixed results. We visited the middle schools a few times and had an open house last month to reinforce the middle school visits. I find my program is in this weird limbo because the students that would excel in game design all enroll in BioMed because it has all of the clout (and props to that teacher for marketing the hell out of it), whereas the kids that identify as "gamers", as we know, aren't always the best students and are SHOCKED that they are expected to work and not just play on their phones all period.

My campus has approximately 1,900 students and my enrollment fluctuates between 80-120 depending on the year. Ethnic Studies is a freshman requirement starting next year, so that will have a negative impact on enrollment, at least in the short term.

Our high school has an "advisory week". All of the electives and CTE classes make Google Slides all shared in one place. We set up tables at lunch. We have an 8th grade parent night. We also school-wide speak to our students one-on-one during that week about the classes they are selecting for the next year. Each student talks with each of their teachers during that week, usually just about that dept but some teachers go above and beyond talking about the whole schedule.

Beyond that week I don't do too much marketing. I usually have a steady since Game Design II class every year coming from the many, many coding classes at my school.