Very cool graphic story by OnlineUniversities.com demonstrating that teachers use and love technology. Check out these stats!

Game Jam Spotlight Series: Part 2 

By Jennifer Jordan

In school students are taught about biology, algebra, and history.  Yet formal education rarely provides classes that focus on how to create and carry out social change. Youth today are already incredible social activists.  It’s a part of their every day behavior.  From recycling, volunteer work, disaster relief, to even splurging the extra cash for fair trade coffee, the Millennial and Gen Y generations are passionate about social change and view it as a lifestyle priority.

At our recent Stanford Game Jam team Sims for Change tapped into this passion and took it one step further.  They developed a simulation style game called Sim Civics, encouraging students to go beyond social participation and actually learn the steps and best practices to become social change leaders. “Save Our City” became the team’s mantra as they worked through the process for how players can drive social change simulations.

Early in the day the team realized that students need an understanding of government processes before progressing further in social change game mechanics.  Alessandro Poiré, a government teacher and member of team Sims for Change, contributed a rich background in civics and immediately focused the discussion around how to transfer this knowledge to students in the early stages of the game.  Since this was an education based Game Jam, teachers were a critical element to each team, providing learning objective connections and teasing out issues in education that can better addressed and served by games.  Targeting subjects like Government and Civics helped align this game with common core curriculum already being taught within the 7-12 grade classroom.

However, once the team dove into the world of civics they realized that their game went far beyond just a brush-up on government systems.  Jon Silver, another member of team Sims for Change, says:

We wanted our game play to capture the critical success factors of affecting change and that is understanding differing viewpoints around an issue, navigating the bureaucratic process, but also how to influence and guide opinion to support initiatives that must be voted on and adopted by the people.

And from this insightful beginning and ideation a game skeleton is conceived.  Students embark on a mission-style journey, identify a cause that resonates with them, research that cause, gather support around it, generate a petition of change, and drive the entire process to a vote.

So what does this look like?  Ok, here’s a scenario . . .

An 8^th grade student starts the game and is dropped into a simulated neighborhood very much liker her own.  She chooses a pollution problem affecting a nearby shoreline from a list of issues that are relevant to her area and age group.  If this problem continues her own town’s safety and heath could be impacted.  She must find a solution before it’s too late!

Her next step is to research the problem, identifying key influencers in environmental and public safety sectors.  She must investigate how issues like this have been handled in the past, and become familiar with processes that were both successful and unsuccessful in resolving the issue.

From her research she creates a plan of action.  She identifies that the pollution is coming from a local factory that initially had a safe refuse plan in place, but due to high employee turnover the safety policies have gone unsupervised.  Now factory waste has been leaking onto the shoreline for almost 8 months.  She identifies that the waste is toxic, and the only way to dispose of it safely is with a biohazard team that costs $1,000.

Now she realizes two things.  To solve this problem she needs to get the factory to take action and restore their waste management system to prevent future waste.  And second, she needs to raise $1,000 for cleanup to occur.  For both steps to happen she must generate awareness for the problem, recruit support, explore methods of raising money, and target community influencers to ensure factory changes and current waste cleanup.

And . . .  the game process continues! Each of these needs play out as money and time constraints are introduced.  Outcomes are measured by their level of effectiveness and engagement, with the desired outcome being 100% for each.  As you can see, this game idea can be complex, requiring multiple steps and phases to learn, earning the Sims for Change team the title “Most Ambitious Game.”

Ambition is celebrated within our Game Jam, especially when it promotes social change.  But for the sake of time, the team focuses their final pitch on only one element of their game – how to gather support for your cause.  Team member John Oliver crafts opinion meters and other game pieces to reflect UI behavior, and team member Chintan Panikh quickly builds out a table to balance resources and tune percentages.  These specifically address:

• Constituents, who must be swayed in favor of the policy
• Interest groups, from whom one must obtain endorsements
• Stakeholders, who might either support or veto your initiative

The team’s final pitch was full of passion and inspiration, invoking large-scale change through education and games.  It made a huge impression on Game Jam participants, as well as the team itself.  To close, Jon Silver leaves us with this final thought . . .

Upon reflection, I was struck by how that one day was a microcosm of similar work I’ve often spent weeks developing.  With limited time, the Game Jam forces one to focus solely on that which is most essential… and this is a great discipline.

Special Thanks to IDEO, Epicenter, Prezi, Google, Pearson, Stanford d.School, Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, and Laurie Moore.

Sims for Change members include: John Oliver, Melinda Su, Jon Silver, Chintan Parikh, Alejandro Poiré, and Anchorer Du

Fractions Are Fun, Any Way You Slice It

By Jennifer Jordan

When your game jam team includes a member of your target audience, it’s very easy to get immediate and relevant feedback about your game idea.  Such was the case for team Pizza Posse, a diverse group in age and background that worked together seamlessly to develop a concept around gaming and fractions.

Joe Casente is a 6^th grade student and member of team Pizza Posse.  His inside knowledge made him the perfect choice for Creative Director.  During the domain analysis phase it was he who targeted fractions as being a difficult subject to master in school.  He noted this concept is generally taught to 3^rd grade students, but is something many students continue to struggle with in later grades.  Based on this insight the team decided to create a game that teaches fractions, and they used a mode that no 3rd grader (or 6^th grader) can resist – pizza!

Since education transformation was a critical piece to this particular game jam, every game created must align with a learning objective based on the common core standards used in public schools.  Pizza Posse’s game incorporates third grade standards for fractions found in the CCSS Math Content 3 NFA 1, 2, 3.

During the prototyping phase the team decided how their pizza game would actually work.  Rather than make small, personal sized pizza kits, the team opted to create a giant floor pizza similar in style to a Twister floor mat.  The large size promotes kinesthetic play, getting students up and moving around the pizza.  Popsicle sticks taped together divide the pizza into slices, and toppings are physical objects that students manipulate and scatter along the top.  Recipe cards provide topping combinations that students arrange creating portions that represent the concept of fractions.  One very eclectic pizza combination is aptly named the King Kong Krazy pizza, combining ground beef, banana slices, gummy worms, and even sky scrapers as toppings.  Delicious?  Probably not.  But wacky and engaging?  Definitely!

During game testing the team flushed out potential problems.  They realized they needed a tiered level system that grows in difficulty.  Level 1 is titled Simple Slices and practices easier to master fractions like halves and thirds.  Level 2 is called Meaty Yummy and includes harder fractions like eighths.  The hardest level is Level 3 and is where we find the now famous King Kong Krazy pizza.  These levels serve as an assessment for students’ progress throughout gameplay and include relevant problems to solve, such as what happens when you realize one of your friends is a vegetarian?!

The learning objective goes beyond fractions, too.  The core concept is breaking whole numbers into pieces and understanding the relationship between those pieces, so this game applies to ratios, decimals, and percentages as well.

Pizza Posse went all out when it came to branding and product extensions.  Their follow-up activities integrate nutritional concepts through assembling and cooking real pizzas, as well as physical education by making the game an outdoor race.  They also integrate community outreach ideas by targeting local business, such as pizza parlors, where students explore a working business model and make real world connections.

Game Jam judges recognized that this game has curriculum relevancy, student interest, and is fast to market.  They were impressed with the level of thought in all phases of the process, and loved how well the group worked together to create a fast and fun final product.

Pizza Posse, we are so happy to have had your company and creativity at our Stanford Game Jam.  Keep us up to date on your progress, game testing, and next steps!

Special Thanks to IDEO, Epicenter, Prezi, Google, Pearson, Stanford d.School, Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, and Laurie Moore.

Pizza Posse Members:  Lucas Arzola, Eva Steele-Saccio, Joy Wong Daniels, Percilla Ortega, Gregory Wilson, Joseph Casente, Sal Casente, John Rodriguez

By Lauren Wilson

Originally posted in Peninsula Press

At 7 p.m. Saturday night, the final gong sounds. Six weary but enthusiastic teams scramble to put finishing touches on their products – educational games aimed at teaching K-12 students subjects from financial planning to conflict resolution.

They are contestants in a GameJam, part of Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Week and co-sponsored by Epicenter, an endeavor that coordinates faculty and student programs to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in engineering.

Hosted at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, the GameJam featured experts from design firm IDEO and GameDesk, a gaming research and development organization. The teams had10 hours to think of an idea for a brand new educational game and bring it to fruition. The event was part of GameDesk’s efforts to refresh and renovate the way people view the learning process.

“There’s a disconnect between what we call education and what I believe education really is which is to grow and deepen your understanding of how the universe works, how you can engage in it and who you are in it,” said Lucien Vattel, chief executive officer of GameDesk. He emphasized the effectiveness of all kinds of educational gaming from high tech to low tech to no tech.

Vattel also introduced Rethink, GameDesk’s free, online platform developed with AT&T. GameDesk hoped that some of the apps and games generated during the s GameJam could be good enough to be featured in the portal.

Each group had five to seven people, a mix of designers, educators, entrepreneurs, programmers and Epicenter student ambassadors from around the nation. Though GameDesk has hosted GameJams before, this was the first one to incorporate an entrepreneurial element. In addition to a product, teams were required to pitch business and marketing plans.

“We want to bring innovation and entrepreneurship into undergraduate engineering education worldwide and a great way is through games, right?” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, associate director of Epicenter. “Everyone loves playing.”

Throughout the day, the groups received feedback from IDEO and GameDesk experts. The biggest challenge the teams faced was embracing simplicity. Thanks to the time constraint, contestants needed to pick ideas that could feasibly be developed within the limitations. Still, some initially struggle to pare down complicated, abstract ideas.

“You’re not reinventing the wheel,” Vattel reminded them.

An explosion of multicolored post-its, Sharpies and empty coffee cups littered the six chaotic work stations. Gongs sounded each time the teams entered a new design phase progressing from brainstorming to prototyping to play testing. In the last quarter, Vattel added a twist – the teams could no longer use their whiteboards. They had to communicate their ideas through different mediums.

“Super, super, super stressed but it’s a good kind of pressure,” said contestant Maayan Yavne.

Over the course of the day, little scribbles on the whiteboard slowly transformed into real-life prototypes. In one corner, two teammates held up a poster board cut into the shape of a computer screen, representing their game, Aspire, the goal of which is to teach students fiscal smarts. Players pick a career path such as rock star and make monetary decisions. If they go to the movies with their friends, their happiness meter goes up but their bank account goes down. How to make money? Investing or booking gigs. The game’s goal is to find a balance.

Across the way, Pizza Posse’s giant tinfoil pizza sits on the floor with wooden poles draped across it. The objective? To teach school-aged kids how fractions work. Almost all the other participants in the GameJam are college age or older, except for the Pizza Posse’s creative director, Joe Casente, just 11 years old.

“I have a project that I’m doing on games and probability and so I just decided that I would like to come out here and design a game,” he said.

By 8:20 p.m., the contestants gathered in the d.school’s Studio One to present their demos. After deliberations, Aspire took the top prize, though each group received some sort of award.

While Pizza Posse didn’t come out on top, Casente said he has no regrets. The experience exceeded all his expectations: “It was definitely worth it.” Another perk: he got to stay up a full hour past his usual bedtime.