Final Presentation Prep

Today begins the "home stretch" in Gaming I for the Fall semester. Students are diligently working to finish up their flash presentations and are working hard on their game demos. I think this semesters presentations are going to be very informative and innovative. I have several students with some really unique ideas and everyone seems to be on track to have a completed presentation and some sort of a game demo. As I look out over the class I see students glaring into their computer screens with Flash and the wiki page open and they're plugging away. Can't wait to see the presentations.

Paper Prototyping

Today during class we will be finishing up our Paper Prototyping section. Though, it's taken a little longer than originally planned I believe the students will be bringing a little more to the table given the extra time to complete it. After the recordings today we are kicking it into high gear and covering 2 topics a day to give the students ample time before the semester ends to complete the first semesters presentation.

First Post of the Fall Semester

Gaming I Fall 2011 has begun and the students are rolling right along. This group of students are having very few issues with the start-up of the their wiki-accounts and blog creations. If we can keep up this kind of tempo we'll have an incredible semester.

Actionscript

Ready to start doing some real actionscript coding tomorrow in Gaming II. I know things have seemed a little slow so hopefully tomorrow that feeling will change. Students will begin their Spring blogging assignments and will finish catching up on any of their wiki page edits that need to be made. The old and new teams are set and I believe everyone is ready to start some intense coding.

More will come tomorrow.

Starting Again

Today ends the 2nd official week of school but, technically the way I do things here at MCTC it was kind of the end of our 1st week. The official 1st week is always shaky cause of registration and whatnot. Anyways, I used the Monday as a "catch-up", "clean-up" day. I had students review their work and make any adjustments and complete any missing assignments. That being said, I know some of my students are still missing bits and pieces but, again I am unable to ensure the 100% completion of assignments due to students just not completing them.

This semester and last semester I began making assignments like blogging worth more points so, if they were missing the grades would start to suffer. Even with the new grading in places several students still did not complete what was asked of them. So, given that, I have decided to make them worth even more of their letter grade. Hopefully, this will assure 100% completion.

Up to this point students have just completed the "Intro to Actionscript" portion of the Gaming II curriculum. So, on Monday they will tie-up any more lose ends and start on the next assignment. Also on Monday new and old teams will be constructed so, team pages will start to take better shape at that time.

FINAL DAY

Today marks the last day of Final Presentations. It's been kind of a long semester but, there have been bright spots, lets just hope I have more students show up for today's final than I had show up for last weeks or there are going to be several students wondering why they failed the course. Oh well, I cannot hold everyone's hand to get them here. But, for the ones that have presented, I say good job and for those who are presenting today I say Good Luck!!

Final Presentations

Today begins our 1st of 2 Final Presentation days. I'm sure everyone is nervous about presenting but, considering some of our past presentations I'm sure no one has anything to worry about. T-minus 20 minutes until we begin!!

Final Preparations

As the semester is winding down so is the time left to finish our final presentations. Our goal this week is to have each teams final presentation files functioning properly and looking nice. This semester has went by fast and may have not been as smooth as I would have liked but, I am seeing some very positive things coming from most of the class. Presentations should be interesting to say the least.

Digging Deeper

Monday's class began the topic of Adding Scenes. I believe most of the students were grasping this concept fairly easy. Today we will continue work on Adding Scenes and begin the Adding Animation topic which is about motion tweening and beginning actionscript. The students were glad to get to these topics because they are applying them directly to their game demos. We will continue to work feverishly on the rest of the topics and I am looking forward to final game presentations this winter.

Video Blog

Yesterday almost every student was able to record their video blog answers that had to deal with the previous paper prototyping project. A few more students will record on Wednesday and then all of the videos will be uploaded to viddler so they can be linked into the wiki. Class is slowly chugging along, this is setting us back a day or so but, I think we'll be fine. Attendance is staying up and students are showing a little more interest with each project we do.

Time Flying By

Today in class students will upload their previous paper prototyping videos to their wikis. Each student should be caught up with classwork up to this point and be ready to move forward. Before we can progress anymore we have a "new" assignment to complete concerning paper prototyping and the wiki teams. This will be further explained in class. I probably won't lecture long today do to me being sick. Have a great day!

Planning Your Game

Well, paper prototyping is completed and videos will be uploaded shortly. We just moved on to the Planning Your Game topic and students are either flying solo or they are in groups of no more than 2. I tried the larger groups last semester and for whatever reason I just didn't like how everything turned out. So, for now I limited the students to a 2 person group at most and we are moving right along. Team pages are created and the students have already began filling them out. So, far other than some sickness going around class is going really well. Hopefully, at the end of the semester my students will have some awesome game demos!

Paper-Protyping Recording

Today in class we are recording paper prototypes. So far we are pretty much on schedule this semester and hopefully we will continue to stay that way. After today we being working on team pages and continuing on into more flash programming. Should be an awesome month at MCTC!!

Paper Prototyping Day - 1

Today is the first day of paper prototyping. I'm very curious as to what ideas my students have for their games. This is usually the biggest hump to get over in Gaming I. Kind of like writer's block but, something will eventually come along and bring with it some creative thoughts. Before the end of the class period students will blog and record the time in their learning logs on the wiki.

Welcome

I'd like to take this time and first apologize for my lack of blogging. Up until this point I've been running around making sure everything is working properly for this class and others I am now teaching. Blogging is a very important part of this class. It not only is a part of your grade it is vital to see where you are schedule wise within the class itself. Do not take blogging lightly. Some students even take it to the next level and blog beyond the class, which is pretty cool. Plus, don't think of blogging as an online journal. It can be used to relay news or ideas as well. I read blogs all the time from IT sites that are more like news stories than anything. So, it's not some childish, diary or whatever it is you're thinking. Have fun with it and remember to at least do the required blogging as a part of this course. Don't test me on that, it is a grade, it's an easy grade to complete if you just take a few minutes and do it serious. So, welcome to Gaming I and have an awesome semester!

My Favorite Beatle

This "in my head" debate has been going on for years. Even though I am only a mere 22 years of age I am an avid music lover and part-time musician. For these reasons I have even made the trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The Beatles are a band that I thoroughly enjoy listening to. When deciding who exactly my favorite Beatle is I first started with who has lived the longest. That leaves us with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Being a drummer myself I could say Ringo, as was discussed at Outback Steakhouse over a Blooming Onion("I took the Bloom") Ringo was a better drummer than people gave him credit for. After a long night of debating I have decided that my favorite Beatle is Paul. What is there to say about Paul, I remember a few years back watching the Super Bowl after the whole "wardrobe malfunction," Paul performed at halftime and it was excellent in my opinion. He just looks so happy singing old Beatles and Wings songs, along with some from his solo career. After saying all of that I also must state that Ringo refusing to sign autographs for people now via Youtube video is kind of rude!

Catch-up

Students have been working hard on their final game presentations and I have been trying to help them along the way. They are really impressing me with their abilities and work ethic. Though some games will not be completely finished they are working hard to create some awesome demos! I cannot wait to see them in there completed forms. Will be posting again soon!

Blogging Failure...Again

Yet again I seem to have lacked on my blogging and thus, my students have lacked as well. Seeing as this is becoming the "final" push to end the semester well, it's back to the old grindstone and with my new job and responsibilities I am working even harder with trying to stay on top of everything. But, I will prevail as I always do and so will my students. Though sometimes it doesn't show on their wikis or blogs they come to class everyday and participate with every topic I go over. This is class is a pleasant one to say the least. They have shown me that even after a "near-disaster" last semester, that things can turn out okay and I am slowing seeing that. These students have really worked hard and I cannot wait for their final projects. Hopefully, I will blog more frequently within this month and I have to just keep telling myself that I graduate May 8th and there will be no more 18-19hr class semesters.

Josh=Horrible Blogger!

Almost been a month since I last posted... So much for this semester being easier than last concerning my classes anyways. I believe that this semesters Globaloria class is going much smoother than last semester. The students seem really interested when I'm going over the topics for Gaming I, which is awesome! I am really trying to have a good time this semester when showing my students things in Flash and when they are working on their games. Though stressful at times I am trying to get more into the groove with how things are going in Globaloria. I really enjoy learning more and more with Flash and editing on the wikis. Hopefully my next blog won't be a month away.

Paper Prototyping

This week we will be starting the Paper Prototyping topic in Gaming I. Hopefully the weather will not affect attendance this week. Today I will explain and show examples from past students and then I will let the artist abilities of my students flow as they begin to put there ideas on paper. This can be one of the more stressful topics in Gaming I just for the pure fact that some students are afraid to express their ideas by drawing/sketching them out. I am not going to let this affect anything this semester as I have various examples from students with the same issues to show them. So, no one will have any excuses as to why they are not working on this topic.
So far so good this semester with how the class is going. I feel a lot better about how things are going this semester than last. I have less school stress and work stress on me as well, so that probably is helping.