So I tried to make a video game...

It's been a roller coaster of a year - I say this almost every year - so I guess it has been a roller coaster of almost a decade. But this year was probably the toughest and yet at the same time the most enlightening out of all of them. 

Long story short, I took some extra time off from full time teaching duties. Step away, rethink my life and how I want to spend the second half of it now that I've crossed the 40 year threshold.

I always wanted to finish making a game. I learned a bit of Unity back during COVID, but when home learning started ramping up and we started looking into some really exciting ideas at school - introducing an idea called 'Quest' (something I would really like to reflect back on one day here) - I ended up putting the game stuff to the side. 

Fast forward 4 years and as some of you may or may not know, Unity went through some weird payment stuff and so I decided to give the Godot engine (an open source free engine) a go. 

The Learning Process

I found some free and discounted online tutorials for Beginner Godot courses and also for pixel art. I wasn't too worried about the audio part since I did a lot of that stuff in uni so I just needed a refresher (and some new gear since I sold off most of mine when going into teaching)

Learning Godot was quite a challenge. I always felt that I was missing something and wasn't sure how the tutor went from A to B and more importantly, WHY they did it that way. Eventually I came to accept this feeling and move on, hoping that later things will start to connect itself in my brain.

Pixel Art was really interesting. I don't consider myself an illustrator at all. I doodle occasionally, but never really worked on it to improve. But the thing that opened my eyes with the pixel art learning was it taught me what NOT to do when teaching a skill. 

In theory their approach made sense. "I do and then you do". But the problem was that too much of this resulted in feeling like I was following a Art 4 Kids Hub tutorial, where I didn't really learn how to draw or create my own pixel art - all I learned was how to copy the tutor's work.

Music wise, I needed to learn how to use a different DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) since I only had a really old version of Cubase that ran on a really old macbook that I don't own anymore. Also bought a mini MIDI keyboard and deep dived into the world of VSTi's (virtual instruments) for a week or so. This would lead me to dipping my toes into some basic musicology stuff like the "Cycle of 5ths" and some common 4 chord chord-progressions.

Putting it all together

The most challenging part of this was not setting a plan for when to work on the coding, the art assets or the audio. It was constantly switching hats. From programmer, to level designer, to animator, to background designer, to audio designer, to music composer, etc... 

Sometimes I would sit down and create a bunch of different 'sprites' (2D models) and some animations but completely forget that I did these because I would get stuck on some bug in the code for a few days.

      

I think the most fun I had was composing the main background music for the game. Creating layers, trying to do build ups, breakdowns, beat drops, and seeing how it all came together. It did not feel like a chore at all. But to be fair I only needed to make 2 songs. One for the menu and one for the game.

The game itself was a very simple infinite runner platformer. Think like, pared back visuals like Flappy Bird but jump platforming like Geometry Dash or Jetpack Joyride.

I've only been learning these for about 3-4 months, so I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew. I just wanted to finish a game - from start to finish - and make every asset on my own and experience that journey. 

In the end I did end up using some other people's assets for a couple of sound effects (footsteps, jump and game over), but still very proud that I was able to create the rest of the assets myself. 

Reflection

I've been making mini updates to the game here and there. Some new sprites, updated backgrounds, fixed some bugs and added small features like a random quote on the start menu (like Minecraft).

I think the thing that really helped me get this completed was thinking about the target audience. It's aimed at kindergarten students (as that was the grade I was teaching before I went on leave) and there were a couple of kids who really like ninjas. 

Had I just tried to make this very generic, aimed at for everyone, then it probably wouldn't be near as engaging. 

The game

Anyway, if you want to check it out, you can do so HERE.

It works on mobile and desktops. 

I'm thinking of little adjustments to make to it moving forward, but nothing too crazy. Maybe some little polishes here and there and then move on to starting a new, slightly bigger project.

Epilogue... (kinda)

One thing that I did take away from this - once I started working as a casual, although I didn't have any work to take home, I was still feeling pretty exhausted from needing to be thinking on my toes all the time. Because of this, the development slowed to a crawl until I forced myself to work through the sleepiness just to get a little bit closer to finish it. 

This is something that I hope to continue doing as a hobby. I have no ambitions in trying to pursue this hardcore and eventually make it a job. In a lot of ways, thinking about making this a job actually deters me. I think it will take away a lot of the fun and creativity if I make it something where my livelihood depends on it...

My journey as a gamer turned learner (part 3)

Continuing from my last post, I wanted to talk about how my experiences with Starcraft 2 (SC2) helped me understand the connection between games and learning. As I pursued my postgraduate degree in education, I found myself fascinated by the intersection of games and learning, and SC2 was the perfect game for me to explore that connection.

Unlike with WoW, I was no longer satisfied with simply finding easy strategies to win. Yes I started seeing the importance of the 'why', but I was still more focused on the result. Instead, I wanted to truly understand the game mechanics and the reasoning behind them. Through podcasts, news articles, and videos, I dove into the world of SC2, and thanks to Day9tv and his dailies, I began to learn the "why" behind the game's strategies.

Even though I never reached the highest ranks in SC2, I'm proud of how far I came, starting in Bronze 1 and reaching Gold 3 or 4 before running out of time due to my full-time job and newborn child. But more than that, I'm proud of what I learned from the game and how it influenced other aspects of my life.

I realized that the macro mechanics of SC2 were my strong suit, just as I was better at thinking of big ideas and interconnecting them in my job. But I struggled with the micro mechanics, or the execution of those ideas. This realization helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage them in my personal and professional life.

For example, a little after this, I started playing (low-level) competitive basketball with some old friends. I had a solid understanding of the game, I knew what type of game plan to go in with for the players that we had (strengths and weaknesses) and read the situations during a game to make little adjustments. However, having not played for many, MANY years, my mechanics of the game itself was rather rusty. In other words, I did not have the skills to execute my plan. So using the lessons learnt from SC2, I examined what skills I needed most, prioritised and started researching drills and tips that I can practice on a daily basis. 

One of these was losing weight. My weight got in the way of my ability to be quick, my endurance and I also had a hunch it played a role in getting minor injuries often. This took me down a whole new rabbit hole. It was a lot of experimenting, research and reflecting. Eventually I was able to find some new habits that I could sustain even after playing basketball - and able to pick up easily again after gaining a lot of this weight back from no longer playing basketball** and lockdowns.

**Not playing competitive basketball made me lose a lot of motivation to exercise as I couldn't find a WHY that I could really latch onto.

A really big lesson I learnt from Day9tv that I always keep in my mind in ALL aspects of my life is the mindset - "What can I do better NEXT TIME?" I found that 99% of the time when things weren't going to plan, whether it be in a video game, basketball, classroom or in life, I started to stray from the original plan and try to patch leaks on the fly, usually making it worse or having no effect. But with the "next time" mindset, I stick to the plan as much as possible until the end of that session and reflect on it afterwards and THEN make adjustments to the plan where needed for next time. In games this is quite easy to do, as a lot of them have the abilities to save replays so you can go back and analyse your performance. IRL things however, it's harder to do. I normally jot something down quickly on my phone or a piece of paper when I notice things I might need to address for next time - usually the small things I might forget. The big things I will always remember first anyway :)

To add to this, SC2 was primarily a 1v1 game. It meant that no matter what, YOU are responsible for every outcome. I took this mentality on to team games as well. That's why the mindset is "What can I do better", not "What can they do better". I did realise soon though, lots of people find this hard to swallow. They don't want to believe that they are flawed and can improve. Like I used to hear a lot in team video games like Dota and Overwatch - "Everyone on my team sucks. Except me." I truly believe people who hold onto this type of idea tightly will hit a big wall in their lives.

Going back to basketball, I took this approach so in the first season starting 'the plan', I was doing my drills, my exercise and diets, all the while reflecting on the season. I didn't look at executing, just treated it like a practice season. The next off-season, I stepped on the accelerator and every free moment I had I would use this to practice my dribbling and shots. Sometimes I'd call my teammates to see if they were up for a practice session together. These cooperative sessions were also valuable because I could pick their brain for feedback.

The next season after some nail-biting games in the playoffs, we won our first (and only) championship as that particular team. When I watch sports or eSports finals and see the players just collapse into tears, I never understood why - until that final buzzer in the finals. It was something that needed to be worked on over time and results weren't immediate. A lot of the time I did question whether I needed to scrap my entire original plan and make big adjustments - but I stuck to it and it did pay off. Obviously I wasn't the sole reason our team won. One of my close teammates (who practiced with me often) also did the same thing. The rest of our team were just straight up hustlers. There were no free baskets and we all had each others' backs. I just wanted to make sure that I built myself enough so that I wouldn't be a detriment to the team, but a contributor.

The skills I learned from SC2 naturally lead to other competitive games I played later on like CS:GO, Dota 2, Rocket League, or Overwatch. Nowadays, I don't play competitive games often, because if I commit, I dive into the deep end and it just takes over my schedule, my mind and my life. I am more of a spectator, appreciating the awesomeness others showcase. But I still apply the lessons learnt in other aspects of my life and I don't think it will ever go away.

WoW helped me extend my online research skills, and analysing gameplay to improve. It started me on a journey of learning. SC2 humbled me, made me realise we learn at different speeds, importance is persistence and consistency, every game is a step to improve in our next game and looking at things I can do to help the team, rather than the other way around.

My journey as a gamer turned learner (part 2)

Gaming and Learning: My Journey Continues in the World (of Warcraft)

In my previous blog post, I talked about how I first got into gaming and the role it played in my early learning experiences. Now, I want to continue that story and share how my passion for gaming continued to shape my learning and problem-solving skills in the years that followed.

When World of Warcraft (WoW) was released, I was immediately hooked. At first, I played with friends but soon found myself drawn to PvP and, when arenas were introduced, I was all about it. However, I never considered myself to be very good at games, and I think that's because I was always looking for shortcuts and end goal oriented. That changed with WoW.

I would watch videos on Warcraftmovies (can't believe this site still exists!) and read articles on different matchups. It was the first time I practiced mechanics and did drills suggested in the guides - this taught me how I can break down a skill into smaller pieces to make it more manageable to practice, but also give me the WHY behind it. I even created a schedule to fit in WoW practice and PvP times around my work and study times to maximize my time. These skills would later prove to be very useful in my life.

My learning in WoW was still game-based, but I tried to apply some of those skills to my everyday life. I worked on my peripheral vision and keyboard mechanics while at work. Well, it was still game-based, but doing it irl! It was a flip of an idea my dad showed me once when I was following him around with his cleaning jobs. I must've looked quite unenthusiastic (obviously, I mean I was cleaning some shop during my school holidays) and he showed me how I could use mopping like a basketball drill, killing two birds with one stone. To be fair it wasn't the best drill - he was saying that when I push the bucket on wheels to get the water changed and push it back, I can pretend I'm dribbling past a busy defence, making sure I keep low and weave. I added a little jump shot at the end, imagining I was pushing the ball up, going coast to coast and pulling up for clutch J. And by just getting my head into it, I did end up enjoying it more - not sure if it translated well to basketball, but for some reason this memory is something that I will probably never forget.

As life went on, WoW became more of a second home for me and my wife, who had been playing with me for years. We got married, graduated, got jobs, etc... and couldn't keep up and became casual players, but I still used my internet search skills to find guides on how to complete quests, bosses, dungeons, and achievements.

During my post-graduate degree, this skill came in super handy. I was able to dig out references and information without leaving my home and make it look like I borrowed books from the library. Later on, in my work life, people thought I was very tech-savvy because I was able to troubleshoot a lot of computer and IT issues at school, when really, I was just good at googling compared to them.

Looking back, I realize that gaming taught me more than just how to beat a level or conquer a boss. It taught me how to learn and problem-solve in a way that was fun and engaging. It taught me how to create a schedule and maximize my time. It taught me how to research and find information effectively. And most importantly, it taught me that learning can be enjoyable and that it's never too late to learn something new.

We took a long hiatus from WoW. We dipped our toes in here and there but never really got to commit enough time for it. My wife took on a higher level position and she was working non-stop and our son was still a little nublet. But every time we do revisit Azeroth, we reminisce the 'good old days' - all the battles, banter, adventures we had, forging friendships that many still hold strong even today. Recently we came back once again, for the Dragonflight expansion, convinced by an old friend we made in WoW over a catchup dinner. With our son being much older now and able to figure out most of the mechanics by himself, we reentered Azeroth once again, this time as a family. 

So, to anyone who thinks gaming is just a waste of time, I say: you're missing out on a whole world of (warc... nevermind...) learning opportunities. 

To end, here's a really cool talk about games and learning by the awesome James Gee.

My journey as a gamer turned learner (part 1)

I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, a time when gaming was not just about entertainment, but also about learning new skills and connecting with others. My dad found an old 286 Commodore that was being thrown away and brought it home - fortunately it was in working condition. (By this time 386 PCs were the norm and cost about $3000) I used this 286 for 4 years - playing games that could run on EGA graphics (like commander keen, arkanoid 2, ET's Rugby, Lakers vs Celtics NBA). We had a family friend who was a computer wiz and he taught me how to use DOS and troubleshooting when things didn't work. 

I remember in year 6 when CDs were starting to become the norm, I tried putting in a demo CD that came with a PC magazine into the 5.25" disk drive - just in case it works... That ended up with a stuck disk and the first time I opened up a PC as I frantically figured out how to get the disc out before my dad comes home and sees a broken computer.

I was always a generation behind with gaming consoles too. I got hand me down Atari when people were playing the NES, a Master system (and later a NES) when SNES and Mega drive were the norm. And I completely missed the PS1, Dreamcast, Xbox era as we could not afford to buy a current gen console.

My dad bought me a new PC as a high school present - and it was good for about 1 month but then the specs started becoming obsolete pretty soon. He expected me to use it until I graduated high school - which I somehow managed.

I had to figure out things like autoexec.bat to get our sound blaster working, and we often had to tap into the computer nerds at school or seek out family friends who were really good at computers to help us troubleshoot issues. And of course, the fear of breaking expensive equipment and getting in trouble from my dad was always looming.

Reading PC game magazines and finding tweaks to files, as well as learning about game hacks from editing files from friends, was a popular way to enhance our gaming experience. Games like Starcraft, Counter-Strike, and Diablo 2 were not just about having fun, but also about improving our skills and competing with others.

Dial-up internet was the only option for most of us, but we learned to make the most of it, using it to play games or check NBA scores. The only resources we had were people we knew or met at internet cafes. We watched them, asked for advice, and learned from their experiences.

When Dota came out, I finally had broadband, and I found out that people released guides on the internet. This was a game-changer. I started looking up how-tos for not just Dota, but for basically everything. The internet became my primary resource for learning, and I could access information from anywhere in the world.

However, one problem I faced was that I was always results-oriented. I didn't care about the why; I just wanted to know how, so I could win. This mindset led me to face some serious walls down the road, but it was also an essential part of my learning journey. Eventually, I learned that understanding the why was just as important as the how - I'll write more on this in later parts.

A thing to add here was also the WHERE we used play games. As a kid, I first learnt about a gaming community on a visit to South Korea to see my grandma. I took Tae-Kwon-Do lessons down the street and it was right next to this small, dinghy arcade. I would go there after my lessons and just watch all the kids (and adults) play a variety of games from Mario to Street Fighter. I would hear people giving each other some pointers, talking about strats or even just patting the players shoulders to congratulate or sympathise with them. Back in Australia, the local milk bars would often have an arcade cabinet - usually a fighting game like Street Fighter or Final Fight - and I would be familiar with the other kids who frequented there. We never knew each others' names, but it felt like a silent community who came to be just by being there.

In high school, internet cafes started opening up all over Sydney. It was the norm in Korea but we never knew of such things. It completely changed our gaming experience. Before this, we would play at home and then talk about it at school. But now it was like a brand new playground opened up. We could go as group of friends and slug it out for bragging rights, or join the local server and play against random people who were there. Nowadays with internet connections being so fast, these places aren't as popular as they used to be - we are back to playing at home, communicating virtually behind a monitor.

One thing that hasn't changed is the importance of the community. Today, I can connect with others from all over the world through online communities, forums, and social media. This provides opportunities to learn from others and share experiences, just like in the early days of gaming. It's just like being the schoolyard again, albeit a large, virtual one.

Learning Minecraft

I've begun my learning journey in Minecraft recently, and who better to do it with than my 6 year old son. We've played Terraria in the past before (pre hard mode only) and a little familiar with it, so we approached it thinking it'd be the same. I've also gone through the Tutorial World in the Education Edition, so packed with this knowledge, I thought we would be okay. We set one rule (well it's more for me), and that is that we are not allowed to look anything up DURING gameplay. We are to note it down if we aren't sure of something or something doesn't work and we do the research afterwards for the next session. So far we've had 3 sessions in total (2 in Education Edition and 1 in Java) and it's been quite interesting.

The beginning

Our initial session in Education Edition was relatively easy. I had it set to Peaceful and realised it didn't affect hunger so after my son got accustomed to the controls and the new 3D environment, I put it up to Normal. The crafting recipe box that shows up makes things so much easier - I remember when I first tried to play a few years ago, I was constantly looking up recipes because I had no idea. Also, from my run through of the Tutorial World in MCEE, I had some basic ideas on what we needed to make to get going at the beginning - crafting table, furnace, chest, and house.

Crafting Table, Furnace and Chest

         

Crafting recipes on the left hand side

                                                                     
We were able to get to stone-made equipment, found some coal to make torches, defeated a few zombies, and we were on our way to experimenting a little and exploring more. I also made use of the Classroom Mode to try a few things out. I disabled PvP damage as we were accidentally hitting each other when we were mining closeby and also teleported my son to the house when he ventured too far off and became lost. I used the fixed equip command to place quill and cameras in our hotbars so we could journal our adventures there. That was the original plan - to do a virtual journal rather than via the blog.

Don't copy that command - it's wrong :(

The last two hotbars are the fixed slots. Camera and Quill (writable_book)

These three are photos taken from the in game camera. (You can use an item called Portfolio to export them as image files)

However, we ran into a little hiccup. My son's game was crashing frequently in our first 2 sessions and when we booted up for the 3rd one, we found out he only had 3 trial sessions left! So rather than playing this out and possibly getting one, maybe two more sessions in, I purchased an extra retail copy for my son and continue/restart the journey there. I mean how different could it be?

Same but different

I created the world and a house with the usual starter setup as mentioned before on my own so that when we have the next Minecraft session, it'd all be there. Java version was pretty much the same but I noticed a few differences. For example, it had the recipe box to tell me what I can make, though it only showed me recipes I unlocked from obtaining new ingredients. This meant I couldn't plan ahead with what materials I needed to find like I did in MCEE, making it a more "raw" playing experience.

Crafting recipe guide on retail.

I also found it much more difficult. It was on Normal, but I never died in MCEE, but I died on my fifth or sixth night on retail. I realised the hard way, that when you die, you drop EVERYTHING you have on you. I was a little greedy because I found an iron-rich area, got carried away mining it all and pushed my luck with time, even though I knew it was going to be night very soon. To make matters worse, I was low on torches and quite far from my house! I saw the death message in the chat channel, so I went back to retrieve my hard earned iron and stone items, but I didn't even make it halfway there; shot down by some skeletons. So I thought I'd sleep until morning and go when it's safe. But alas, I get the message, "there are enemies nearby so you can't sleep". So I AFK'd for a few minutes in the house and waited in real (game) time until morning to collect my belongings. As most of you veteran Minecrafters can guess (and probably facepalming right now), my belongings were gone. I was naked except for the clothes assigned to the default Steve skin I chose. In just a few short moments, all that hard work amounted to nothing. That's when I realised that death in this game mode (on Normal anyway) is something you need to actually worry about and plan ahead to avoid happening!

Luckily, I still had the house, crafting table, furnace chests and bed so when my son and I started our 3rd Minecraft session, 1st in the Java version, we had somewhere safe to hide. Just before we booted this up though, I found out about player skins and it made me realise why so many students in my classes in the past were so fond of pixel art. I got an Optimus Prime skin for my son and a guy with a Chicago Bulls shirt for myself. I also tried editing mine and the experience made me definitely want to go back and revisit this aspect, try to make my own skin from scratch.

Reflection - comparing the two so far

After the 3rd session, we found some more iron to make my son an iron chest armor and myself an iron sword. We stocked up on some food, I tried fishing and we expanded the house just a little in size. I tried planting some seeds and my son planted some trees right outside the house and it was a great experience for him to see his trees grow, absolutely amazed him. I also used the tip I found in the Global Minecraft Mentor resources about using a shovel to pave roads, and my son is obsessed with this! He is so busy creating paths wherever we go, that I need to make lots of extra shovels, but he also drops to his death occasionally too.

I must say, having some basic background knowledge of the game made this much more enjoyable than when I first tried to dabble in it years ago. I don't mind looking up guides when stuck in a game, but back then, it was like I had to alt-tab out constantly. It was like somebody giving me some tools, throwing me into a forest and telling me to craft some furniture. I was just completely overwhelmed! The Tutorial World in MCEE showed me just enough to get me kickstarted in the game, without feeling the need to know more. From these basics, I would try to expand on it out of curiosity. It actually made me want to experiment and find things out myself, because I understood the basics - I didn't want to be told the answer. This in turn would help me remember things more effectively as I was "learning by doing". When you have your own "aha" moments.

There were a few things I missed about the Education Edition from playing the retail one. First is the clarity of name plates. In MCEE, it's really easy to spot where the other players are. The name plates are clearly visible through objects. But in retail, unless I have line of sight of the player, it's very difficult to spot them. So when my son is yelling for help, I am frantically running and looking around, whilst asking him to describe where he is. (Which can also be a good exercise too!) I also miss the camera and the quill, and the ability to add fixed inventory slots. My son loved taking photos, just like he does in real life when playing with my phone (so many random photos on there thanks to him), and when he found out you can set the camera up on a stand and you can take selfies, he was even happier.

One thing I did like about the retail was the way the crafting recipe book worked. I liked how it slowly unlocked recipes as you gathered/discover new materials. It gives a more steady sense of progression, whereas in MCEE you can click a button to see all available recipes, making it easy to just get either overwhelmed by the choices or over ambitious and go straight for the top. (making it more of a result rather than journey based experience) The difficulty isn't a big thing, I can always make it higher on MCEE and I'm sure it'll kick my backside either way.

I will continue the Minecraft sessions with my son on retail, just because there's no trial limit for him. And I might play around with the Windows 10 version that comes free for people who purchased the retail, since you can cross platform play on that. I think that's something MCEE can benefit from, as the school I'm in doesn't have a space where 30 kids can play at the same time. Lots of students have P.E (Pocket Edition) on their devices, so it would make things logistically easier. Also, since it's a little difficult for our school to set up an "always on" server, the cross platform feature again would really be useful.

My plan is to learn the game with my son from the retail version and use the knowledge gained from that to test out things on MCEE. Whether it's lesson ideas, map ideas, designs, etc...

I recorded some footage of one of our MCEE sessions a week ago and edited it so it doesn't go for 70 minutes! Enjoy :)

Fictional Class Country - Students learning from doing - Teachers learning in order to teach! Observations and reflections.

For the past two years, I've introduced a Class currency as part of the Government unit to the year six classes I've had. At the start, it simply served as an additional classroom management strategy, to compliment the Classcraft elements already in place. However, as we were also doing a modified version of the PEO's role play activity, Parliament of Wizards, where we transform the class into a fictional country, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to use this currency to add some mathematics into the mix.

We started it out by first having everyone receive an equal amount every week. They had expenses such as desk rent and fees to use iPads and computers. Just like in the real world, nothing was free.
As we progressed and we started to create jobs. At first I created these jobs to get it up and running. Usual classroom jobs such as messengers, lunch collectors, book hander-outerers, etc, were the first to be taken by selected students and earn an income. I started to create more such as secretaries, cleaners, librarians, IT specialists, etc... We then introduced an income tax, where the money collected from these taxes will pay for the class elected representatives of the fictional Parliament. These representatives would then need to create and pass bills and use some of this money to benefit the class. For example, the Sports party would suggest using it to run a soccer competition, and the money be used as a prize pool. But one problem I had was that I was running out of jobs, and also I had to keep printing more currency because 99% of the income was coming from me!

The next year, we were able to transition to this a little faster, as I was able to take a lot of what I learnt the pilot year to improve on it. A few students the previous year created a business to sell sweets. This was really interesting to me, because in essence, these students were spending real money, in order to gain fake money! The reason they did this was to accumulate enough money to purchase the desks they wanted, in order to be able to sit together once again (and permanently for the rest of the year!). It made me think about the aspect of value. To me, it was just like Monopoly money, play money for a role play task in class. But for some of them, they saw enough value out of it that they were willing to spend their pocket money in order to gain this currency. Even though it was due to ulterior motives, it still did fascinate me that this even occurred!

So back to the point - the second year, I encouraged students to create businesses. At the start, many of them stuck to selling lollies again. However, this started to become not worthwhile for them, as the competition drove the prices down. The returns just wasn't worth the real money investment! So we started looking at what types of businesses exist in our community. They saw that it wasn't just goods, but there also were services. Students started to be more creative; some created items, such as duct-tape wallets. The previous year had a group of students do the same thing, but this time it was a little different. One of the students was a big Steve Jobs fan and using his skills/knowledge in Apple marketing and design, he somehow made students WANT his particular brand. He even tried to patent his design! Other students used their skills in IT, website creation, arts and craft, etc, and offered these as services to their classmates as well.

This second lot also were more active in the elections for representatives and in adding to the class constitution. They were constantly holding meetings to try and pass bills and the week building up to the next big election would have the two major parties furiously campaigning to try and get the majority votes come election day. Both years I ended up keeping the system going for the remainder of the year as so many of the students enjoyed it so much. Students not only learnt about Government, persuasive skills, poster/website/video creation, budgeting, tax, business but also were able to learn other "non school-based" skills through experience. They needed to work on people skills, gaining trust to build strong political and/or business relationships, for example.

The second year also saw a few future entrepreneurs, creating businesses, selling them off and buying others. Some would group up and pool their money to start one, some would go around trying to investors. But I still found myself too tempted to intervene to try and keep it more in line with the "vision" I had. Perhaps I just wanted to play too?

Now this year, using all the things I've learned so far, I've decided to do it again. This time, I've got a few other classes on board. We all use the same currency, so it's kind of like the EURO. However, each class is free to run their country the way the class teacher or students want. Some classes had really high income as the pay there was just very generous. On the other hand, some classes had very low income, as they made it a little more difficult to earn the currency. This made cross country trading and business a little difficult, and in hindsight, I shouldn't have had everyone use the same currency. Having different currencies would be another great way to look at exchange rates and the notion of value even further!

For my own class, we have an exchange system of sorts. They can exchange Classcraft gold for the currency. But the exchange rates change weekly depending on how much is bought/sold. I am also trying to "sell off" a lot of jobs so that eventually, only a few people will be actually getting income directly from me. This should prevent me from needing to constantly print more currency.

Finally, I've been trying to study a little Economics in my free time, as I realised this is something that could help me improve the system. Thank you to Crash Course for their easy to follow and entertaining videos! John and Hank Green used to host a lot of the episodes, but as they started branching out to cover more and more subjects and topics, they inevitably got more people to help! I never picked Economics up in high school so I've really had no idea, basically learning by doing - just like the students! A lot of the times when watching the videos, particularly about inflation and deflation, I find myself thinking, "Hey, that's what happened to us last time when so and so ...!"

Here's the first episode for Crash Course: Economics, if you want to see what it's like.

I've noticed that the increased focus on the economy of the country, has created more thought by the students when thinking about the constitution and introducing new bills. They realise that they can't please everyone, and everything has a compromise. Should be interesting to see how this year's system develops as I think this is the most comprehensive version yet! I'd like to write it all out as a system for other teachers to follow (if they want to), but I still feel like it's not quite there and it's still in its alpha stage.

Overall though, it does seem to be improving every year, and this year I think I have everyone at least somewhat engaged in the experience. They all know that they have a voice and the power to make changes in the class. It allows a lot of students to break out of their shells; I can see some of them being killer marketers, salespeople, business managers, designers, etc... This year, more than ever, I'm going to really try hard to intervene as little as possible, because I think if something goes horribly wrong, it's a great experience to learn from and try to pull the country out of it. I mean, at the end of the day, it's not a real country. It's just a game. And like any other games, it should encourage you to take risks, learn from mistakes without any real life repercussions.

I will try to update the blog with any more interesting observations and development as we go. If you have any suggestions please feel free to leave a comment below!

Sorry for the big wall of text! If I remember to post more frequently, I could keep it more succinct. (But then again, I'm not very good at keeping things short... yet!)

Robot domiNATION?! and the notion of CONTROL.

So I went to an IT course last week (it's been a long time, but I am now the IT Coordinator for the primary school that I work at!), and I mainly went because it was about WiFi optimisation, troubleshooting and other setups to help your school's BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) program. Unfortunately, a lot of the things I actually went there to learn were not explained as they were told by the big wigs upstairs- that they were not to disclose that information. So to make a long story short, the course ended up going through various online classroom tools (such as OneNote, Google Classroom, Google Forms), which I am already familiar with, so it ended up being a rather disappointing two days.

I did learn a lot of information about how WiFi actually works, about the different frequencies and channels, etc, but I could've learnt all this online.. and for free.

However, they did show some cool videos at the start to get the motivational juices flowing. One of which was very interesting! I couldn't find the exact video, but the theme is similar to this:

In the video they showed us at the course, the actual figure was that in "15 years time, out of the current 4 billion jobs available worldwide, 2 billion of them will become obsolete as robotics/AI will replace humans to do those tasks."

I started doing some rough searches around the web (since I knew most of the tools they were covering at the course) and it lead me to some great tangential learning experiences! Most of the things I found online made links with the Industrial Revolution, and then I started looking up about Luddites and then about the impact the IR actually had on the entire world. And it really does seem like this rise in technology will be the next IR. There's no way around it, we will all need to adjust, retrain and relearn to be a part of it. Otherwise, we'll just be left behind.

This lead me to thinking about my son and also the year 6 class I'm currently teaching. All this stuff isn't just wishy washy scifi stuff. It will directly affect them. In 15 years they will be 26. If they decide to go through tertiary education (if it even exists in 15 years..), it'd be around the time they just graduated with their degrees and possibly a few years of work experience under their belts. So, it begs the question: "What are we preparing these kids for? Are we preparing them for this big global change?" 

Jobs that are highly regarded such as doctors, are even predicted to be one of the first to be replaced. They also showed us a TEDTalk by Sugata Mitra where he gave primary school students the equivalent of the British university entrance exam and a computer. They were able to score an average of 75%. If a computer can help an 11 year old take a university entrance exam, why are we testing our kids on this knowledge? The great Kevin Honeycutt once said, "If you can Google it, then it shouldn't be in an exam," and I thoroughly agree. We need to start looking at ways to facilitate the students' learning so that they know how to utilise it to their advantage. They all know how to consume it. Probably (most definitely), they know how to do it better than us. But instead of guiding them on how to use it enhance and extend their learning, we're just trying to control it.

Which brings me to the next point. Control. Many teachers have told me their concerns for devices in the classroom. Main concern being, students goofing off and/or being off task. The main message I get from this is, they want total control of the class at all times. Teachers still want to be the director of learning - the what, the when and sometimes even the how. This must be widespread, as in this very course, they also showed us a few tools to "control" what the students can see on their device. Even ways for teachers to see what students are doing on their device. They might as well just scrap devices from their school and go back to pen and paper. There's an abundance of wonderful resources (and of course some not-so-wonderful and some just downright shady) on the world wide web, yet here we were, being shown on how we could force them to only use a particular site! Such a wasted opportunity of wonderful learning possibilities!

Control can also be debated about for all other industries, I mean the current model of education was created due to the demands of the Industrial Revolution, right? Keep workers in check, obedient and follow instructions to a tee. And we all know that in modern times, none of these "worker bees" ended up being a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or Gabe Newell (sorry too much CS:GO these days!) Even Thomas Edison was told by his teacher that he should "look for a job where he can use the virtues of his pleasant personality"! Maybe this robot revolution will force a new model of education as well then?

We live in a world where, through technology, the line between work and leisure have become very much blurred. We are able to take work home or even on the road. It enables productivity, when an individual suddenly gets a burst of inspiration, instead of during certain set timeframes. It has even enabled more and more people to make their leisure, their work! But with our current linear approach to education, I find it difficult to see how this will help the students to prepare for, even this current trend of work culture, let alone the upcoming 'revolution'!

One final note about this future of robots and AI world domination. There have been a few characteristics mentioned that humans still possess where robots/AI do not or can not replicate accurately just yet. The four mentioned are:

1. Creativity (Lateral thinking)
2. Empathy
3. Super dexterity (for labour requiring high amount of precision)
4. Entrepreneurship (Risk taking)

So it's not all doom and gloom. Just get ready to embrace the change and be excited to learn new things. We, as humans, still have traits that can benefit the world. I don't claim to have a solution as to how we can prepare the students of today for the world of tomorrow. But I do know that education will need to change in a big way, as it is a crucial element for a child's survival.

Sorry for the few readers that do visit for the lack of posts. I have been so busy trying to adjust to full time teaching the past few years (got my permanency, yay!) and finishing my accreditation (almost done!). I do plan to continue posting ideas/rants/commentary/learning experiences/etc... I always tell myself I'll post more regularly, then forget for a year or two, but I'll definitely try to remind myself more often this time! (I even made a Sticky Note on my second monitor that reads "anything worthy to post today?" Well not yet, but.. NOW I've done it! :))

In hindsight, that 2 day course wasn't really a waste of time, because without attending, I wouldn't have come up with all these thoughts!

I have given the task of creating a "future job" to my class as an end of year mini project. If I get some interesting ones (and I'm pretty sure I will... very interesting mob this year), I will share them here.

Question of the day: What drives you to teach everyday? (Please don't say something clever like "my car" or "my wife" or "my chauffeur" or.. you know what I mean)

Phwoar.. I just learnt Kung-Fu - Being plugged in

It has been a very long time since a proper post, but I have been busy trying to graduate, work and take care of the wifey. Now I will be busy working, taking care of wifey AND (drum roll) a new baby boy.
Yes that's right, this noobie just got himself a nublet.

I have been asked by a school I am working at, to help with using iPads in the classroom. Mainly this will be for stage 3 students (grades 5-6). So I went home and started looking up some useful apps and errm, uses, of the iPad in a classroom setting and of course whilst doing this, checking my emails, tweets, facebook, youtube and forums. In the background I had a playlist of podcats and songs chugging away as well. Suddenly, it dawned on me.
I am not getting ANYTHING done! (gasp/shock/really?!phwoar!!)

Well actually, I still was, but in my own multitasking ways. I had my Diigo bookmark bar saving every relevant page for me to check on my iPad in bed later. I made a playlist of the new videos from the channels I'm subscribed to in Youtube, also to view on my iPad in bed later. I had facebook Sims Social app open on my second monitor (because it is so depressingly slow, it is a good game to play whilst doing other things) whilst waiting for some of these iPad in classroom videos to load.

So I guess I lied. In the end, I did get a lot done, but the problem for me is, I'm not sure how much of this information will be digested by my memory. If I got rid of the so called 'distractions' and solely concentrated on one task, it may as well help with the amount of information retained afterwards, but is it more effective?

We have phones, tablets, computers and now even TVs that can display websites, videos, emails and more. Isn't it more effective then, to do it all at once, save/check for later, bookmark/tag for reference etc, all the while doing other menial digital tasks? I mean, sure, I won't retain or recall most of the information I find, but do I really need to memorise it all? I just need to pull out my phone, push the bookmark link, and voila! Instant information. (unless you have a bad mobile provider or terrible, terrible wifi)

This is of course all subjective and varies from person to person. But I was just thinking about it the other day, I wake up, wash, dress, eat and leave for work. During the drive to work I listen to various podcasts (usually on games that I currently play). I normally arrive early so I grab a coffee, and goto smh.com.au for morning news feeds. During breaks, I check facebook or twitter for any interesting posts and also address any important emails. After work, I listen to more podcasts on the way back, arrive at home, get changed, eat some food, depending on the day do some exercise, turn the computer on and prepare for any additional work. While doing this, as mentioned above, I will be multitasking with other 'leisurely tasks.' Normally when all this is done, I would play some games for an hour or two, go up to bed, flick the iPad on, and watch something before falling asleep.


-Some (kind of) random thoughts whilst I was thinking about this-

Come to think of it, I never watch TV anymore. Only reason I would turn the TV on, is to play the PS3...
or watch a blu ray.

But there are still times, where I feel like all this information is too much. Sometimes I step outside the house and leave the phone inside, so I can be 'unplugged' for five minutes or so.

I wonder how it is for students? Maybe they are more used to this because they grew up with it? Though at the same time, they go to school and in some cases, force fed even more information. And if this information feels irrelevant to them, their minds may put it at the back of the queue.

In most schools, there is no social bookmarking, there is no google or wikipedia. Mainly because these devices are prohibited. So the students who can absorb and recall the most info will be at an advantage.

I feel that we are at a stage it is not about what you know, but how you use that knowledge. Information is everywhere and most of it freely available. Information is no longer a skill, but a tool. The new age is about creation of content, rather than consumption of it.

Though not a direct connection, this video gives an example of just how YouTube is driving this innovation.

Sorry for the very scattered structure of this post. It is being written whilst (you guessed it) I am multitasking with other things! I've come to the conclusion that this is the only way I will be able to put any thoughts down in this blog because in the past I have always tried to 'make time' for it, but I never get around to it.

Will be experimenting with alternate ways to post in the future (try it via smartphone or tablet perhaps?) and see which way/s feels best to do so. I have been making notes in my phone for any ideas I have been getting for the blog since last year, so this page WILL be getting many more, frequent updates.

So to the few who do read it, what do you think about being plugged in? Do you feel it is too much? Do you think it is not enough? Let me know in the comments below.