The New Year has Begun

My last story to share is that the new year of our design club has kicked off. I have six new, creative minds ready to sink their teeth into the Little Big Planet franchise. The group began last Friday. As we did last school year, I am letting them start out by playing the games to really see the types of things they can do if they want to. It is always fun to watch them get in and enjoy the different aspect of the LBP2 and Karting.

I learned a lot working with the kids last year, and I am excited about this year’s group. I have some fun ideas about having the students contribute to the blog and, time permitting, do a team create competition where other students in our school judge the finished products. One step at a time though.

Love this picture. Our group meets on Fridays this year.

Also, I have a fifty dollar commitment from a backer to help get the group a PS Vita and several who have already given. Thank you to all who have helped so far. This will put our group exactly $66 away from adding that to our repertoire of hardware and open up new possibilities.

If you can help with that, please go to this link at donorschoose.org.

What does Awesome Sauce taste like?

My second bit of news is a little late, but it has been a busy first 9 weeks of school. I want to thank both the Little Big Planet community and more specifically our awesome Community Manager, Steven, for granting to me one of Little Big Planet’s highest honors. At the beginning of the school year I received the Awesomesauce pin. That is digital metal that distinguishes your work in Little Big Planet as valuable and important. When my wife, Kathleen, asked why this was such a big deal I explained it like this. This game has been played by around 4 million people or so. According to the Little Big Planet wiki, I was the 13^th person to receive the pin. So, yeah, it is really cool.

Thank you all for your support, we are not done yet though, more on that tomorrow.

Helping to Give Extra Life

I will be posting three very exciting bits of news over the next three days.  First, I am excited to announce that on November 1, 2013, our school will be holding an Extra Life event. If you do not know, Extra Life is a yearly fund raiser run by the Children’s Miracle Network to raise money for local hospitals and join the fight against cancer among kids. Normally the marathon is a 25 hour one, but what we are doing is five hours on five systems for students in grade five (get it?). This way we meet the 25 hour requirement. Student and some of our teachers will be playing from 3 pm until 8 pm. We are planning to play lots of cooperative and multiplayer games and even hold a couple tournaments. Our goal is to raise $100, and over half of our fifth grade is participating.

If you read this and feel moved to donate feel free to join our cause at my Extra Life page or go to Extra-Life.org and search for Adam Renard in the upper right corner. You can expect a huge write up about the event that weekend.

Very exciting stuff, and more tomorrow.

Kicking Off the New School Year

Wow, what a fast summer!  My family did so much that it was hard to keep up. My summer goals did not get as far as I would have liked, but I made some huge progress in my learning levels.  Our school year has started, and there is a major buzz around the fifth grade about Little Big Planet.  I have some big things in store for them, some of which I can’t even talk about yet. However, this is the stuff that I can share about this year so far.

Help Us Get a Vita Update

We are working with DonorsChoose.org to get a Vita for the design club.  Currently we have had nearly forty dollars pledged, which is great as they are all people outside of the school, my family, and friends I have regular contact with.  Currently we need $330.  What I am hoping is that we can get 33 people who will commit $10 to the cause.  If you are in the United States, I know that this is a tax deduction.  Please help. I promise you, we will use it.  You can use the link below or the one to the right of the screen.  I will keep you updated as people donate on how close we are.

Help our students add some new tools to their bag. <-- Just Click This Link

Design Club

Student Applications go out this week and those who want to be involved this year have to get proposals back to me by next week. After that, we will begin our design process, namely teaching the kids the ins and outs of basic tools.  I am excited because this year the students have longer to work on their projects, because of this I am toying with the idea of assigning multiple projects or even a team project to students. It should be exciting.

Testers

I want create a small testing group. I am looking at bringing these students in once a month to assist the design club in finding things that don’t work in their levels. However, while we wait for those kids to get the basics down this testing group may be trying some of the Team Picks or perhaps work with one of the fan sites to find levels to play for feedback.  This way the community gets different opinions and my testers get to practice finding positives and negatives in levels.

Reviews to Better Writing

Over the summer I found out that I would be moving from fourth grade to fifth grade. Here in Virginia fifth graders have to complete a writing standardized test where a big part of the score is a writing sample.  To encourage students practice as well as expand the site, fifth grade students will have a review writing contest each grading period where they can write a video game review for extra credit.  The reviews have to be written in the format that we use to prepare them for their test. They will be scored using the same rubric and the three best will be featured here on the site for all to read.  I am really excited to see what the students come up with for this.

Let's see what bright ideas this years students come up with.

As I said, I am doing more than just the things listed here, but all of that is for another day.  Thank you all for your continued support and encouragement.  I will keep you posted.

Goals for the Future

I thought about writing a year in review, but truly I don't need it.  Everything that we have done has been documented here.  There are, however, two things I want to share.

1. I am now, more than ever, convinced that using gaming to learn has such an untapped potential.   We need to explore this opportunity and use it to help students.

2. The kids love it!  They want more.  I have a large number of students who want to be involved in the design club next year and that is so exciting.

That said, I am proud to share that lbpclassroom will continue next school year.  Here are some of the goals I have moving forward as we head into year 2.

Making More Levels To Teach With: The excitement around having a game console out could not be denied.  The students this year were so excited to be playing in math, science, and reading.  This summer and into the fall I have three levels I want to get up and running.  One is based on using context clues to choose a correct vocabulary word.  The context is created by playing short platform sections in different environments. Another is a fun idea with branching paths.  Where students go is based on how quickly they can find a missing number in a given equation.  The last idea I will be working on is a race against the clock using LBPKarting, to sort different concepts.  Think matching ideas and Crazy Taxi (one of my personal favorite games of all time).  More on these later this summer.

Expand the Design Club: There are two things I really want to do.  One, I really want to push the creation of music in the game using the music sequencer.  I just know I have a few budding composers ready to shock the world.   The second thing is adding another system.  Not a PlayStation 3 though.  No, no.  One of these…

The addition of a Vita would provide students an opportunity to make touch based games.  It also saves me the trouble of finding another television to work on.  I think at this point it is safe to say we will use it...a lot.   If you would consider helping get a Vita for the club please click the link below, or the DonorsChoose.org link in the right hand corner of the site.

Help Us Get a Vita

Overhaul the Site: I would say that this experience has been amazing.  Going forward I will probably be shifting the format a bit to help find information even more easily.  I want to provide a road map for using LBP in the classroom so that other teachers and districts can see the benefits of this amazing tool.

I have other ideas, but for now I must keep them to myself.  Thank you all for your continued support. 

New Things and What Is Coming

Just like that the 2012 - 2013 school year is coming to a close and with it my first year of LBP Classroom.  First and foremost you can find the LBPClassroom Design Club's levels...

HERE!

Each group that I work with will have its own page.  On that page you will find a screen shot, the title, the creator's nickname, which game that they worked with, the focus of their level/race, and a general description.  If you are curious whose level is whose, you can cross reference with the group photo at the top of the page.  The title of each level is linked to the level's lbp.me or karting.lbp.me page just to make it a little easier.  The kids did a really amazing job.  I helped with some tech, but made a point to teach them how to do it, rather than just do it for them.  The ideas are theirs and they were cool.  Please enjoy!

As for what is coming.  Here is a glimpse of what you can expect on the site in the next few weeks.

• A reflection on the year as a whole.
• Where I plan to take both the project and the site.
• A way you can help us move forward.

Until then, enjoy the levels and never stop learning.

The Level Makers Celebration 2013

My schools 2013 LBP Design Club

So, last night was one of the most special things that I have had the privilege of being involved in since I started teaching. In just over a year the concept of creating a Little Big Planet design club went from pipe dream to full execution in my school.  We celebrated the students work in the right way.  We filled my classroom with these students and their families to play their completed works for the first time.  We ate (jalapeno Cheetos at the request of my students), we played, we laughed.  It was also the first time the Karting kids played the LBP2 kids levels and vice versa.  That made for some great conversation about how things were achieved and where different ideas came from.  For me, that was the coolest part.  Well, that and of course, watching the families interact through Little Big Planet was pretty amazing.  I have shared some of those moments below.

Here, Zeebie and her dad tried out her race, Cheshire Cake, for the first time.  He was really impressed by all that she had done and that others would be able to enjoy what she had made. 

Blizzard Lightening and his little sister climb to the top of Frostfern Mountain together.  They were laughing hysterically as blew each other up with the 'Helmet of Flames'.

There was, of course, cake.  The first time I have had my name on a cake that 

did not also say Happy Birthday.

Beta Testing in the LBP Classroom

When I began this project I had several things that I wanted to do. One of those goals was to create a small team of students who would come in, look at the projects the creators are working on, and offer peer feedback.  It would be kind of like having what the video games industry calls testers or QA.  When the design group became a reality I thought back to last school year and really considered who I heard talking about games a lot.  There were two boys that came to mind.  I approached both of them in February, and these two young men both seemed very interested.

The finest in fifth grade gaming fanatics.

Unfortunately, due to the time it has taken to get projects ready, I have not been able to utilize the boys as much as I had hoped in the process.  However, I am happy to say that Friday after school my feedback team was able to play each level and fill out a feedback sheet for the creators.  The page that they filled out was very basic.  It consisted of the following questions,

1.       How fun was the level?

2.       Would you play it again?

3.       Was it easy to understand what you were doing?

4.       What was something you liked?

5.       What was something you would change?

6.       Did anything not work while you played?
(Note: Questions 1 - 3 were on a 5 point scale)

They played the races in split screen and I even joined them for one of the LBP2 competitive games.

The creators will receive their feedback on Tuesday and Thursday and be able to make some adjustments as we draw closer and closer to our publishing date.  I truly think that this process was and will be helpful.  It is my hope that next year I can start the group earlier and make better use of a testing group, but these two certainly given me a nice starting point to work from.  

This race was a crowd pleaser.  

We will get into that in the next week or so.

Thank You Media Molecule!

Okay, so it didn't just arrive.  However, with all of our preparation for our upcoming standardized test this is the first opportunity we have had to celebrate its arrival.  A big thank you to Rex, Spaff, and the guys at Media Molecule.  Thank you for choosing our picture.  It is amazing and will always have a place of honor in my classroom.

On a different note, Tearaway is the most wanted game in my classroom.  There are many students who have made comments about being able to get a Vita and Tearaway for birthdays, or being excited about asking for it for Christmas.  It makes me happy to point them to more age appropriate games.  There is so much fun to be had.

Here is a special message from the kids and the picture we won.

The Deadline is Out

WATCH OUT!!!
DEAD LINE INCOMING

Today, the calendar was passed out.  Immediately, they noticed the BIG, BOLD letters.  Level Showcase on Thursday, May 30 at 6PM.  On that date the game club will meet as a group and celebrate our hard work and successes.  Then on Saturday, June 1st I will publish all six of the LBP Classroom levels and they will be open to the public.

I will share a lot more with all of you leading up to the event.  However, I am truly excited to share what they have come up with you.  There are a lot of really neat things going on.  From a multiplayer coin collecting mini-game, to a daring school escape, a climbing expedition, a race around a giant cake, twisty track, and trip to challenging bog.  Some may not be completely finished, but we will make sure that they are as close as we can get them.

Thank you all, more for you soon.

But the Children Love the Bounce Pads

I just wanted to share photos of using Stop Thief!: Decimal Edition as a math station.  It worked amazingly well, the kids were able to play through it two times and fill out a two question half sheet to give me feedback.  Humorously enough, with over 100 bounce pads in the level, the number one request was more bounce pads.  Enjoy the pictures.

The Thief reveals himself!

You will note that huge decimal.

Playing LBP works really well as a small group station.

Send that bad guy to jail.

Was it hundreds or hundredths?

One thing is for sure, it was fun.

Humbling Encouragement from my Clientele

So we go into Spring break and my co teacher sends these to me.  Both of them come from girls in our class.  Think that they are enjoying LBP in the classroom?

I know about half of you reading this right now are thinking, '15 minutes for recess!?!"  Sadly, it is what it is. 

We made the brainstorming section on this one, 

but didn't make it to the final copy.

One Giant Leap For Sack Kind: A Reflection

As we have entered into the assessment-centric time in education, data is king.  Every educator must able dissect the performances of his students rapidly and flexibly in order to adjust plans.  I have become very good at breaking down the what my students need simply by looking at a few wrong answers.  It is at this point that I am excited to share with you something that probably won't surprise anyone: It worked.

One of my goals when I created the Little Big Planetary Investigation was to have the children complete it for a grade.  Starting in December my students embarked on a journey through the cosmos in groups of four.  Here are some of the take aways to share...

1.  They loved it!  Each group was so excited to get their chance to complete the activity.  Kids who play games for fun and kids who don't play much at all were excited to do the work.  They savored every second that they had the controller.  They were polite and respectful of each other.

2. The data sheets were all completed very well.  The work that students completed during the activity was amazing.  When I designed the activity I intended for the data sheet to give students key information and make observations.  They need to pay attention to collect the data when it is presented.  Then they need to make observations about how high the character jumps, how fast the planet is moving, and what the planet looks like (and draw it).  Many of the groups did a great job helping one another and the final products were super.

3. They want more!  I included a feedback survey at the end of the data sheet and I repeatedly saw comments like, Can we do more of this?  Can we do things like this in math and reading?  They really enjoyed themselves and they want more. Now, if I could just find the time to make more.

4. It seems to have worked.  When completing the unit test I did a question breakdown.  The questions covered during the activity were the least missed questions on the test.  To me, that would suggest that the kids remembered this information better than information covered through traditional means.

5. Things like this take time.  Not only did it take time to create, but it took a while to cycle all of the kids through.  If I get the opportunity to complete this activity next year, I will set up the way students complete the activity differently.  It was totally worth it, I just need to structure when they do it a bit differently so the activity is completed in a more timely fashion.

Overall, simply amazing.  I am totally convinced that this sort of thing has a place in classrooms.  The kids response and application of the activity displayed that.  Next subject.

Grateful and Encouraged

Since I started this project, I have had the opportunity to meet and get to know some amazing people:  Shane_Danger, Mr. Krispy Kreme, Weirdy Beardy, The Pocket Moon guys (John and Tom), Leklack, the LBP Community team.  You are all amazing and I am blessed to have met you.  Last week something new happened, a website called Little Big Journey, run by PSN screen names ApertureNOBLE and Breezy-The-Pro, did something amazing.  They challenged Little Big Planet creators to take this game we enjoy so much and apply a purpose: learning.

It is an astounding read that truly asks creators, and anyone really, to go beyond themselves and give time doing something that they enjoy to potentially be there to help future generations learn.  I have to admit, I have given consideration to what Little Big Planet would look like if it were applied to education and there certainly is a niche for people who use gaming as the back drop for learning.  If you have never seen it, look at what the people at ExploreLearning are doing by using great games to teach math fluency.  They even apply concepts of leveling, achievements, and use of avatars to encourage students to keep playing. It is brilliant, and my students really enjoy it.

That is the thing.  There is a built-in audience here.  They are hungry to play AND learn.  If we give them something they will do it, and enjoy it.  There hasn't been a day where I plug in one of the PS3's that my students don't say "Little Big Planet, YES!"  They want it and that is what makes this whole thing worth every second.    

Readers, friends, family, I thank you for your encouragement.  Breezy, Aperture, thank you both.  You two are amazing and your web site really cool.

Have a great week, all.

Up Late In the Name of Decimals

Right now, in math, we are working on decimals and I will share with you that place value (knowing the names of each digit and how much that is worth) is hard for 10 year old kids.  So much so that in the fall I made Stop Thief!, my place value game.  On Friday, I told the learners that we would be splitting up in to stations and that we would be practicing decimals in fun ways on Monday.  

Last night, when my wife went to bed, I stayed up to modify the Stop Thief! and I am proud to say that after nearly four hours of work Stop Thief! Decimal Edition is ready to roll.  I even went ahead and published it.  If you have the time give it a whirl.  Any feedback is always appreciated.  I will be back with feedback later next week.

Turning Corners

A few fun stories for everyone on this, Oh So Wonderful Friday!  This week was awesome.  The kids in the club really clicked this week.  It started Tuesday with an EPIC jump that made the other two creators working with karting stop and watch.  We all stood there with huge smiles on our faces as the kart soared across the sky and landed on the other end of the track.  Everyone stayed quiet for a few seconds until the creator of the track broke the silence by proclaiming, “None of y’all steal my idea!”   We all burst out laughing.  Such a great moment.

The girl's favorite kart.

On Thursday, the boys did some really amazing things in LittleBigPlanet 2.  One boy set the stage for his competitive multiplayer bounce fest and next week will be adding moving platforms.  He was originally going to make something completely different, but after seeing the bounce pads has opted to create a cool challenge instead.   Another student was, with some help from a fellow LBP creator named Shade Seeker (thank you, good sir), able to create a vehicle that moves freely in all directions using the analog sticks and launches rockets.  He also taught the other boys that card board blows up rather easily.  This young man was so proud that he ran to get his mom, who also teaches in our building.  She was really enthusiastic to see his work and even more so when we walked her through how he had built it.

Over all, it was a really amazing week where projects really started to take shape.  I look forward to sharing more about the group in the next few weeks.

Lessons From Creation

Two weeks of create in the bag and we have all learned a lot.  Let me begin by saying that this is a blast!  My favorite part so far has been just watching the kids discover things.  Whether it is the Racers making tracks that reach tallest point that they can then plummet to the lowest point allowed in the creation space or watching another young creator place bounce pads at different heights (on pause) just to bounce around and declare it is the most fun he has had with a game.  It has been a joy to watch them play with gravity, paint, track coating, fire, and glass.  I watched my Runners make the same object about fifty times and laugh hysterically when they unpaused it and the objects all fell to the ground. No joke, by the end of their first session, one of the kids had made his name out of materials and triumphantly shouted, “Look!” as he tweaked it to be covered in flames.  This has been a lot of fun.

This is a sample of what one of the students is working on in Karting.

At the same time we have all had to tapper our expectations a bit.  After creating three educational levels (working on my fourth, more on that soon), two regular levels in LBP 1, one unpublished monstrosity, and three or four races in ModNation Racer (from the same people who developed LBPKarting), I had to remember that is was not easy at first, and that is where all my learners are.  Rather than letting them do everything, I am going to have to take a co-creator role.  On an individual basis I am going to have to use the same practice I do when teaching. Model, guide, let go.  There are things that they want to do that I am going to need to walk them through and ideas that we are going to have modify based on what is available in the game and the amount of time we have.  I am still completely confident that they will each make something really cool by the end of the year, but they will need a guiding hand.

Sorry about the dark picture, it was a cloudy day outside.

The kids have also had a bit of a realization.  For the kart racing team, they have played with the track editor and enjoyed themselves.  Now is the tricky part; taking the nice tracks that they have built and turning them into actual races or getting down to business with their ideas for arenas.  For the LBP2 kids it is the realization that this may not be as easy as it all seems.  This is going to take a while.  Fortunately, we have a while.  3 months to be exact.  It will come together, or at the very least we will have something that resembles their ideas to share.

Tearing Ourselves Away

Story Update
This afternoon, over at the Media Molecule blog, winner were announced!  And we were one of them!!!  The running teacher picture was selected as a winner in the contest.  We will be receiving a signed picture from the Creative Lead of Tearaway, Rex.  When that happens I will have pictures of it in our classroom and   a thank you from the class.  YEAH!!!

This past week I shared the trailer for the new Media Molecule game, Tearaway, in my classroom.   The kids got really excited about it, and rightfully so; it looks amazing.  During the week, Media Molecule was running a contest where you take a picture wearing the mask of the Wendigo (one of the enemies in the game).   For fun, I shared this information with the students and let them all make masks as part of their morning work and during indoor recess if they chose to.  They worked hard.  On Thursday, at the very end of the day we took these pictures.

Thus far they have gotten a great response from some friends on Twitter and also the Tearaway design team.  I was talking to our music teacher about it Friday. I laughed and told her that I am the right combination of nerdy and ambitious.  She quickly replied, "Yeah, but they love it!"  I just wanted to share these with everyone who stops out at the site.  Don't ever be afraid to be silly, it can make an impact.

Oh, That's It!!

While Tuesday's belong to my Racers (LBP Karting People), Thursday's are all about my Runners (LBP2 People).  This is a great group of creative and intelligent young men.  I am excited to see what they are able to come up with and how they will assist one another once they get rolling.  For now it is a matter of getting to know Little Big Planet 2.

Last Thursday, one of them was out completing a test for the next level belt in his martial arts class.  The two that were there opted to play two player.  They worked their way through the second world of the game.  One of the things I have really enjoyed about this club is that the kids get so much joy out of the game.  At one point they were trying to throw a ball of jelly at a button to open the door to the next section, but they kept getting in each others way.  While you could tell they were a bit frustrated, they were also laughing as they occasionally tossed one another off the train.  It was fun to watch.

The kids will be playing for the next few weeks, then we will start working on designs and creating in the game.  I will have much more to share once we shift gears.  For now, enjoy the pictures.

The boys are getting a taste of the sweet goodness of puzzles in Little Big Planet.

Sometimes working together, other times, not so much.  However, they were having a great time.

The music in Little Big Planet games is so very good. I hooked the system up to an old stereo to enjoy it.

It is a bit make shift, but the sound is so good.  

Oh, and two quick things.  First, our other Runner did not get to test for his belt because of bad weather.  I am told he will go for it in February.  He did, however, make up his LBP time by playing Little Big Planet Vita, a great handheld version of the game.

Second, and the last picture reminded me of this, if you want to see another amazing aspect of Little Big Planet, head over to youtube.com and search for Little Big Audio (or just click the link).  There is a music generator in Little Big Planet 2 and several creators have taken the time to upload over a thousand songs, all created in the game.  It is another really cool project that is worth your time and attention.

3, 2, 1, GO!!!

Whoa, it has been a crazy start to 2013.  If you haven't heard, I had the privilege of being a guest on episode 34 of the Pocket Moon Podcast.  If you'd like to listen, that link is here or subscribe to Pocket Moon Podcast on iTunes.  It was a great experience and I am really grateful that Tom and John are part of the Little Big Planet community.

This week kicked off half of our LBP Design Club.  The Racers were first.  The Racers are the group of kids who are primarily focused on making tracks or arenas using Little Big Planet Karting.  In our first meeting we talked about what the kids wanted to do with the game.  They all expressed a desire to make something.  I explained to them that my goal for them is help them find what they enjoy doing most and encourage them to focus primarily on that.  Little Big Planet is such a vibrant community of people that really do so many different things. I would like to see these students try out the different parts of create mode and then really focus on what they like best.

Our first meeting was a lot of fun.  We watched a couple of tutorials and talked about what the different things meant.  I don't want to throw all of the tutorials at them at once, so we are kind of dipping our toes in and then playing around for now.  The focus on these early meetings is letting the kids play the game to get a feel for what they like and don't like.

My two girls tackled the game running on the projector while my lone boy in the Racers set out on his own on another television.  They all had a good time commenting on the "awesome" big jumps, short cuts, and music, which I pumped through an old stereo in my room.  When we finished I told them to think about what they liked and didn't like about what they played and how they might incorporate those thoughts as they start putting their ideas together.

Sadly, because of the winter weather we got Thursday my Runners (Those working primarily with Little Big Planet 2) were forced to wait another week.  Overall, it was a good start for this group.  We will be playing for a few more weeks before we really sink our fingers into create mode.