Lessons via Skype

This morning saw the beginning of our collaboration with New Zealand. The children were very excited about being taught by David Kinane via Skype from New Zealand. With a twelve hour difference, David had already had a long day but with everything in working order (Skype) was ready to teach the children some of the basics of using Gamemaker. Very quickly the children were discussing sprites, objects, backgrounds and rooms (levels) with David and thinking about how to make balls move in a room with walls. Thinking skills extended to problem solving when the children had to think about why the balls weren’t moving, how they could make them move and then how to stop them disappearing. Now we were into the programming of the game creating balls that moved, bounced and collided. With the basics covered the children were free to experiment on their own! Unsurprisingly they were confident enough to move through these basics, asking David to help them solve issues as they arose.


With the basics in place, we plan to move forward into the collaboration with the children at Wakaaranga. The children will work in pairs with a pair from NZ. They will begin to discuss ideas and build games, sharing their ideas using Talkwheel, Audioboo, Camstudio and through our Kupapa wiki. Over the next few weeks the children will also learn how to use Camstudio, and Audioboo to enable them to share and discuss their ideas.


Although the New Zealand school year ends in December, the project will continue when the children here will lead the way with the new class in New Zealand in February.




What did you think of the lesson from New Zealand this morning? What do you feel about using GameMaker and the project with New Zealand?