Tag Archives: teaching
Break
Some of my students from my last session at Chinese school came back to visit me between classes, but I only have a very short break in 6 hours of class (and my break was already eroded by school admin … Continue reading
Success Marker
One of my current App Design students took Game Design with me last year, and today he asked if I would please tell him the story of Cow Clicker again.
Spoiler: Aristotle
My boss, in the midst of explaining why teaching is so important and how far teaching can reach, said sarcastically to my colleague, “Look how important Plato is. Everyone knows the teacher, but who’s ever heard of Plato’s students?” I … Continue reading
Surfer, Muppet, Gun, What?
My App Design 3 students are doing a math-heavy assignment, and as I explained what they were doing, I threw out a couple of Chinese number handsigns, meant to emphasize that there were 6 sides on a die so 7 … Continue reading
Social Gaming
After I showed Grumpy Goats to my game design students, we had a discussion about elements of Facebook games, and I showed them World of Secrets. One might not think a Facebook hidden object game lends itself well to a … Continue reading
App Design Class
I always enjoy reading student work in the Game Concepts class. I’m so proud when students turn their rambling and epic game ideas into succinct summaries with player objectives, win conditions and fail conditions.
Flavortext Superpower
As part of the class in game design, we ask the students to come up with unique, descriptive titles for their completed games, and to write other game text like a one-sentence summary or a brief instructional screen. Usually I … Continue reading
Play
A crisis of some sort is not uncommon for successful people at midlife, but the age of this midlife meltdown has started coming earlier and earlier. People have started talking about a “thrisis” in the thirties and a “quarter-life crisis” … Continue reading
The Daring Game For Girls
When I wasn’t teaching or running around Manhattan with packs of teenagers, I checked out The Daring Game For Girls on the DS. I know this is the girl-player stereotype, but I just can’t overstate how important a customizable avatar … Continue reading
Talented
The other day, I had my students make menus and play restaurant. I’d put them in groups and let the kids choose whether to be waitstaff or customers, polite or rude. Usually this class is le tired, so I was … Continue reading
