Category Archives: Game Design

They say that every summer has a story, and now at the end of my experience teaching for the Gamestar Mechanic Online Learning Program, it’s time for my students’ stories to come to an end. But it’s wonderful to realize that for many of them getting more interested and involved with game design, this is just the beginning. As we wrapped up the program last week, my inbox was filled with an exciting flurry of final assignments, last chances to…

Since my post a couple of weeks ago about Scratch, Meagan Bromley has contributed two really wonderful posts about her work with Gamestar Mechanic and their Online Learning Program where she is currently serving as a mentor/teacher.  Between Gamestar Mechanic, Scratch, Meagan’s posts and mine, one very clear throughline that I see emerging is the value being placed on connectivity within the world of creatively driven educational media. Technology has provided us with a level of connectivity that we have…

Much of what we hear when people talk about games for learning may be behind the potential of video games to teach traditional content, but there’s also a very exciting, and increasingly popular trend in education of kids as game designers. But what do we really mean when we say kids as designers? What skills and perspectives are kids getting by engaging in the game design process? As Aaron Morris recently discussed on the Cooney Center blog, an essential part of “21st Century Skills”…

As a graduate student studying games for learning, and a general geek extraordinaire, I’ve been given the unique opportunity this summer to teach a new online program for kids who want to learn how to design video games. E-Line Media, a Cooney Center partner in the National STEM Video Game Challenge, and the creator of the game-building platform Gamestar Mechanic, has designed an engaging curriculum that teaches kids not only how to make their own games, but also what it is that game…

When it comes to digital media for kids, there is no lack of options in terms of what kids are consuming. From television, to computer games, to e-books, apps, and so much more, children are consuming media in constantly expanding ways. In such an increasingly crowded digital landscape, it’s important to consider the skills that kids need to successfully navigate and inhabit this world. Now what do I mean by skills? Some people refer to it as “digital literacy,” “21st…

Hello again! When I wrote my blog post on my experiences as one of the Educator Winners from the 2012 STEM Video Game Challenge, I didn’t have a chance to discuss my method for designing games for students. I’ve thought about this quite a bit, and wanted to share some of my tips with other aspiring game designers here. First, there are two good articles on video games and learning at the STEM Challenge website at the bottom of their Resources page. These…

Hello everyone! My name is Marty Esterman and I am the Educator Grand Prize winner for the PBS Kids stream in this year’s STEM Video Game Challenge event for my entry, AdditionBlocks. I have been quite humbled by this whole experience-and I want to thank The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, PBS Kids, E-Line Media, and the AMD Foundation for all their support. I have met some really great people! I also want to thank my wife, Stacy, who has also been…

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to hear from “one of the most influential women in technology,” the creators of “Zombie Yoga,” aNASA research scientist, the founder of Atari AND Chuck E. Cheese, a classroom teacher working in Hong Kong, the White House’s “video game czar” and a bunch of 12 year old girls designing their own math games in Brooklyn, within the span of a couple of hours, without leaving a 2 block radius. How on earth did I manage to do…

The 9th Annual Games for Change Festival is less than two weeks away! We are thrilled that our own Research Consultant Jessica Millstone and BrainPOP’s Senior Director, Educators Experience, Allisyn Levy, will present the findings of the first national survey on teacher attitudes towards games in the classroom. Their presentation will take place on Wednesday, June 20 at 12:10 in the Tishman Auditorium at NYU. Jeff Ramos of Games for Change took this opportunity to ask her a few questions about the research and its…

I’ve been spending a lot of time on a playground lately. However, this playground doesn’t have swings or tetherball or a basketball court; this one—the PLAYground—is a transmedia learning tool being developed at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC. The PLAYground is the brainchild of Erin Reilly, Managing Director for the Innovation Lab and someone I’ve gotten to work with closely through the JGCC’s partnership with the Lab. Developing the PLAYground is one element of a larger project on participatory learning,…