6
Jun
2009
“These kids are brilliant!”
Many rave reviews posted in the hallway for the students to read
The students’ alternate reality game (you can play here) has been receiving rave reviews! I posted them in the hallway so all the students could read them. (It is the last few days of school and we are not having block rotations so I wanted to make sure that all the students in each homeroom could see the fruits of their labor.) Some were short, some were long. Most were from students and staff in our district. We did have one exciting hat tip from down under. Gary Hayes, an Australian professional in the field of game design and new media in general, gave us a tweet (find him on twitter @garyphayes ). He wrote, “Great to see Texas 6th graders documenting the design process for ARGs – http://twurl.nl/8smh1y ‘maybe even encourage and guide others’”. From his 3,000+ followers, we had a flurry of hits from around the world.
We also had a wonderful student review from a sixth grader on another campus in the district. He said,”I am speechless! It was amazing. It should be a video game worldwide for all game systems! It orchestrates math beautifully with a virtual scenario. If only it was a bit longer. All in all, it was simply amazing!” Now that is some high praise!! Another student said, “I also wish I could have done this project this year!” Mmmm…. how I love it when students WANT to do the work!! 
I also asked my own students… the ones who created the game… to play it and offer feedback from a players perspective. Two main themes came through on their feedback. First, there were so many students who really liked that the scenarios were played out with videos rather than written in text. I found those comments interesting. There were many times during the design process when I thought to myself that I should probably encourage the students to just write their scenario in text. But, I resisted knowing that this was their game and they needed to be making as many design decisions as possible. In the end, these videos were a crucial part of the “draw” of the game for the kids. Many have written about new media. I believe there is much more research to be done in this area. Certainly, I observed that students are much more comfortable composing with new media than with text. It is like video is their natural language and text is a second language, with all the difficulties that surround second language acquisition. Many, many literacy implications to consider here! The second main theme from their feedback was that they really liked using their own drawings scanned in for the backgrounds in the video, the map and the website in general. I particularly like scanning in student work and making it interactive. I think it captures their essence but also melds their physical and virtual selves in a unique way. I did something similar with third and fourth graders when we helped them create digital portfolios and I found out then how powerful this technique really is.
Notice the husband's quote, "These kids are brilliant!"
Without a doubt, my favorite review… the one that spoke to my teacher heart… came from a rather unlikely place. He is the husband of the principal of my school. He is a business man through and through and so he is completely removed from the world of education and certainly is not involved in the world of game design. He said, “These kids are brilliant!” Yes… he said brilliant! Not, good job with a pat on the head for the little kids. Not, how nice that these kids got to do something different and unique at school with a patronizing smile. Nope… he said they were brilliant! I see their brilliance every day. There are some days that their brilliance is buried underneath the worries and stresses of their families, their friends and the world around them. There are some days that their brilliance is dulled by events outside of their control. But, everyday I work to dust off that brilliance so that the world can see what I see. And on this day, with this work, someone else saw it! Someone else recognized it! Someone else said it out loud! “These kids are brilliant!” Amen, brother! Amen!