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Best sequencing/format for a game development course?

Started by April 17, 2016 05:50 PM
47 comments, last by valrus 8 years, 9 months ago

Culminating project will be redesigning an existing game (or game type) to incorporate a social justice approach. I don't care for video games in general but I think it would be good to teach how to use them constructively, as opposed to simply as entertainment.

What school gives a game development teaching job to someone who doesn't care for games, and overtly tries to insert a political agenda into their coursework?

That being said, your agenda is ridiculous, your timeline is ridiculous, you show absolutely no comprehension of the technologies you're proposing (And why should you? You don't care about games after all!)

You're proposing making 2d artwork, 3d artwork (While learning Unity), then going over and learning game maker and implimenting a game using the 2d artwork your students created...

Honestly, do your students a favor and go back to teaching art. Let your school district hire someone who actually has experience/passion for game making. This will be best for both you and them.

Culminating project will be redesigning an existing game (or game type) to incorporate a social justice approach. I don't care for video games in general but I think it would be good to teach how to use them constructively, as opposed to simply as entertainment.

What school gives a game development teaching job to someone who doesn't care for games, and overtly tries to insert a political agenda into their coursework?

That being said, your agenda is ridiculous, your timeline is ridiculous, you show absolutely no comprehension of the technologies you're proposing (And why should you? You don't care about games after all!)

You're proposing making 2d artwork, 3d artwork (While learning Unity), then going over and learning game maker and implimenting a game using the 2d artwork your students created...

Honestly, do your students a favor and go back to teaching art. Let your school district hire someone who actually has experience/passion for game making. This will be best for both you and them.

You are clueless and you just lost all credibility on this thread.

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I cited you as a first-party source, unless you're lying I believe I'm correct.

The issues as I see them

1. You routinely fail to grasp the concept of what engines do different things, and yet you demand information be spoonfed so that you can teach others, instead of simply learning about the (not impossibly hard) tools people have explained to you over and over again.

2. You have no passion for games. This is self explanatory. You don't care about gaming. That's fine, unless you want to do something like teach game-related classes.

3. Have no knowledge of game development, yet constantly ask for tools that allow well-polished games to be made with no programming...

4. Don't seem to understand games yourself. Which is fine, why would you, unless you had a passion for games/game design.

Seriously, how can anyone suggest any course of action besides telling you to step down without a straight face? You'll be miserable spending years of your life learning/teaching something you have no passion for, your students will be miserable dealing with a teacher that doesn't share their passion (This is why I dropped out of highschool FYI), and your school district will suffer because people won't be interested in your classes.

You constantly bring up art in your posts. As in, you talk about art more than game dev.

So, go do art. Make sense?

Believe me when I say I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to let you understand that if you're not passionate about games, then your students will know WAY more about game design than you.

To put it into perspective, when I was your students age I had several thousand hours of experience working on hobby games/mods that were downloaded tens of thousands of times. What exactly would you offer to a passionate student in a similar situation? Would you care about his achievement? Of course not, because you're not passionate about games.

You're asking about creating a lesson plan about a field you know almost nothing about, nor care about, and have demonstrated such poor grasp of the concepts required to teach the subject that no one's even bothering to submit constructive criticism on your post.

Your lesson plan boils down to

1. Play board games in class (Another topic you admitted you have no passion for nor care about).

2. Draw characters then create those character in 3d (because 3d characters are so easy to create)

That's basically a full lesson plan for college-level courses, but then you keep going.

3. Teach game history/types of games, (when you clearly don't know anything about different genres of games, nor do you care about them.) also something about how science and art mix... Which means nothing.

4. Making a game (Because you might not care about games, but it's in the course name so I guess this game-making stuff will have to get in the way of your art class at least a bit!)

Why do you insist on doing this if it's clearly a field you don't care about/have no knowlege of?

What makes you more qualified to teach it compared to the students you're teaching?

Again:

I don't care for video games in general

So why are you trying to teach about game design instead of art, which is something you actually do seem to care about?

You are clueless and you just lost all credibility on this thread.
... but he is right :3

"I AM ZE EMPRAH OPENGL 3.3 THE CORE, I DEMAND FROM THEE ZE SHADERZ AND MATRIXEZ"

My journals: dustArtemis ECS framework and Making a Terrain Generator

I cited you as a first-party source, unless you're lying I believe I'm correct.

The issues as I see them

1. You routinely fail to grasp the concept of what engines do different things, and yet you demand information be spoonfed so that you can teach others, instead of simply learning about the (not impossibly hard) tools people have explained to you over and over again.

2. You have no passion for games. This is self explanatory. You don't care about gaming. That's fine, unless you want to do something like teach game-related classes.

3. Have no knowledge of game development, yet constantly ask for tools that allow well-polished games to be made with no programming...

4. Don't seem to understand games yourself. Which is fine, why would you, unless you had a passion for games/game design.

Seriously, how can anyone suggest any course of action besides telling you to step down without a straight face? You'll be miserable spending years of your life learning/teaching something you have no passion for, your students will be miserable dealing with a teacher that doesn't share their passion (This is why I dropped out of highschool FYI), and your school district will suffer because people won't be interest in your classes.

You constantly bring up art in your posts. As in, you talk about art more than game dev.

So, go do art. Make sense?

Believe me when I say I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to let you understand that if you're not passionate about games, then your students will know WAY more about game design than you.

To put it into perspective, when I was your students age I had several thousand hours of experience working on hobby games/mods that were downloaded tens of thousands of times. What exactly would you offer to a passionate student in a similar situation? Would you care about his achievement? Of course not, because you're not passionate about games.

You're asking about creating a lesson plan about a field you know almost nothing about, nor care about, and have demonstrated such poor grasp of the concepts required to teach the subject that no one's even bothering to submit constructive criticism on your post.

Your lesson plan boils down to

1. Play board games in class (Another topic you admitted you have no passion for nor care about).

2. Draw characters then create those character in 3d (because 3d characters are so easy to create)

That's basically a full lesson plan for college-level courses, but then you keep going.

3. Teach game history/types of games, (when you clearly don't know anything about different genres of games, nor do you care about them.) also something about how science and art mix... Which means nothing.

4. Making a game (Because you might not care about games, but it's in the course name so I guess this game-making stuff will have to get in the way of your art class at least a bit!)

Why do you insist on doing this if it's clearly a field you don't care about/have no knowlege of?

What makes you more qualified to teach it compared to the students you're teaching?

Again:

[/quote] I don't care for video games in general [/quote]

So why are you trying to teach about game design instead of art, which is something you actually do seem to care about?

You are seeing things from a narrow perspective. I can't and don't need to go into all the reasons WHY I am going to teach this course. All I am asking is that if you have expertise, that you help me fill in the blanks. You will just have to trust me when I say the course will be awesome and I will teach it more dynamically than many high school teachers currently teaching game design all over the country because of the methodology I bring to my teaching. And again, if I am using an art angle (aesthetics), my approach will be way different from the typical teacher who just teaches this stuff vocationally (i.e. kids come in every day and just sit in front of a computer and make games).

No I don't have a passion for games, but I am approaching them as visual culture, which I do have a passion for. I am interested in how game imagery makes meaning and functions as a form of representation. The actual making of games is something that will engage the students, and bringing in a social justice approach shows kids that games can actually be productive, not just mindless entertainment.

I will teach it more dynamically than many high school teachers currently teaching game design all over the country because of the methodology I bring to my teaching.

Every teacher thinks they do that. What does teaching dynamically even mean in the context of teaching a technology discipline?

No I don't have a passion for games, but I am approaching them as visual culture, which I do have a passion for. I am interested in how game imagery makes meaning and functions as a form of representation. The actual making of games is something that will engage the students, and bringing in a social justice approach shows kids that games can actually be productive, not just mindless entertainment.

Ok then. Have fun. Just be aware you're teaching about something you know nothing about, nor care about, nor are willing to learn, nor understand the demographics or market demands of.

You care about art, yet you're demanding teaching games to spread a social goal of games being "productive" (whatever that means), when people play games for escapism/entertainment, when you also don't even care about the games you're trying to make "productive".

"I don't care about games, but I want to teach games to make games more productive!" is your reasoning. You think you can do it because you're "not like the other teachers" when you're clearly demonstrating that you're in fact just as dense as any generic-teacher stereotype your kids might have.

Also, for as much effort (Begging? Planning?) as you're putting into your lesson plan, you seem to be oblivious of how fast gaming changes. The ONLY way to keep up to date on game development and understand the market is to actually play new games until you understand why developers did what they did. I'm not talking sitting down and playing an hour or so a month, I mean playing darksouls/dragon's dogma for 20+ hours until you REALLY understand why movement feels clunky as a design, or why rolling will give you invulnerability frames.

Not only that, there's entire game design decisions that live and die in the span of a few years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_time_event#History

When you put yourself forward for a game design class, you'll get students that play games for 5-6~+ hours a day, and dealing with someone who has no passion for games will be immensely frustrating for them.

You'll frustrating yourself because you'll want to teach art, you'll frustrate your students who want to learn about games and not art (I'd be in this camp in your class), and you'll frustrate me about our educational system with your inability to comprehend these simple obvious truths despite bein able to (apparantly) maintain your job as a teacher.

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Just about everyone around here has plans for projects that they're so sure will be awesome. They usually ask for just a little help too. The responses to those requests aren't really that different than what you've gotten. Some are positive and some are negative and rarely does anyone get work done for free. The general idea being more to point people in the right direction and help them to learn for themselves. This is what you're up against.

If you want more than what you've gotten at this point, I recommend demonstrating that you've learned from the direction that you've been given so far.

I will teach it more dynamically than many high school teachers currently teaching game design all over the country because of the methodology I bring to my teaching.

Every teacher thinks they do that. What does teaching dynamically even mean in the context of teaching a technology discipline?

No I don't have a passion for games, but I am approaching them as visual culture, which I do have a passion for. I am interested in how game imagery makes meaning and functions as a form of representation. The actual making of games is something that will engage the students, and bringing in a social justice approach shows kids that games can actually be productive, not just mindless entertainment.

Ok then. Have fun. Just be aware you're teaching about something you know nothing about, nor care about, nor are willing to learn, nor understand the demographics or market demands of.

You care about art, yet you're demanding teaching games to spread a social goal of games being "productive" (whatever that means), when people play games for escapism/entertainment, when you also don't even care about the games you're trying to make "productive".

"I don't care about games, but I want to teach games to make games more productive!" is your reasoning. You think you can do it because you're "not like the other teachers" when you're clearly demonstrating that you're in fact just as dense as any generic-teacher stereotype your kids might have.

Also, for as much effort (Begging? Planning?) as you're putting into your lesson plan, you seem to be oblivious of how fast gaming changes. The ONLY way to keep up to date on game development and understand the market is to actually play new games until you understand why developers did what they did. I'm not talking sitting down and playing an hour or so a month, I mean playing darksouls/dragon's dogma for 20+ hours until you REALLY understand why movement feels clunky as a design, or why rolling will give you invulnerability frames.

Not only that, there's entire game design decisions that live and die in the span of a few years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_time_event#History

When you put yourself forward for a game design class, you'll get students that play games for 5-6~+ hours a day, and dealing with someone who has no passion for games will be immensely frustrating for them.

You'll frustrating yourself because you'll want to teach art, you'll frustrate your students who want to learn about games and not art (I'd be in this camp in your class), and you'll frustrate me about our educational system with your inability to comprehend these simple obvious truths despite bein able to (apparantly) maintain your job as a teacher.

All that means a lot coming from a high school dropout. Don't respond if you have nothing intelligent to contribute. Thank you!

*edit* why does google log me on this account after I come home from work *edit*

You're welcome. Sorry I have no valid input because I have a GED instead of a diploma... I wish I'd have stayed in High school and had great, knowledgeable dynamic teachers who prepare amazing lesson plans that truly show me how science and art mix into game design like yourself. Maybe then I'd know a thing or 2 about game design and implementing productive socially aware games that change the form of representation in genres with historically aware art that approaches subjects from a social justice perspective. That's exactly what the market's craving right now.

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