Award Day and Leadership Training: Leaders of Today cultivating Leaders of Tomorrow

After spending four days with teachers, it was soon time to celebrate with the students. That means: The Globeys!

Who needs the Olympics when you have this?

For those who don’t know, The Globeys is Globaloria’s annual award ceremony for student games. We have a ceremony for each of the states we work with, this year’s being Texas, California, and West Virginia. Because Globaloria focuses on effort and creativity, we don’t solely look at whose games work the best. We look for a good idea, originality, education factor, and how much effort went into the production of the game. So, potential is just as important in doing well in this competition as quality would be.

The energy during the ceremony was fantastic! Everyone was very excited to be there. It was especially nice to see the smiling students and their hard work being shown off. In addition, for me, it was nice to see how everyone’s hard work – from the school’s side, with teachers, students, and administrators to the World Wide Workshop side, with Shannon, Denise, and many others – came together. It really helped me understand the impact that everyone’s roles have. Kudos to everyone making this all possible!

The Winners!

After the Globeys, we had another training session devoted to training administrators. We did not have them make games, but we did show them the tools they needed to support their teachers. It was nice to see the administrators take such an active role in Globaloria.

After getting the administrators up to speed, we all headed to the Leadership Inspiration Awards at the Caperton manor. Being a newcomer to Globaloria, it was a very eye-opening experience. Various principals and superintendents shared their Globaloria stories, which really showed me how devoted everyone was to the mission of Globaloria. Overall, the entire trip was amazing, and I encourage anyone that has an opportunity to go to a Globaloria training to go and do it!

- Jonathan

Training in Charleston, WV 2012

Hello everyone! My name is Jonathan, the new kid on the block running the Help Desk for Globaloria, among other things. To further facilitate my training, Shannon invited me to join her with her trip to Charleston, West Virginia. There I helped out with training both the new and returning educators of WV (and one from TX). It was a great time, and I have some neat pictures showcasing the busyness and energy of the event. I also stayed for the West Virginia Globies, which was a blast as well! Without further ado, let’s get started!

CA Summer Training Academy - Day Two & Three!

Educators working hard on their games

Phew! We just finished day three of our California Summer Training Academy at the Krause Center for Innovation, here's a recap of the past two days. On Sunday, our superstar educators worked on converting their paper prototypes into drawings in flash, and adding game ingredients to make their Hidden Object Games come to life!

Mentor Educator Bill Dorsey and his presentation group

On Monday, all educators broke up into groups and presented their final games and their projects pages, showing all the hard work they did so far. We were so impressed by all the awesome games and ideas that we saw. Can't wait to see what their students come up with!

Shannon Sullivan and her presentation group

Looking forward to tomorrow, when we'll go over all the awesome new tools you can use to manage your Globaloria class!

Whee Training!!

April 10 Mini Workshop Tonight at 6pm EST!

Hi Everybody!

Wanted to send out a reminder about the Mini Workshop we have planned for tonight where we will be answering all your questions! Having trouble with something in Flash? Questions about anything else? Now is your chance to ask! You can post questions in the comments of this post even if you can't attend tonight and we will still answer them for you to see in the recording!

We will be meeting TONIGHT on Adobe Connect at 6pm EST. Here is the link again.
http://globaloria.adobeconnect.com/meet

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

-Yvonne

Tales from Texas

The Foundation team had an amazing time working with a new group of educators in Austin, TX at the East Austin College Prep Academy. I didn't have the pleasure to be on board when you all were first learning the program, but based on your stories about it, the TX educators were very much in the "what-have-I-gotten-myself-into?" frame of mind you all talked about. It was a great help to have Ingrida Barker from Sandy River Middle School come along with us and train this new group in Flash. It was only a year ago that Ingrida was learning Flash for the first time, and now she's looked to as an expert by a whole new group of Globaloria participants. Peer educating is a big part of the Globaloria philosophy, and that goes for the teachers as much as the students!

We can't wait to see how you've all when we return to West Virginia in August. Thanks to those of you who have been updating your blogs with such insightful stories and useful links. I encourage all of you to keep reading and commenting on each others' posts and stay on top of your blog! It won't be long before you'll be trying to generate a blogosphere in your own classroom and your personal experience maintaining one yourself will count for a lot.

Your GB,
Rachel

Flash Skills: Use it or Lose It

It is really important that you go back into your Flash files and work on your games as much as you can. You know as educators, when you are trying to learn new skills that you may not have a lot of experience in, you need to just put in some real time "hacking" around. Just becoming familiar with the Flash user experience is important.

Here is a little flash movie I just made for you to check out. It is nothing more the buttons on layers over a screencap. You all know how to do that. You can make a lot of creative things just with this basic technique. Try it... hand draw a game interface and scan it or take a digital picture. Paste the image in Flash and lay buttons over each area explaining the interface. Remember to put your buttons on different layers.


(note: flash object may not appear in your email, go to the blog page to see it.)

Scroll your mouse over the different areas of the picture and learn what that area is called.

I hope that you are using it... your flash skill... so you don't lose it.

Good Luck!

Flash Animation in a Game

Here is a great example of a frame by frame animation that one of our educators put together this week in our workshop. This animation was part of a great game that allows the learner to consider the important balance needed in life between protecting our environment and having the energy our world needs to maintain our needs and healthy lifestyles.



Flash File is Here.

The technique is to actually change the assets (in this case the wheels, truck bed, and coal) in scene on defined keyframes. This allows the game developer to create the illusion of animation.

Flash Tip: How to create a Score Counter

Student Asks:

I need to know how to get a score counter to go up when my rabbit collects a carrot.


Developer Response:

Setup a variable outside of any function so that all scripts can access it.

var scoreAmt:Number;

Create a dynamic text field in the stage and give it a name(score).

http://smartwebby.com/Flash/text_basics.asp

Add to or subtract from scoreAmt.

scoreAmt += 5; //adds 5
scoreAmt -=5; //subtracts 5

Set the text to the variable.

score = scoreAmt;

Note:There are two ways to set a value to a text field. The tutorial shows the old way of using the var in the Properties box. The new way is to name the text field through the Instance box. In that case you will set it's contents like this. You only need to use one method.

score.text = scoreAmt.


Can any one add to this?

Score, Timer, and Collision: Flash Code Examples

This was Bill's question...

Does anyone have actionscript coding for a game timer (countdown), score keeper (hittest), and drawing walls that stop character movement that work in FLASH MX2004? My kids had started their game on that platform and those are the last 3 major issues to make a fully functional game.

[[Bill]] 15:59, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

I was wondering if anyone out there could point us to some good code examples? These are very common game elements so am thinking it would be great collect several examples around each concept. I posted here first, now I will go and search around the web. I'll let you know if I find anything.

Game Movement Trouble

UpDate: We have already identified the issue here. It is great to see the community support address the issues quickly. It was a cut and paste issue.

I received this email today and I looking for some of you who have already worked through this process to help out....

Some of the students are having problems with the coding in Animation I, Elementary Programming. For example, (Cradox) cannot get the code from the game, Game Movement [the basics] - Part 1 to work properly. The game will execute on the website, but the code does not seem to work for them. [One student] will be putting a copy of his game with errors on his wiki page under the heading Animation 1. Could someone take a look at it and see what may be the problem?

Some of the other students have tried various segments in the Elementary Programming, but have the same problems. They were wondering if it could possibly be because they are using a different version of Flash.

I am posting the issue here on my blog so that anyone who might have already run into this issue can offer some support. Maybe you have already worked through the tutorial or you use a different version of Flash. Or maybe you can just offer a word of encouragement.

So if you are within a hyperlink of this problem.... lend a hand?

How to Publish a Flash File

If any of you are just starting to use Flash and are wondering how to publish your Flash file, here is a video (screencast) that will walk you through the process. It is really not that hard of a skill, but if you have never done it before, you may wonder why there are two files, (fla and swf) and why Publish is different then Save.

Well, watch this video, then go to the Text tutorial and work through it. It gives a quick explanation. Good Luck!

P.S. I need to learn how to embed a Flash file into my blog. That way you can watch it here. Anyone out there know how to do this?

Instructor Tutorials: A How to Movie on Flash

Yesterday I highlighted a tutorial developed by a Globaloria student. Today, I wanted to point out that you can also get a lot of Flash resources from the Instructors. Here is a video tutorial on how to create a button in Flash. It was built by Patrick Smith at MCTC and posted on his wiki page.

Education of the Students, For the Students, By The Students

The title might be a little hookey, but it kind of captures the idea of what we are going for here. Yeager33 at MCTC actually "jumped into" Action Script 3 for flash. He worked through the approach and decided to create his own tutorial and share it on the wiki.

This is the first one.

Displaying a Block

• 1. Open a new Flashfile(ActionScript 3.0)
• 2. Create a rectangle and convert it to a movieclip

   Using the Rectangle tool create a new rectangle,Use selection tool and group the rectangle together
  Right click the rectangle and select Convert to Symbol..
  In the Convert to Symbol dialog box Enter Block in the Name: textfield
  Select the radio button for Movie Clip
  Click the Advanced button
  Under Linkage select the Export for ActionScript checkbox
  (this will also check the Export in first frame button Leave it checked)
  Click Ok
  ActionScript Class warning message box will pop up Select Ok

After converting to symbol make sure your stage is clear

• 3. ActionScript Code

Select frame 1 right click and select Actions from drop down menu or press F9 to open Actions window In the Actions window type

  import flash.display.*;
 import flash.events.Event;

This basically lets flash know that we will be working with display objects and events so it can load the code to handle these things.

• Next we want to define a variable to represent our display object in this case the block we created

  var myBlock:DisplayObject= new Block()

• At this point we have a variable(myBlock) representing our display object

We can now use ActionScript to alter the display object properties of our variable Let us set the starting point for myBlock before we draw it to the screen

 myBlock.x=300
myBlock.y=200

• Now we create myBlock on screen

this.addChild(myBlock)

• Publish preview and you should now have a block sitting on screen at the (X,Y) position that you specified.

This may not seem like much right now, however we now have the ability to change properties of our object with ActionScript code

Go check out his page for the others.

A Globaloria First From Man WV

I have to share this, because it is so cool and it happened yesterday and I wanted to blog about it then, and I got so busy today....... anyway... check this out.




Aleigha who is participating in Man WV, loaded a digital image and has started to build a game around this interface. As far as I know, and I would love for someone to point it out if I am wrong, this is our first instance of using existing digital photography for the game interface.

Way to go... I hope that others begin to explore this option for game interfaces as well.

The Line Game: It is so cool!

You have got to try this Flash-based game. Check out the interface and the controls.

Overview of Flash: Technical and Creative Skills

One of the challenges opportunities of the MyGLife project is that everyone involved has to learn to Flash. If you are not familiar, Flash is a software tool that allows people to develop graphics, animations, and complex interactions that can be accessed on the web. The tool itself comes from two historical needs, 1) to add interactive content on the web and 2) to display interactive content in a "light-weight" manner. Light-wight means that you don't have to sit and wait for the content to download over the network. Flash excels at both of these.

To be a flash developer you actually have to wear a few different hats. There is a technical side and a creative side. For our conversation we will talk about the very basics of Flash and how we can start to think about creating a game in Flash.

On the technical side, you have to understand a little about the authoring environment that is the Flash software. It has a few key concepts that are important.

It has a stage. The stage is where all the information will be presented. It is what is viable to the audience or those that will view your finished content.

It has a timeline. This is the timing of the presentation on the stage. The timeline is broken into frames. The frames represent a unit of time that is defined by you. i.e. 24 frames per second.

There are keyframes. Keyframes represent a change that occurs on the stage. If you want something to move or change color or make a sound, you initiate or start that with a keyframe.

There are objects that go on the stage. The objects are the items that are placed on the stage. Flash provides some really cool ways to make objects efficient and it is important that you spend a little time learning about that.

There are buttons. Buttons allow the viewer (user, learner, gamer) to interact with an object on the stage. You can use buttons to create a branch in a story, gain insight from the user, or move throughout the timeline.

Watch this video about creating a button. It is about 9 minutes long and see if you can spot the stage, timeline, objects, and of course the botton (which will be quite easy.)




On the creative side, you have to think about what you want your content, i.e. objects on the stage, to look like, interact with the user, and with each other. You also need to create how the user navigates the game. You are basically the creator of an environment. You manipulate the objects to appear on the stage. We have seen this picture before, but it is a created environment.



Your goal as the developer is to create a game that removes the user from the "stage" and places them inside the environment. But don't worry you don't have to have Hollywood-skills to accomplish this goal. You just have to have a understanding of design.

Check out this really creative environment done in Flash. (Warning: stick people die in video.)

New Techsupport Page in Educator's Wiki

On Friday Denise and I worked to upgrade the Flash software on her Macs and ran into some issues. (of course) I captured the issues and started a Techsupport page. Hint: the trick is a clean up script that Adobe has made to clean up their messes.

How to Trim the Tree: In Flash

So, one of the perks of my new job as the West Virginia Program Manager, is that I get to go around and meet really cool students and their pretty cool teachers. Sorry teachers, the students really are a little cooler. So Friday I drove up to Wheeling and met with some wonderful students from Crittenton. These young lady's are becoming real Flash developers and I have proof. Here are the rocking Christmas trees that they created....







Click the trees to go see how the work in Flash.

How did they do that? You ask... well they combined the drawing tutorial and the space ship tutorial to create a cool new project for the holiday season. Considering that these students are only working two evenings a week on this project. Man, they are doing great!

Great job! I can't wait to see what they are going to come up with next!

I'll also mentioned that one young lady showed me a new Flash game she found on the web, but more about that later.

Flash Examples: The Makings of a Game

The Globaloria project is about acquiring the knowledge and skills to create a game that can make a change. To do this you have to "dig in" and start learning. There is no cramming at the end, you have to start thinking about your project and using the tools that are going to make it happen. For our students, this is about collaborating, brainstorming, working with images and designs, and about learning Flash. I am learning this really quickly as I come up to speed with our students projects. Check out this project by our student at MTC.



If you follow the link by clicking on the house you can check out the animation. There is a lot that goes into the design and animation of a small Flash project like this one. Building these smaller projects give us a basic understanding. Then we start to combine ideas, techniques, and technologies to build a game.

Stay tuned (or connected) we are going to be looking a lot more examples and ideas for all of our students that are participating in Globaloria-WV.