Flash educational game competition

Cambridge ESOL is offering a 32" television and PS3 as first prize in their competition to design an educational game in Flash for 10-12 year-olds who are learning English as a second language. Sony PSP consoles are offered as runner-up prizes.

Ian Cook, of Cambridge ESOL says:

"Creative approaches to education are so important when teaching children new skills. We’re looking for simple, fun games that will motivate children to learn and practise their English – a skill that will be of use to them their entire lives".

Competition judges include Gareth Hughes, Senior Designer at Sony Computer Entertainment's Cambridge Studio, Steve Harris of Anglia Ruskin University and Bafta-nominated games designer Dan Mayers of UCS.

The competition is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students at UK universities. The closing date is 20th May 2010.

Further details are available here; here are the rules and the entry form is here.

Suffolk eLearning Forum

As well as the talks, there were some student games on show, both complete games from some of the L2 and L3 design and programming students, and paper prototypes of games being developed by the L1 Computer Games Design group. The Curiosity Collective were showing some of their curios (I liked the proverb generator) and Matthew Applegate had an installation running too.

Sum Leaping

The Search for The Bloodstone

Sarah and Michael's Picnic

Captured

Dragon School

Whisper Village

Curiosity Collective

Matthew Applegate (Pixelh8)

Suffolk eLearning Forum

There was a great turnout, interesting speakers and a nice set of prototypes of student games on show at the today's Suffolk eLearning event.

Scott Hewitt of RealProjects kicked off the talks with an overview of the development of elearning, from screen -> screen -> test type-scenarios to current developments that make use of 3D game engines, not to mention a variety of portable devices, including familiar pocket-fillers such as the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP and the Apple iPhone, as well as some examples of how Wii-controller technlogy is being harnessed for training and educational use.

Scott Hewitt has posted his presentation on the RealPrtojects website. View it here: Games-Based Learning. Other resources are also available on the RealProjects site: http://www.realprojects.co.uk/gamebasedlearning/

Dan Mayers and Adam Mayes's presentation on Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) was really interesting and thought provoking. I'm not that familiar with the concept of ARG-ing beyond it involving some running around and "doing stuff" IRL, but the presentation suggested how ARG-ing can bring a whole new lease of life to things like field trips and guided walks. There are some great integrational (is that a word?) possibilities, directing users/players to online content--web pages, information, clues, video etc.--using QR codes and mobile phones. Truly fascinating stuff.

Adam wasn't physically present--he was in Denmark, so it was great that he took part via Skype with nary a hitch (I've been to several tech-focussed conferences where the inevitable technical hitch leads to non-ironic whoops from the audience after someone gets on stage and manages to get the speaker's Mac to connect to the internet via wifi. Adam's link-up today was so seamless that no-one noticed or, if they did, they were all too cool to whoop or make a fuss).

There was some concern about Matthew Applegate as his last known contact with the world was a tweet last night to say that he was feeling poorly, but he nonchalantly arrived, bang on time, with a laptop and a carrier bag and talked about the decline of programming in the school curriculum and went on to make some suggestions about some ways people could get coding (eg: scratch, squeak, atmosphir, processing) and he also mentioned some projects that will bring basic--beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code--to some popular consoles.

Games Based Learning

Some of the level three students on the Computer Games Design and Computer Games Programming courses will be showing some of their key Stage 1 games at the forthcoming Games-Based Learning event to be held at the UCS Waterfront building, 2.00-5.00 on 11th November 2009 in collaboration with Real Projects. Student games on show include Bloodstone, Sum Leaping and Music Man. Additional information about the event can be found on the Suffolk eLearning Forum website.

Some of the level one Computer Games Design students are preparing paper prototypes for the event. I've had a sneak preview of some of the artwork and it's incredibly good. The other thing that's stunning is that the level one students have only been on the course for six weeks and they are getting stuck-in to the development of their games for Key Stage 1 (that's for children aged between five and seven for anyone unfamiliar with the terminology of primary education in the UK). When the level one students' games have been finished, they will be exhibited at a different event.

Other exhibitors/speakers include the delightfully madcap mob known as The Curiosity Collective; the prolific chip-tuner Matthew Applegate (aka Pixelh8); our own Dan Mayers, games designer Adam Mayes, and Scott Hewitt from Real Projects.

Here are some sneak preview images from one of the prototypes: