Posts on “ Global kids ”

On February 13th, BrainPOP was thrilled to host student leaders from Global Kids and Mouse Squad for a “serious game jam” at BrainPOP Headquarters.  During the 2 hour event, student leaders from Global Kids led a “grow a game” activity that encouraging their peers to consider the role of values in the games they know and love.  Next, in small groups, students playtested and manipulated “Buckets” a new categorization and relationship assessment game that we’re developing here at BrainPOP. The student input was phenomenal, they provided all sorts of creative ideas for how to change the mechanics, data and interface to make the game more fun, effective and useful for the classroom. At BrainPOP we host events like this for a number of reasons.  First of all it’s wonderful to provide opportunity for students to learn about the process of game design from professionals in the field.  Second it’s great for our designers at BrianPOP to get authentic feedback and suggestions directly from the most important members of our audience: students! You can’t build a successful game without concrete feedback from your audience.   Finally, it’s through events like this that connect students, teachers, parents, and professionals with shared interests… Read the Rest»

Today marks day 4 of the week long marathon known as the Global Education Conference!  Here are some highlights from BrainPOP’s Games and Learning Strand. At 8:00AM, Join Danny Fain, STEM Teacher-in-Residence, Learning Games Network and Michael Suen, Community Producer, Learning Games Network for Collaborative Game Development Tools and Projects.  This session will explore how game design and production are emerging as an effective way to engage students across the curriculum. At 11:00 AM ET, tune into Prelude To Collaboration: A Global Learning Game in which Dr. Howard B. Esbin, PhD will present an overview of a powerful global learning game called Prelude. Prelude fosters self-knowledge, empathy, creativity, and collaboration. At 3:00 PM, Join Daria Ng and Joliz Cedeño , from Global Kids for a session called: Developing Global Citizenship Skills Through Game Design in which they will explore how serious games and game design can be used as a way to educate and engage youth about global issues and civic engagement, while enhancing their real-world problem solving skills. These 3 session are only a small sampling of the dozens planned for Thursday! Check out the rest of the schedule and get your PD on!

Game nights have been bringing people together for generations, and recently BrainPOP collaborated with our friends from YouPD to host our very own!  The evening included game play, of course, and presentations from NewVisions, the MIT Education Arcade and Global Kids, to more than 50 teachers, administrators, non-profits employees. First,  Scot Osterweil, Creative Director at the MIT Education Arcade, shared how play is at the root of human nature and learning, yet it’s not honored within the US educational system.  He continued by describing how play is at the root of many well designed educational games including his own Lure of the Labyrinth which we played collaboratively with the entire group! Grand Theft Calculus it was not Next Barry Joseph, Online Leadership Director at Global Kids,  along with two youth leaders, Ednica and Kendell,  presented on the process of designing games in their after school class, specifically “Playing for Peace” with Gamestar Mechanic.   They are currently challenging young game designers to create games with social impact about the causes and effects of war around the world.  Get your students involved by clicking the link above. Next Hsing Wei from NewVisions showed off Hackasaurus from Mozilla, demonstrating how the thoughtful “x-ray goggles”… Read the Rest»