The Cre8us Way – Alex Woolner, January 2012

The cre8us way Kids, brains and video games - Dr Alex Woolner, January 2012 Our children are growing up digital. It pervades their lives as entertainment, information and interfaces. Their parents and siblings work with it, manipulate it and socialise through it. Information arrives through screens and speakers. Control comes via touch screens, game pads, keyboards and mice. The media is rich and engaging, accessible and interactive. But the digital experience of many pupils in today’s primary schools is vastly different to what they have access to with friends and family. All too often a primary school’s ICT suite consists of some fusty old pc’s which reluctantly grind into operation. Trolleys of laptops that have to be booked out and shared between classes across the week. And whilst smart boards are a welcome addition to the classroom, they are largely a teaching aid rather than a hands on piece of equipment for pupils. Generally pupils have one scheduled ICT lesson a week, and the confidence of staff to deliver these is highly variable depending on their own skills and experience. The result is that a generation of digital consumers is growing up without the opportunity to learn how to work with and produce the content for which they have such an appetite. This extends into Secondary and Higher education and finally the job market where there is a shortfall in the number of computer literate workers available, notably with programming skills. With the support of Cre8us, pandigital has, over a five year period, had the opportunity to introduce a range of digital media practice into primary schools including image making, video, animation and sound production, and appropriating innovative interfaces such as computer vision and the wii remote for educational purposes. Guided by staff and practitioners, these projects have been largely pupil led, and they have shown us their ability to take on these skills and tools to produce thoughtful and vibrant work. For one of our final projects with Cre8us, pandigital teamed up with Ashley Brown of helloworld to work with two classes of year 5 and 6 pupils at Corpus Christi primary school in Coventry. The brief, to enable the pupils to produce video games. Unsurprisingly the idea for the project came from the pupils, and their enthusiasm for the work was evident from the first day to the final show, when their parents and friends were invited to come and play the games that they had produced.

The Cre8us Way – Alex Woolner, January 2012

Video games can be anathema in schools. Too much time in front of a screen and a lack of fresh air and exercise. Inappropriate content for young minds and no educational purpose. Perhaps more pressing is that most primary school teachers have little interest or time to play video games, let alone make them. And yet the pupils we worked with talked about how much they had learned; How they employed teamwork; How they had taken work home to carry on; How they had shared their new knowledge with siblings. Schools have a massive opportunity to harness this eagerness and energy and invest it into many areas of the pupil’s curriculum. The trick is to empower staff to be able to do this. The willingness of Corpus Christi staff and pupils in this one short project started to illustrate what could be possible.

Games tell stories. Just as children read and write stories, their literacy skills can be brought forth to create video game scenarios. A good teacher will lead their class away from the regurgitation of cliché video game themes, illustrating that games can tell any story they choose, not just what is available through their favourite console. Games are based on systems. Children learn to sequence events. If this, then

that. If I press Spacebar then my character jumps. If my character eats an apple then they gain health. If my score is greater than theirs I win the match. These are the beginnings of game logic, simple and understandable, yet capable of increasing complexity involving various numeracy skills. Games are artistic. Characters and environments must be designed. Colour palettes must be thought about. Sound effects, music and dialogue can all be composed and recorded. Games are interactive. We must consider why someone would want to play our game. What emotions we hope to evoke at different moments and how we might do this. We should consider how our players will interact with our game, what choices they have, what buttons they press if any. Making games is a collaborative process. We all have different skills which we recognise in each other. Groups of game developers should organise themselves so that the right people are working on the aspect of the project best suited to them, understanding that their work will contribute to a greater whole. The ability to lead, follow and communicate well within these groups is essential. All of these skills were demanded of and demonstrated by the young pupils at Corpus Christi, which is credit to their teachers and parents as well as their own innate ability to

The Cre8us Way – Alex Woolner, January 2012

engage through a medium with which they were very familiar. The satisfaction for myself and Ashley was in lifting the veil between playing and creation. Showing the workings behind the experience and thus giving the pupils the means to deconstruct and be critical of the games they so avidly play. Having worked on several video game projects with young people, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been told about aspirations to work in the video game industry. And why not, in 2010 the UK spent nearly £2 billion on games software alone. There are jobs out there for the talented and motivated. There are over a hundred game design courses in Higher education. How we prepare our young students for this new landscape at both Primary and Secondary levels needs to be addressed. The skills learned will be transferable to many relevant employment opportunities. My belief and hope is that the work we have achieved with Cre8us in game design is preemptive of the kinds of projects that will one day be common place in schools, as today’s young people start to inform tomorrow's education. ------ Dr Alex Woolner works in the fields of game design, digital media and education. With Cre8us he worked on several projects including The Imaginator. He is currently conducting research on behalf of Coventry University’s Serious Games Institute, as well continuing his role as creative director at pandigital. He can be contacted at alex at pandigital dot org dot uk

Email: alex@pandigital.org.uk

Website: www.pandigital.org.uk

Supporting documents - Photos x 8

• Corpus Christi Primary School, 2010