Teach with Portals

Lisa Castaneda

• M. Ed. and BS in Psychology• Educator in grades K-8 for nine years• Currently teaches math, 6-8th

• Uses Steam, Steam for Schools, Xbox and PC based games in the classroom on a regular basis

Geoff Moore

• BA in Political Science (it’s relevant I swear)• Founder of FantasEsports • Business Development at RQM• Contributor to Data Mined-Out• CMF Funded App Designer• I play games, read comics and fight for the

social acceptance of the onesie.

School Field Trip

Kids using Hammer to design levels…

complex, but a success.

Valve’s Support

www.teachwithportals.com

Successful Partnerships

• Educators often look for experts to bring in (engineers, financial services, academics, etc.)

• Gaming in schools functions the same way• Collaboration between educators and gamers,

game developers, entrepreneurs, is key• The insights gained by teaming up together

result in excellent experiences for all involved

All lessons we’ve posted

• Meet Common Core Standards• Include lesson objectives, teaching notes• Support images and student sheets• Have been used with middle school students

What is Broken Levels?

•Make the editor part of the game•Problem solve the cruxes•Limitations foster creativity•No correct solutions or answer keys•It’s a living curriculum that has changedbased on student feedback, and our observations.

Broken Levels First Room

• You can add no assets to this room.

• How would you solve it?

Other Rooms•Some rooms require adding assets, some manipulating•Students would find completely outside the box solutions, which is amazing.

•We started stumping each other in room design. •Lisa spent awhile trying to figure this one out. •I don’t remember how to solve it now, but that doesn’t matter.

What we discovered….

• Some students really struggled with confidence issues

• There were barriers to successful use of the PuzzleMaker, even with prior Portal2 exposure

• We wanted to minimize this and put kids on a more level playing field

Our solution…write another lesson

• Subject: Math/game design• Title: Aperture Science Training Program• Author: Lisa Castaneda and Geoff Moore

Grade Level: 6th

• Common Core Standards :• Solve real-world and mathematical problems

involving area, surface area, and volume.

• A scalable tutorial pack

• Help them to gain familiarity

• Assist students with strategy

An example of how it works• Test Chamber 1: Portals make great holes

• Create a test chamber that is rectangular, with a length of 10 cubic units and a width of 8 cubic units, leave the height the same

• Move the observation room to the opposite wall but in the same position (a mirror image)

• From the asset panel, select a Pedestal button. Place it 4 units over and 3 units down from the exit door

• Right click on the Pedestal button…change the time on the timer to 10 seconds• Right click again on the Pedestal button, click “Connect to” and drag the dotted

line to the exit door (a heart should appear over the door)• • Have your Test Chamber Buddy verify that your room meets the required

qualifications.• What do you anticipate will happen when you play this room?

Accessing a different set of skills

• Ok, now the training regimen is going to be slightly different. You will receive screenshots of a room. You must replicate the room, use the asset panel to create a playable room, play it and see what you learn about the game.

The Outcome

• All students gained new skills, even those with experience

• Significant improvement in gender skill balance• Students expressed that they felt more

confident moving forward in their room building

• We’d like to try with adults, often inexperienced adult gamers have a more challenging time than students

Human Aperture Labs Comm. System

• Students were directing our development with feedback

• After every class we were reworking and rebuilding the lessons.

• We gave them control during the lesson• A/B instructional process between two kids– Think Battleship, without bombs or Rihanna– It demonstrated even further not traditional

application.

What does H.A.L look like?

Skill Ceiling

H.A.L.

• As they worked – Developed language and shared reference points– Identified problem areas– Working with partners of differing skillsets

• In Reflection– Collected data on all the rooms– Identified similarities & anomalies– Discussed how language both helped and

hindered their progress

Why go to all this trouble?

All of this stuff takes time and a lot of effort

Kid Quotes

“Oh-no! You can’t have that there…there’s deadly goo, it won’t work!”“It’s gonna work. Well, maybe. Let’s see.”“I keep getting sooo annoyed when I hear other people talk about their solutions, I want to figure it out on my own!”“Ugh. I didn’t even think of changing the timer like she did.”

Education through gaming helps us to create the kinds of thinkers we say we want for the 21st

century. Creative, communicative, enthusiastic, dedicated thinkers with that gamer mentality

that doesn’t allow for just quitting.

A proven fact…

Lisa’s Master’s research projectKids in the Portal2 group:

• Spent more time on assignments and felt the time spent was more useful

• Did additional work that was not required• Demonstrated the same level of

understanding as those that did traditional work

Transfer of knowledge…an interesting conundrum

Some things innately transfer very well, parabolic motion is a good example.

Others needed more explaining

Students needed more explicit help understanding that what they did in the game

looks different on a paper test.

Beyond the Standards

• Critical thinking• Logical thinking• Sequencing• Strategy• Communication• Collaboration• Opportunity to be creative

Where we’d like to go…

• Other games…not just STEM subjects (give example of foreign language teacher)

• Gender in gaming (Chell not in the Puzzle Maker?)

• Other games in classroom…we learn the most from other people (kids, especially…their ideas for Just Dance 4, Burnout, etc.)

We need your help

• Anytime we talk to other people, we get better ideas.

• If you’re an educator reach out to friends to help collaborate on your own design

• If you’re a gamer/nerd/geek reach out to educators on getting involved

• You can do this and it’ll be awesome!