February 2019 – Mini Game Jam

Taking part for the first time – a teachers perspective

The final post from teachers comes from Donald Feist Principal Teacher Mosspark Primary School. I asked him why he was keen to be involved in the jams this year and what the benefits were for children and staff taking part. Looking forward to seeing this cluster lead the way with their jam

This year, I am involved in the Game Jam to not only bring it to my own learning community, but also to try and put an emphasis on staff development and CPD. Currently, developing our learner’s digital skills is something that many colleagues are not confident in. I hope that by getting involved and participating in fully resourced initiatives, such as the GameJam, staff will feel more confident to use the skills that they are developing to deliver high quality learning experiences in coding to develop digital literacy in their pedagogy.

The children will not only get to work with children from other schools that they are likely to be going to high school with, but they will have a comprehensive and progressive introduction to computer programming – learning skills and concepts that will enable them to more independently design and create their own games and programs.

Staff will receive CPD and be part of a team of educators that are all working to the same goal and who can support each other. They will also have access to myself and Amanda who can offer advice and possibly even model teaching in some cases. As I mentioned earlier, the lessons will be fully resourced and will hopefully aide not only the children, but the staff also.

I have contacted the schools in my local cluster, and will be leading a CPD session for Glasgow south. I have also developed the resources for the event along with Amanda and will be leading the Bellahouston GameJam. Whilst I have been working on coding with P7 – and indeed all classes in my school – I have not yet done the lessons for the GameJam, as I feel that it is important that it is our P7 class teachers that do these as part of their CLPL and experience of the GameJam.

Why should you get involved – teachers perspectives.

Two teachers who have been involved with the jams for a while kindly gave their feedback to share and encourage others as to why they should take part in the jams.

Stephen Gallagher is a music teacher and has been involved with the jams for over 5 years now. When he was teaching at Smithycroft Secondary School he undertook CPD so that he could then go on and teach Games design with Scratch to his 1st and 2nd year pupils during their elective period. This meant that the Secondary school also had a class of pupils to be put into teams with the primary pupils and worked really well. He felt that by taking part in the jam the pupils develop creativity and learn to work collegiality, as team members. The pupils also learn about the Games industry and get a chance to work with industry insiders. As we have had each year volunteers from the games industry and academia taking part to help the pupils. For teachers he seen it as an opportunity for them to learn about career paths and the games industry.

Angela Martin is a teacher at Alexandra Parade Primary and has been involved for the past couple of years with her classes and now getting prepared for this years event. She enjoys bringing them along and beforehand works with the class on their Scratch skills. She feels that the jam increases children’s motivation to learn and be involved with coding. Never a bad thing! By taking part she feels that she’s also learning from the children and is amazed at how quickly they pick up skills.

Why do the jams work?

Now that you know a little more about the Mini Jams I thought it would be useful to have teachers who’ve participated in the jams share their experience. Over the next few days I’ll share posts from 4 teachers 3 of whom have participated and one who is going to be leading an event this year.

Simon Kelly is the Head Teacher at Alexandra Parade Primary School and has been involved with the Mini Game Jam since the idea came about. Previously when he was at Royston Primary I approached in early 2013 with my idea for getting the P7’s of Royston & Carntyne together to have an event to celebrate the fact that my research had finished and they’d been working hard on making their own games throughout the research. After a lot of organisation the day of the event came and it was a fab day the kids had a ball and made some cool games in Scratch. Once that event had finished preperations began for the following year with the whole Smithycroft learning community taking part (once they’d heard how good it was). Now heading into the 7th event since that first one on 19th June 2013 I asked why his school is still participating which he has said that “it is a great way of engaging children in technology and coding in particular”.

The first Game Jam Winners June 2013

For him he sees the benefits for pupils as being “teamwork, being creative and working with technology, which helps them with their future employment skills”. While for staff, “it is a key element of the curriculum but also allows them to be creative in engaging children in their learning, as it can be used as part of IDL work in class”.

In 2016 we co-authored a paper that was presented at the European Conference for Games Based Learning to discuss how the Mini Jam was used as a transition event and it can be found here for those wishing to read further. Using Game Jams as a School Transition Event