March to the End

With only a 4 days left in the 3rd nine weeks, we are quickly approaching our game presentation deadline. So most of my goals this quarter are going to aimed at helping my students complete their games and have their presentations in order.
My personal goals this quarter are 1)Blog more and try to promote more blogging outside of the classroom. At this stage of the class, I would like the students to blog about problems they are having or topics they would like to cover in class. This would allow me to have problem specific classes. 2)To guide my students to get their wikis in order and 3)to help my students gather there presentation materials and practice presenting in front of people.

False Sense of Security

It has been a difficult transition back in the routine. Things seem to be coming together a little too easy. I'm waiting for something bad to happen.Team Might Avengers seem to have everything in order to start putting their game together. Team somethingtrippy seem to be making it to school on a regular basis (except Pat who is always here) and producing a solid game platform. They should be ready to start putting their game together soon. Team THP changed topics but produced more work in 1 class period than they had in weeks of treading water on their first game idea. And lastly, team Architecture who resisted the game design have embraced the idea and are producing quality work at a fast pace. I hope to post their paper prototypes Friday for the world to see.
I hope that nothing else bad happens to slow the students down like 20 more snow days.

Blessing in Disguise

Before you start throwing things just here me out. I think all of these snow days have been a blessing in disguise. All of this time off has seemed to set a fire under my students' butts. I think I have gotten more production in the few days that we have been in school this quarter than I did in the first semester. I really appreciate the effort that my students,you guys,have been putting into this experience.
I think the break give me a chance to assess how I need to approach teaching this class. Trying to present the "facts" about what we are learn wasn't working. I think getting so far into our games and then having a massive break give you time to come with questions about what you want to do with your game. I did good bit of reading on Flash during the snow days and I think that time spent alone with the program didn't give me all of the answers but it enabled me to have a better of how to point you in the right direction. I hope I can continue to stay ahead of the curve now that we are back to school.......