Design Your Own Games and Activities


Book Description

Smart trainers know that games and activities can involve adults in learning like no other instructional method and no one knows more about games than Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan. In this must-have resource, Thiagi shows you how to customize more than thirty different kinds of games -- games that fit the circumstances perfectly and that can be designed in mere minutes.




Video Games


Book Description

Catch a glimpse inside a school bus and you’ll see lots of kids looking down. What are they doing? They’re deciding on strategy, building cities, setting traps for monsters, sharing resources, and nurturing critical relationships. Over 90 percent of kids ages 2–17 play video games. In Video Games: Design and Code Your Own Adventure, young readers learn why games are so compelling and what ancient games such as mancala have in common with modern games like Minecraft. Kids will even create their very own video games using software such as MIT's Scratch! Using a familiar, high-interest subject, Video Games introduces foundation subjects such as geometry, physics, probability, and psychology in a practical framework. Building Tetris pieces out of Rice Crispie Treats and designing board games are some of the hands-on projects that engage readers’ building skills, while writing actual game code opens digital doors readers may not have known existed.




LEGO Make Your Own Movie


Book Description

With this complete kit, kids can make LEGO animations (or brick flicks ) quickly and successfully. The ten Mini Movies walk you through making short, funny clips with step-by-step instructions. Use your phone, tablet or computer to get started. For movie-makers intimidated by the blank page, this book includes endless mix-and-match story starter ideas to kickstart your creativity. Real animator-approved ideas and inspiration cover more advanced skills such as lighting, scenery, sound effects and different camera angles.




Game Logic


Book Description

What's your favorite game to play? Making a game is a creative, logical, even scientific activity! In Game Logic: Level Up and Create Your Own Games with Science Activities for Kids, middle schoolers learn how games work and even design their own games. Hands-on gaming projects, essential questions, links to primary sources, and more get kids thinking analytically about the games they love.




Create Computer Games


Book Description

PUT DOWN YOUR CONTROLLER Why just play videogames when you can build your own game? Follow the steps in this book to learn a little about code, build a few graphics, and piece together a real game you can share with your friends. Who knows? What you learn here could help you become the next rock-star video- game designer. So set your controller aside and get ready to create! Decipher the code build some basic knowledge of how computer code drives videogames Get animated create simple graphics and learn how to put them in motion Update a classic put your knowledge together to put your modern twist on a classic game




The EducatorÕs Guide to Designing Games and Creative Active-Learning Exercises


Book Description

EveryÊeducator’s imaginative instincts will be guided by this bookÕs practical designÊmethod, which harnesses the power of play for student learning. Teachers from all disciplines and levels can create a full spectrum of engaging exercises through the authors’ six accessible ALLURE steps: Ask where to apply the play. List the mental moves. Link the mental moves to the play. Understand how the learning principles operate. Run the activity-game. Evaluate the learner experience. Along with principles from game-based learning pedagogy, readers will explore a framework of original complex mechanic teaching templates, which will help their fledgling instructional activities cross the bridge into fully formed games. Beginners and veterans will find multiple entry points, from adding a single playful element (student roles to discussions) to more elaborate designs (riddles and simulations). They will also learn different levels of producing physical tabletop components (cards, boards, plastic pieces) or light digital options (discussion board riddles, Google Slides games). Born from the authors’ extensive experiences running professional development workshops, this guide has been frequently requested by teachers at the secondary school and college levels, librarians, instructional designers, and others caught by the allure of educational games and play. Book Features: Offers hands-on, practical advice about how to be more playful with your students, with a focus on nondigital activities and games.Written in the language of instructional design, so advanced knowledge about games or technology is not required.Provides creative instructional techniques that will boost student engagement for both in-person and online instruction.Includes more than two dozen original illustrations and designs to aid understanding. Addresses the need for accessible, inclusive learning environments.




Game Logic


Book Description

This book takes kids on a journey to discover the history of games, and then leads them from their initial idea for a new game through several iterations of a game all the way to playing the final version of a game they created. Explore the processes of both playing and creating games while developing critical and creative thinking skills that apply to tasks and concepts across academic fields. -- adapted from back cover.




Educational Game Design Fundamentals


Book Description

Can we learn through play? Can we really play while learning? Of course! But how?! We all learn and educate others in our own unique ways. Successful educational games adapt to the particular learning needs of their players and facilitate the learning objectives of their designers. Educational Game Design Fundamentals embarks on a journey to explore the necessary aspects to create games that are both fun and help players learn. This book examines the art of educational game design through various perspectives and presents real examples that will help readers make more informed decisions when creating their own games. In this way, readers can have a better idea of how to prepare for and organize the design of their educational games, as well as evaluate their ideas through several prisms, such as feasibility or learning and intrinsic values. Everybody can become education game designers, no matter what their technical, artistic or pedagogic backgrounds. This book refers to educators and designers of all sorts: from kindergarten to lifelong learning, from corporate training to museum curators and from tabletop or video game designers to theme park creators!




English Language Learners: Vocabulary Building Games & Activities, Ages 4 - 8


Book Description

Instill a love of language in English Language Learners in grades PK–3 using Vocabulary Building Games and Activities. This 240-page book helps students build vocabulary to become successful English speakers. It provides dozens of strategies for teaching new words through storytelling, songs, and pictures books and includes more than 1,000 reproducible picture and word cards with a guide for selecting the appropriate words. The book also includes tips for supporting young English learners.




Jolts! Activities to Wake Up and Engage Your Participants


Book Description

Praise for Jolts! "Only Thiagi and his co-author, Tracy, could have devised a list of 50 magical learning moments that are concise and certain to JOLT learners into new perspectives and profound insights. If you facilitate group learning or change management, you won't want to miss this one!" —Elaine Biech, author of Business of Consulting and Training for Dummies "Give your training sessions a jump start with Jolt activities in less than 5 minutes. These easy-to-use creative techniques help learners gain instant insights. Not just session starters, this collection is a valuable addition to any trainer's bookshelf." —Jean Barbazette, president, The Training Clinic, and author of The Art of Great TrainingDelivery and Managing the Training Function for Bottom-Line Results "As a Charter Member of BFT (Borrow from Thiagi) Club, I've been adapting Thiagi's training activities for decades. I have built college courses and training workshops around Thiagi and Tracy's jolts. Use the jolts from this book as a way to instantly and successfully engage your participants with your topic." —Steve Sugar, author of Games That Teach Jolt|jolt|: a powerful training tool that will help you engage your participants and focus attention on your learning event. Master trainer Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan and co-author Tracy Tagliati introduce a brand-new set of powerful training activities specially designed to get participants to sit-up, listen, and learn—to jolt them into a new level of participation, activity, and change. The forty-seven games and activities in Jolts! are interactive and emotionally charged—carefully chosen for their ability to make participants think, and think differently. When you really need to give your participants a powerful wake-up call, startle them into re-examining their assumptions and habitual practices, or encourage self-reflection, problem solving, and fresh perspectives—zap them with Jolts!