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Presentation time: our students of the Summer School Game Design present their work

The teachers and students of all four subjects: game design, art, programming, and marketing presented what they have learned and what they have created.

It’s amazing to experience that teachers and students who never have created, designed, marketed, or programmed a game within 3 days manage to do so. Also, they adapt all kinds of very creative methods to explain and present abstract subjects and tasks like for example what a variable in computer language actually is. Cynthia Dias was able to capture Miguel explaining to his co-teachers how a variable works.

Miguel is presenting how a variable works

Teachers-in-training finishing the detailed lesson plans

This afternoon all the lesson plans will get finished and with that, we will wrap up the course. Next week will be exciting to bring everything learned into practice in the Game Jame we will organize.

Interview with Alex Aguirre

We will continue to post the progress of the Summer Course and finish this one with the interview of Alex Aguirre who is an EduMais volunteer from Ecuador. Today she celebrates her 28th birthday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX. All students and teachers sang the happy birthday song for her after Sandra very creatively initiated to pass on Happy Birthday Alex in the Chinese Telefone game they played this morning. Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. Chinese telephone or Chinese whispers is a very old game. One story is that it originates from the soldiers at the Chinese wall that had to pass on messages for hundreds of miles. And don´t we all know that the story changes when many different people pass it on? For a play very funny, but for protecting a country it can be fatal.

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Wikipedia: ”A lesson plan is a teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction or “learning trajectory” for a lesson. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class learning. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, the subject being covered, and the needs of the students. There may be requirements mandated by the school system regarding the plan. A lesson plan is the teacher’s guide for running a particular lesson, and it includes the goal (what the students are supposed to learn), how the goal will be reached (the method, and procedure), and a way of measuring how well the goal was reached (test, worksheet, homework, etc.)”.

This Summer School is about having the teachers in training making the lesson plans while teaching the kids. I love that.

So the real gold is in the lesson plans. Each day after teaching the teachers in training capture the day in a fixed structured lesson plan canvas. If the day was successful they move on to the next lesson the next day – or – if it could be improved the next day the lesson plan will be improved and repeated.

This is what the lesson plans look like.

Each day the teachers in training create, test, and produce new lesson plans for art, game design, programming, and promotion.

Ellis in Wonderland explaining game design

Paper Game

How do we make the lesson plans and get the knowledge on game design?

By using the process of making games as the product and outcome of this course. During the entire course, we have skilled educators and game designers training and guiding the teachers in training: Jeroen van Pelt–Deen, Marcello De Vasconcellos, Sandra van Rijswijk, Ellis Bartholomeus, Flavia Carvalho, Marcos Vitsil, Menno Deen, Rob Tieben en Diana Nijboer.

We also involve external experts. Today we have the privilege that Thiago Santos Magalhaes joined the group of teachers and shared his experience with the group of young teachers.

Here are two mini-interviews with Ellis Bartholomeus and Menno Deen

Ellis Bartholomeus:

V1: Who are you?

V2: What is your story about the EduMais Summer School?

V3: What does this project mean for students and teachers?

V4: What does this project mean for me?

Menno Deen

V1: Who are you?

V2: What is your story about the EduMais Summer School?

V3: What does this project mean for students and teachers?

V4: What does this project mean for me?

Written by Jurriaan van Rijswijk, Games For Health, with permission published on EduMais blog.
Copyright © 2023 Games For Health Brasil

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The post Game Education in favelas Rio de Janeiro. This sums it all. The second week. appeared first on EduMais.

They beautifully described also what the logo is about: the two green hills on where they live and where the Favela PPG rises above the city of Rio de Janeiro, the houses they live in, the games they create, the Sun (Solar) as the name of the School EduMais is part of, the name PPG referring to the name of the Favela Pavão-Pavãozinho-Cantagalo, to the games and the plus (+) referring EduMais. Mais in Portuguese means more or plus.

An impression of the Favelas PPG

The PR team created an Instagram page where all developments of the games and course can be found @ppgames_plus

What is the program about and what is the story? What better to ask the people involved?

The first to tell us what the PPGames_plus Summer Course is about is Marcello de Vasconcellos:

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.Tuesday, Jan 3rd, 2023, was the start of the second edition.

We did it again. And this year even with more support and less COVID. It is amazing to recognize the energy people bring to make this year an even bigger success than it already was in 2022. And nice to have you live with us, Ellis.

So what are we going to do? What is the Summer School about?

Well: it’s about Teaching Teachers Teaching Educational Game Design by teaching students.

Basically, we will train the teachers to become skilled educational game design teachers in 4 weeks together with students from Favela PPG that voluntarily signed up for the summer school. We will focus on 4 subjects:

1. Game Design
2. Art and
3. programming
4. Public relations

Every week a group of teachers focuses on one of the three topics. And in the last week, the new-born Game Design Teachers together with their students will Game Jam an entire week making as many beautiful as learningful as joyful, and awesome educational games as possible.

This blog summarizes the process and outcome of this summer school and tells the story of this growing initiative founded and supported by Edumais and Games for Health and with the support of many organizations like Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and Scola Solar and individuals.

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Dutch experts teach how to make games in slums
‘Don’t shoot, this man is a teacher’

A group of Dutch video game experts visited the Brazilian slums to teach children how to make their own games. Can game design help kids that live in one of the most notorious slums in the world?

The heat is sweltering in Rio de Janeiro. Along the beaches and boulevards of Copacabana and Ipanema shine the shiny glass of skyscrapers and office buildings, but on top of the hills in the favelas it is a different story. These are the slums, notorious for their crime and poverty, where millions of Brazilians must hold their own every day. The police don’t like to come there; order is maintained by drugs gangs armed to the teeth. Outsiders rarely show themselves here. It is not a tourist attraction.

Fortunately, Jurriaan van Rijswijk (52) has a local guide and host. “When we met someone with a gun, my guide immediately said: ‘Ele é um professor.'” In other words: ‘Don’t shoot, this man is a teacher. He’s teaching my daughter.’ Jurriaan is allowed to continue. He is temporarily part of the community, a teacher with a special field. “We are here to teach children how to make a video game.”

Jurriaan arrived in Rio de Janeiro with his wife Sandra (51) and two colleagues, game expert Rob Tieben (39) and game designer Menno van Pelt-Deen (35). They are all part of Games for Health Europe, a foundation that Jurriaan and Sandra founded to promote gaming techniques in healthcare. Normally they are involved in projects such as games for rehabilitation programs – education in the third world is an exception.

“It started when we happened to come into contact with Diana Nijboer, the founder of the EduMais Foundation,” Jurriaan explains. Nijboer’s foundation specializes in education in the favelas. “Diana was looking for people who wanted to give practical lessons. We wanted to help, but we make games. Then that would be our subject.”

The plan? Travel to Brazil for a month to organize a course there. Nijboer used her local contacts for the organization and accommodation, while Jurriaan’s foundation made its own contacts in the local game world. Did they want to be guest lecturers? “Brazil is a huge country and has its own game industry. Some developers come from the favelas themselves, they were immediately interested.” The experiment would begin in early January.

For Jurriaan, Sandra, Rob and Menno it was not the first time that they were in front of the classroom. Jurriaan:  “We have already given lessons in game design, in Dutch prisons and in Suriname. But this program in Brazil was the most extensive version.” That’s because this time Jurriaan and his colleagues focused not only on the students, but also on future teachers. “We not only wanted to teach children, but also teach young people how to teach themselves. That is why we involved ‘trainers’, young people who can continue this course.”

Together with a group of local developers, the Dutch gave children a crash course in game design, from drawing characters to programming the software itself. By the end of the month, they had made their own form of Pac-Man. The yellow animal had been replaced by the children by a doctor who brings corona vaccines. The ghosts became virus bacilli. Not a bad result, but according to Sandra, the project is far from finished: “We are now talking to local organizations. Our goal is that they can help the trainers to teach other children and thus build a new educational trajectory.”

Anyone who thinks of a place like the favelas logically assumes that games are not the highest priority. But according to Jurriaan, that line of thought misses the bigger picture: “The most important thing is that children learn how to use their creativity. Many children can’t or don’t want to program, but game design also means drawing, designing concepts or making lyrics and music.”

Rob Tieben agrees. He wrote a dissertation on applied game theory and sees much of his research in daily practice. “Play is a universal way in which people interact in the world. In the favelas, for example, football is very popular.” Combine that with the resources that are at your fingertips thanks to digital technology such as smartphones, and game design can become a powerful skill. “These children have a lot of life experience and are very inventive. They can figure out a lot themselves, but they need the beginning of a skillset.”

Are those children now full-fledged game developers? No, Rob and Menno explain. “You really don’t learn everything in three weeks,” says Rob, “but you can plant a seed. And they also have computers there with internet. They can develop themselves further. I hope that this course is a starting point from which they can continue themselves. They now know that their work is worth money online. It would be nice if they could earn something with that. And the trainers can repeat this process elsewhere.”

Menno agrees: “It’s not just the children we work with, but also local game developers. They are now involved and would like to stay involved.” He speaks from experience: although this was his first visit to the favelas, he also made educational programs for students and professionals in the game industry over the past decade.

According to him, the real purpose of the visit lies in the future: “You don’t teach the people there things that they can’t teach themselves, but you do help them cross the threshold. You show that a program like this is possible. Now hopefully more organizations and favelas want to participate. Children see that they can make something, and in the long run more projects can come out of it. That’s the difference we made.”

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Summary of day 2 of week 3

Game Development Group

Creating the assets

The art group making the assets

Game Design Research

Game Design Group

Fernando Chamis and Yves Albuquerque from Webcore Games inspired the students what running a game studio is about. The students fired questions at these experienced professionals to learn everything about being a game designer.

Blog written by Jurriaan van Rijswijk, with permission republished on our blog.

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Summary of day 1 of week 3 EduMais Games Summer Camp

The group of students is more than halved due to Covid infections or because some students did not manage to get tested on time. Covid tests are free in PPG Favela – fortunately! Commercial tests cost R$300 per person per test. That is around 45 Euro or 55$. To put this into perspective: the minimum wage in Brazil is R$1.212 monthly.

The group is split into 3 specializations:

1. Development – programming the games, for this we use Game Maker Studio 2 created by our former colleague Mark Overmars.
2. Art – visualizing the games. how the game look and feels.
3. Game design and marketing – the mechanics of the game and how to market it when its ready to get published.

The selection in which group a student works is a decision made by the students themselves. For this reason it was very important that in the first two weeks they’ve experienced every aspect of game design. With two weeks left each students has the opportunity to learn 2 of the 3 preferred specializations.

Tot get acquainted with the basic skills of the specializations we use famous existing examples of classic robust games we all know.

For the development team this was – of course – PacMan. We use PacMan because it a very good designed game, simple enough to learn how to make it in a short period. And with enough complexity to really understand how to create interactive interfaces and how the dynamics of the game works. And of course PacMan was also chosen because of the workshop by Ellis in Wonderland in the first week that was tailored around PacMan, what the idea behind it is and how it was to meet with the inventor of PacMan: Toru Iwatani

The Art group practiced how to make characters or avatars and how to play with shapes and proportions. Playing with body shapes and proportions enables designers to express in body language how to caricature and mimicry emotions. Character is therefore a perfect name for a game character. Because it has both a literal and figurative meaning.

Besides the character design there will be workshops on using shadows, how to design game assets digitally on an ipad. Game assets are objects in game to interact with. This can be a car, an obstacle or a tool. 

The organization had to be creative with the playful breaks and lunch. We kept the groups together without mingling them. And everybody had to wear nose and mouth masks and keep enough distance as possible. 

Every day the group of teachers and volunteers evaluate what went top and what could be improved. Improved Covid measures, avoiding the use of cellphones by the teachers in front the students, better listening, cooler places to be able to work are such tips to improve. The tops are among many others the steep learning curve the kids showed, their progression and the good concentration.

That ends the first day of the 3rd week. Tired and at the same time satisfied we look forward to the next days of the Summer Camp.

This weekend we received the sad news that due Covid that caused Rhabdomyolosis with a huge impact on the kidneys that lead to extreme dehydration of the kidneys Diana Nijboer got hospitalized in the ICU in Rio de Janeiro. We all worried what would happen with her. We are in close contact with her every day. She’s in good hands and she is recovering but very slowly. Of course she is very sad and cried a lot that she misses this part of the course as Founder of EduMais and as an educational Mum for all the students, volunteers and teachers. It actually gave everybody at EduMais the strength and energy to work even harder to make this Summer Camp a huge success. Recover soon Diana and in the mean time the students will design, develop and play fantastic educational games created by themselves.

Written by Jurriaan van Rijswijk on Games for Health EduMais Blog

The post Making Computer Games appeared first on EduMais.

After Marcelo’s workshop we split the groups into a story writing class and a story telling class. A good narrative comes of course with a perfect fitted design. Ying and Yang. This also counts for the teachers. Marcelo and Flavia monitored these two days as a couple in perfect harmony with the other teachers and students. Incredible to discover the silence as the classes moved along and the students fully concentrated on writing and art. 

Students are awesome. So nice to discover that students who think that could not create art in writing and drawing actually do. Not if they are taught right but if they are coached right. Menno Deen, Flavia Garcia de Carvalho and Marcelo Vasconcellos are wizards in unlocking students views and talents.

The EduMais Summer Camps are all-inclusive. Literally and figuratively. No one is excluded and the food, beverages, and entertainment are all in. Good for the students, good for the teachers, and good for the parents. Parents trust the fact that their loved ones are being taken care of well.

Roy van der Schilden

The story writing and storytelling workshops were a blast. The story writing class already started to produce some stories in Twine. Next week the students will put them into practice with actual real game design and playable prototypes. I am so much looking forward to that.

Creating this program requires flexibility and adaptability. The group of teachers and volunteers evaluate every day the tops and tips.

Daily debrief with tips and top.

Let’s finish the week with a yell.

 Art class at EduMais Summer Camp

Although Covid has influenced the last day and a half of the week. One of the students got tested positively and that forced the organization to decide that we had to postpone the Summer Camp until next week Tuesday. But flexible as we are Menno and Rob already adapted the course to a program where we still are able to develop playful educational games with students and teachers at PPG – Rio de Janeiro. Also to all students: stay safe and please return. And for Diana: boa sorte!

Written by Jurriaan van Rijswijk – Founder of Games for Health Europe  Foundation with permission published on EduMais Blog

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