Learning game development for skövde högskolan

Santeri Koivisto - TeacherGaming LLC

Santeri Koivisto / TeacherGaming LLC

Who’s me?(very) Brief history of who’s we?Two advices for startup lifeWhat is MinecraftEdu?

Coming up!

IF.. you decide to enter the edutainment business, you probably want to know:

- current trends- what you should NOT do- how we see our field changing in 5-10 years

My IRL avatar- M.Ed. (2012) + Qualification to teach in the Finnish comprehensive school- Started TeacherGaming LLC in summer 2011- Avid gamer (Anno-, X3-, Total War- and Fallout-series... f.ex.)- TG is the second of three startups I have been involved (in chronological order)

© Santeri Koivisto / TeacherGaming LLC

SCGroup Oy 12.6.2010

Who needs oil? I ride a bus.

School project with Minecraft


Past

TeacherGaming LLC

First “school” features

Finland

SCGroup Oy 12.11.2011


Internationalization through community

TeacherGaming LLC- ceo + big picture, Santeri- PR + edu. director, Joel- Lead dev., Aleksi

+ 2developers, Toni & Daniel+ 1 part time web guy’+ Madrid team of two designers and one dev. hosted by Complutence Uni. + sales, our finance lady


Numbers - over 1,2k schools- around 700k users


How do we work?

We are basically experimenting ideas that come out from our flow

And we give these guys the final word how they really want to use it - we think they know the best.

These flow-like ideas have made us one of the wolds leading ‘thinkers’ in education



One concrete advice in sustaining innovation...

When your calendar fills up, you lose the ability to come out

from the box

Staying at the top of you game depends on the company’s creative power to control their

time usage and creating the space in time for new ideas.


Ps. this is counter intuitive for company executives.


... and one for covering your assets.

Before doing anythingBest place for immaterial rights is your company, company owns everything, you own the company

Common problem - one guy leaves, who owns the IP?

Solution: shareholder contract

- right of first refusal - buyout


What’s this?



Q?

The Second Age of (Learning) Games


The first one did last around 30 years without changing a bit. The second is rather different.

Perspective change?

©TeacherGaming LLC - Santeri Koivisto


My opinion of growing trends to follow in schools for the next few years from the game company perspective:

- game usage in general- maker movement - personalization and open-ness (including hacking)- transform of the understanding of the modern citizen- different platforms for games

*social media (edmodo f.ex.)*mobile*MOOCs?


What trends I suggest you don’t:- gamification- everybody creating a learning platform- technology that only speaks to itself- (depends) public money for everything!!!

Want my advice?

Don’t make learning games.


Curriculum

Objective 1

Objective 2

Objective 3

Objective 4

Theme 1

Theme 5

Theme 2

Theme 3

Theme 4

Activity / assignment 1





How do most people develop learning ‘games’?

LET’S MAKE A LEARNING GAME!


Curriculum

Objective 1

Objective 2

Objective 3

Objective 4

Theme 1

Theme 5

Theme 2

Theme 3

Theme 4






Pick what do we want to learn!

Text book converted into a game. Voilà!

Problem?


Gamificate it, or not.


Games are expected to bring engagement and fun into the classroom.

So the most important part of it is the game it self.

Game cannot be a great ‘learning’ game before it’s a great game first.


pre scripting vs. sandbox

In business sense:this makes the most sense ->


So kind of scaffolding to build for the teachers to understand it?

‘Your own lesson plan is still the best.’ -anonymous teacher


What to keep in mind when creating pedagogy around your game?

What are you doing!!- being in control of the situation

Goal orientation - guiding


Pedagogy support - community

Connections - integrations


In most hard core terms:- ability to assign (understand)- ability to monitor- ability to evaluate


You don’t have to make everything by yourself.

Leave the door open.

No heavy DMR-policies, ability to modify / tweak / hack, API...

Or maybe they just wake up.


How TG is handling this?

Students

Teachers

Key teachers

We

Most important layer


The most traditional serious gaming does make sense...

... but only in certain context(s).

Primary school is not one of them.


‘When is he going to mention open source?’

I guess eventually it always comes down to money...


Q?


One last thing: there’s plenty of room in the market.

Last evening first (Swedish) school told us that they are buying MinecraftEdu instead of textbooks. That’s big.


Thank you!

Twitter / Skype @[email protected]

blog: thoughtsaboutminecraftedu.tumblr.com

Learning game development for skövde högskolan

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