Move Over, Grand Theft Auto
Denver high school students and teachers attended camp at DU this summer and made sprites. That’s a long way from traditional summer camp activities, but making sprites—graphic images in a computer game—are the 21st century version of arts and crafts.
An image from "Burger Boy," an educational video game that was produced at DU's Pixels, Programming, Pedagogy and Play summer camp.
Getting kids excited about learning
The six-week summer program, Pixels, Programming, Pedagogy and Play, develops new ways to get kids excited about learning. And what kid doesn’t want to spend two weeks with computer games? Each student creates a game, designs the characters and the art, learns the complicated math to make it work and presents it at the end of the class.
The program is the brainchild of three University of Denver professors who are taking video-game development into the classroom and using it to teach high school subjects such as math, science, history and the arts.
Rafael Fajardo, an associate art professor; Scott Leutenegger, a computer science professor; and Deborah Austin, a professor of education; recently won a three-year $1.2 million youth technology grant of from the National Science Foundation. The funding allows them to train educators how to effectively use video games in their classrooms, as well as instruct a small group of students over the summer.
“For kids who don’t have the means, the only place they get this training is in public school,” Austin says. “This is giving them potential skills they might otherwise not develop.”
Dozens of students and teachers visited DU this summer to learn about video games.
Increasing access to technology
DU hosted 12 teachers, 25 boys and 25 girls during separate two-week periods in July. The teachers came from underperforming Denver Public schools, and the students were chosen based on their lack of access to technology education.
An image from "Star," an educational video game that was produced at DU's Pixels, Programming, Pedagogy and Play summer camp.
Teachers in the program take what they learn back to their local classrooms—one teacher has planned a computer game class on the Great Depression that integrates math, literature and history.
The participating schools already have computer labs and all of the programming used for the curriculum is available for free download on the Internet. And research assistants from DU will visit the schools to report on the programs’ progress.
“Math and science have gotten a bad rap as being not cool,” Leutenegger says. “They’re seen as geeky or nerdy, but the kids are willing to overcome the geek reputation to make the games.”
Games from this summer’s program are on display at DU’s Myhren Gallery.
Published on Aug. 23, 2007