[game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming; who owns student work

[Ian Schreiber]

I haven't heard of this, but I wouldn't be surprised. There are actually a lot of "lite" programming languages out there that are explicitly made for teaching purposes (when I was in junior high, we used "Karel the Robot" for a few weeks as an introduction to the structure of Pascal). These days, I hear a lot about Alice 3D (www.alice.org) which was created at CMU specifically for the purpose of introducing programming in a less intimidating way. I suspect other scripting languages like ActionScript and Python/Pygame would have a relatively short learning curve as well.
 
Whatever you use, the challenge here is in concentrating on the transferable concepts, and pointing out at every step of the way the generalizable parts. The syntax of an If/Then statement may vary from language to language, but all of them have it in some form (well... most of them :). Design the lessons in parallel with the advanced class (Java, C++, C#, or whatever it is that you teach at your school as the "primary" language) so that when they take their first "hardcore" programming language everything will have a ring of familiarity. The more integrated, I think, the better.
 
As for the IP ownership column (hooray for Jim!), it makes me wonder -- is anyone here at a school that claims IP rights to student work, and if so, how is this enforced? Is there a contract that students sign upon matriculation, or is it simply the school making a loud claim and hoping it never goes to court?
 
- Ian

--- On Wed, 11/12/08, Lewis Pulsipher <lewpuls at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Lewis Pulsipher <lewpuls at gmail.com>
Subject: [game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming; who owns student work
To: game_edu at igda.org
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 7:07 PM


Do you know of anyone who has used Gamemaker as a principal tool for teaching Introduction to Programming classes (not just for game students, but for programming students in general)?  It would appear to be an ideal way to put some fun into elementary programming.


Going back to the question of who owns student work, the response of the lawyer who writes the legal advice column for IGDA will be of interest:  http://www.igda.org/columns/lastwords/lastwords_Nov08.php


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