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

[Karen Collins]

Here at University of Waterloo, we've been using Clickteam's Multimedia 
Fusion for Arts students to get acquainted with programming concepts. 
It's been great, although the program is not without some bugs and can 
be expensive to license ($200 and change per student). I've heard good 
things about GameMaker and plan on perhaps using that instead next time 
around to keep costs down for students.

Actionscript 3 is quite advanced now--it's really an OOP, although you 
could theoretically still teach AS2 if you're using Flash to make games. 
I don't think AS3 has a short learning curve at all, it's is so 
different from AS2 that they can't really use AS2 as an intro to AS3.

-Karen


-- 

Karen Collins, PhD
Canada Research Chair
Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology
University of Waterloo
200 University Ave W
Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1
519 888-4567 x 38326


www.gamessound.com
Out Now and available on Amazon:
Game Sound, MIT Press (US)
 From Pac-Man to Pop Music, Ashgate (UK)

Ian Schreiber wrote:

> 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 

> <http://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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