[game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

[Ian Schreiber]

I agree that it's "computational thinking" more than computer science which is 
key here. (And yes, designers should also understand something of art, audio, 
QA, etc., but design is most strongly linked to code since it is code that 
implements the design.) Maybe that's the key: how to teach computational 
thinking before you teach actual programming?

This is the problem I've run into whenever considering a game programming 
textbook or class. Learning programming is "hard fun" which means it is in 
danger of crossing the line to "frustrating to the point of giving up forever." 
If it were made into a game, it would be like an old-school puzzle-based 
adventure game, where you have to know what to do in order to proceed, and if 
you can't solve a given puzzle then you're stuck forever.

Except in a way, it's worse than adventure games, because you can't just look up 
the answer on GameFAQs. Even if I give you, say, a programming challenge that 
forces you to use 1d arrays... even if you "cheat" by looking up the correct 
source code to fulfill the requirements of that challenge, it won't really help 
you when we get to 2d arrays. You can't just memorize a puzzle solution, you 
have to really grok the concept.

The most success I've had in teaching programming, is when I am interacting with 
students directly one-on-one. There are a seemingly infinite number of ways that 
students can misconceptualize a programming concept, so I have to sit there with 
them and do some puzzle-solving of my own, figuring out where their reasoning is 
flawed and then draw them over to a better way of thinking about a problem. This 
is hard, it's time-consuming, and (most importantly) it doesn't scale. I can't 
put myself in a book or a blog post. So coming up with a learn-it-yourself 
programming resource is an unsolved problem to me. (Even Brenda, as much as she 
might like the programming book she's working through, has John there to help if 
she gets stuck.)

The more I think about it, I feel like computational thinking is a necessary 
21st-century literacy skill, and that a student that reaches the college level 
without it is going to have a very hard time to begin with. Maybe the solution 
is to push this requirement down to the grade-school level, and start tightening 
admissions requirements accordingly. That doesn't solve the problem so much as 
it passes the buck to someone else, admittedly.

Has anyone else out there found a way around this when teaching programming, 
some method or resource that lets students get past the stuck-points of learning 
core programming concepts on their own without needing a human mentor to walk 
them through? If so, how did you do it?

- Ian





________________________________
From: Simon Etienne Rozner <infonaut at gameonaut.com>
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>
Sent: Tue, March 8, 2011 6:02:11 AM
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Brenda Braithwaite's game_edu rant at GDC

I think that as many here already agree as well, that a more then just 
fundamental understanding of programming is a very good thing for a game 
designer. A CS degree is don't think is a nessecity but at least a theoretical 
understanding of the things a computer scientist deals with on an every day 
basis is by all means useful information. I teach courses both for CS students 
and Game design students ( art as well as technical oriented degrees) ( see the 
courses for BAGD and BSGD on the Digipen website). In those courses I teach a 
programing class oriented for game designers. The focus is on understanding 
logical thought and implementation processes that are directly as well as 
indirectly relevant to game design. On top of that I try to help the students to 
develop a feeling of what is possible to code given constraibts of time, 
manpower and money( that one in theory, since we don't have actual money in the 
classroom). It should help them to understand how an inefficient desig
n affects the production, how to go about changing it to something that yields 
the same result but can be accomplished faster and easier and gain at the same 
time important foundation programmig skills to be able to create their own 
prototypes and simple games.

Although I am not a programmer and come from an art background, understanding 
the limitations of the system i design on, the intricacies of code structures 
and logic flow of programs have been immensly valuable for me. I think it is a 
mistake for any aspiring gake designer or veteran to brush programing aside as 
unimportant and a waste of time. It is essential knowledge to our craft, but 
don't need to be computer scientists. We must well understand though what it is 
they do. On that note, you should also well understand what your artists do and 
everyone else on the team.

On Mar 8, 2011, at 18:45, Mike Reddy <Mike.Reddy at newport.ac.uk> wrote:


> I dabbled with a game programming summer course last year, and know that Ian 

>Schreiber and I discussed him (us?) running a game programming summer course, 

>building on his game design and game balance courses in previous years. Any 

>designers reading this, or those who think that Brenda has a point, might 

>consider setting aside a few hours a week for the Summer, if they want to dip 

>into programming this year. Do you think that there would be interest in this?

> 

> Personally, I think that comments about systems thinking and the creativity of 

>constraint are excellent enablers.

> 

> Mike

> _______________________________________________

> game_edu mailing list

> game_edu at igda.org

> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

_______________________________________________
game_edu mailing list
game_edu at igda.org
http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu



      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_edu/attachments/20110308/32b1a331/attachment.html>