[game_edu] GameMaker vs. Scratch

[Corvus Elrod]

Are you ready to rumble? GameMaker vs. Scratch in the classroom. GO!

As I'm becoming more deeply involved with local education-focused groups
(notably: http://ogpc.info and http://chicktech.org), I'm noticing a lot of
high school and middle school educators are using GameMaker to teach
introductory game design concepts as part of initiatives to get kids
(particularly those under-represented in the STEM fields) interested in
technology/programming. And while I wouldn't argue that GameMaker is a
decent choice for people looking to prototype or rapid-develop games they
intend to release, I wonder if it's actually the *best *choice for
educational purposes.

Wouldn't Scratch make more sense? Doesn't Scratch more immediately and
directly teach universal programming concepts that can be applied to much
more than games? GameMaker, it seems to me, teaches you a lot of game-stuff
before you ever get to the foundational logic structures of
programming-think.

Maybe that's okay? Maybe that's ultimately counter-productive?

Has anyone else grappled with this? Taught both and have thoughts about the
differences? I'm particularly interested in hearing stories about student
engagement, successful completion of projects, and (if you have it) success
rates of students who go on to major in STEM-related fields in college.

--Corvus

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