For many parents it’s a challenge to pry a young student away from a computer game and into the real world; but what if a computer game was the vehicle for teaching real-world 21st-century skills? That’s exactly the tactic Debbie Yoshino, Island Pacific Academy’s elementary division technology class teacher, applied in her lessons. For six weeks Yoshino guided grade five students as they designed computer games using Gamestar Mechanic. The elementary computer lab was then turned into an arcade for the rest of the elementary students to enjoy.
Grade 5 students help a younger student learn to play one of their computer games.
“Computer game design fosters critical 21st-century skills such as systems thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration,” says Yoshino. “There are all skills that are increasingly important in our highly-networked, rapidly evolving world.” The computer game unit also incorporated entrepreneurial skills such as marketing, goal-setting, and resilience.
“There was a lot of prep work involved to ‘open up an arcade’ and the grade five students even designed their own monetary system to allocate the valuable lab resource and service the student-customers who patronized their arcade,” Yoshino explains.
A greeting page welcomed students to the collection of computer games all designed by grade 5 students.
“Both grade five classes successfully met the goals they set for themselves and our younger elementary students are still asking to play the arcade games!”
Elementary principal, Steve Ross, learns to play a game in the grade 5 arcade.
