I’ve been looking for an interesting immersive world for a while to get my son involved in and I think I might have finally found it is Quest Atlantis.
Quest Atlantis is a multi-user 3d learning environment for students. In the environment students participate in quests. These quests appear to be organised around the themes of: Social Responsibility, Compassionate Wisdom, Creative Expression, Diversity Affirmation, Environmental Awareness, Healthy Communities & Personal Agency.
Before a teacher can implement QA in their classrooms they have to participate in 4 professional development sessions. I’ve signed up for the training and installed the software. The training takes place via Skype and starts Tuesday night.
I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve heard that it is heaps of fun. Maybe you could sign up & join in.
The video game making industry is one of the fastest growing on the planet and it’s really easy to get kids involved in creating their own games.
Here is some of the ‘entry level’ software that I’ve used with kids over the years to make video games. On each page I’ve included a Youtube video that gives you a bit of an idea on what can be achived with each title & I’ve also included some links to tutorials.
Here is my ’suggested order’ for exploring this software.
1. Future Pinball - make virtual pinball machines.
2. Klik n Play - simple platformers
3. Game Maker- getting a little more complex now.
4. Adventure Maker - easy, but a fair bit of planning has to go into your games.
5. Reality Factory - for senior students to make First Person Shooters (FPS)
I’ve also included a game making assignment that I taught to a Year Nine class a while back. Modify it to meet the needs of your students.
Kids and adults love 3d animation but the price of modern 3d software prohibits us mere mortals from experimenting with it.
Whenever I run workshop, Anim8or (a free 3d program) is often the most popular piece. It allows you to manipulate 3d shapes to create your own environments and if you wish to get a little more techo you can make small snippets of animated film.
Here is a little character my 8 year old son knocked up with the program.
Today I’ve added a very rough ‘Anim8or - QUICK START GUIDE‘ to my website to help you on your way to making the next Shrek, Happy Feet etc.
On my 3d animation page I’ve just added a link to a piece of fantastic free piece of Computer Aided Design software called Google Sketchup. This software enables everyone to produce 3d models of houses, gardens, rooms and objects simply. This is a great tool to support Science and Technology lessons as well as Design and Technology and could also be integrated in creative ways to Art, English and Maths.
Once you get the hang of creating models you can animate them and even upload them to Google Earth or to a 3d warehouse for others to view and download.
Google Sketchup has been a great hit with my students and I’m sure yours will enjoy it as well.
