GamesCon 2020 Primary

 

Aberdeenshire GamesCon 2019/2020

 What is the competition?

GamesCon is a competition for learners in Primary 6 and 7 and is to focus attention on how to keep children and young people safe online. The learners will work in teams of 4 and with help, (maybe  from a teacher or digital leaders in the primary or cluster secondary school)  will create a plan for a project that will be implemented in SCRATCH. The final program will be interactive, it could be a game , or animation.

Learners will record their progress throughout the competition keeping photos, notes, any research findings, program design, testing and debugging findings to bring to the GamesCon final.

GamesCon Aberdeenshire 2019/2020

 The task for this session’s GamesCon competition is organized around the 5Rights Framework: Making the Digital Environment Fit for Children and Childhood. In Teams of 4 for Primary students will create a software solution to the task below.

Using the programming tool you are familiar with (for example, Scratch) you are to create an animation or game that will allow the viewers (if an animation) or the players (if a game) to learn about the 5Rights Framework and its aim to make the digital environment fit for children and childhood (https://5rightsframework.com/).

“The 5Rights Framework articulates the rights and commonly held principles enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC) for the digital world. Rights that protect children from commercial exploitation, offer the highest standards in wellbeing and education. Rights that protect them from violence and harm, and give them privacy.”

The 5Rights are all about enabling children and young people to access the digital environment creatively, knowledgeably and fearlessly.

Almost every young person has access to the internet via Smartphones or other internet enabled devices and it is essential the these young people fully understand the rights they have but also the responsibilities in using online resources safely, securely and responsibly.

By researching the 5Rights program, and by creating an animation or game, the young people are engaging in valuable research but also developing core skills in Computer Science, Digital Literacy, Digital Skills: skills that are transferable and much needed in the workplace.

CodeClub.org (https://www.codeclub.org.uk/) provides easy-to-use templates for teachers and pupils to use and there is a simple set-up for the school. Codeclub.org.uk have full details of how to set up a code club. These are in place in many of our schools. For schools where a code club is not running but who would be keen to consider forming one, Code Club provides all of the advice and support required. It is very straightforward. Most Code Clubs meet once a week, at lunchtime or after school, for around 30 minutes.

The GamesCon competition will allow youngsters opportunities for:

  • Creativity and problem solving
  • Collaboration and contribution
  • Developing computational thinking concepts
  • Expanding their digital literacy skills

Who can compete?

The GamesCon is open to any P6/P7 learners who will work in a team of four.

Each team will typically have a teacher to supervise, and in the team we would suggest a mix of skills:

Graphic designer– someone who will design the characters, backgrounds and foregrounds and any other visual effects, including storyboards

Presenter – someone who will be confident in presenting the project to an audience, he/she may also design posters to demonstrate the work of the team and for the presentation create a Movie/PowerPoint/Prezi/Sway to really show off the work of the group.

 Programmer – someone who has good coding skills and can bring the ideas and storyboards to life

 Document controller – someone to ensure all the document associated with the project are kept safely, this will include all the ideas, sketches and planning documents, scripts used in coding, testing plans and results. This person may want to create a blog to keep track of the project as it moves from ideas to finished product.

 Researcher – someone who will be responsible for researching the ideas and ensuring the finished product is accurate in what it says/aims are.

There may be other roles that the teams will think of, which will mean some team members will be working in more than 1 role.

We would hope that the learners all work as a team, taking a shared responsibility for the finished product and learning from each other.

When will the competition begin?

As soon as the team(s) are ready to go, preferably beginning in November 2019

What is the path to the final at RGU?

The final at RGU will have 1 team from each cluster.

  • If your school has more than 1 team then there will be a competition in the school between the teams to decide the winning team, this will take place before the Easter Holidays
  • The semi finals will take place during May 2020 where a team from each cluster will progress to the grand final at RGU.
  • The overall Aberdeenshire GamesCon Champion team will be decided at RGU in June 2019

The RGU day will allow teams to meet programmers, games developers, students and staff from the RGU computing school. We hope to have representatives from TV and radio to promote the event across Scotland.

How can the teams get access to resources?

There are great tutorial on the SCRATCH site https://scratch.mit.edu/help/videos/

Even SCRATCH resources on the Raspberry Pi site.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/learning/getting-started-with-scratch/

Great resources on the Barefoot computing site http://barefootcas.org.uk

There may be books in your school library, or ask at your local library.

The cluster academy school will have resources, ask for help from senior students, or visit the computing department, if they have one.

SCRATCH is free and can be downloaded to curricular computers, (if it is not installed log a call with Ask Fred).  it can also be accessed online.

Internet safety information can be found by checking the Think U Know site

https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk

Childnet have advice. http://www.childnet.com/young-people/primary

UK Safer Internet Centre.

http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-centre/young-people/resources-3-11s

Where does the GamesCon competition fit in the curriculum?

There is a natural fit into the Technologies Computing Science E’s and O’s

The technologies progression framework from Education Scotland

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/TechnologiesGrid1April2016_tcm4-875946.pdf

Links can also be made to Literacy, Numeracy, Health and Wellbeing and Science outcomes.

Learners will be demonstrating attributes in each of the four capacities, and will be improving on their digital literacy skills.

 

 

GamesCon 2020 Academy Competition

GamesCon Aberdeenshire 2019/2020

The task for this session’s GamesCon competition is organized around the 5Rights Framework: Making the Digital Environment Fit for Children and Childhood. In Teams of 4 students will create a software solution to the task below.

 

Secondary Schools

The theme remains the same: to learn about and promote the 5Rights. However this could be developed from a Scratch programming environment to creating a mobile app. A good site is appsforgood.org (https://www.appsforgood.org/), where a teacher can sign-up and has access to a wealth of lesson plans that will guide students through to creating a mobile app. The benefit of using Apps for Good, is that the students could also enter the National Apps for Good competition in addition to the GamesCon. The secondary competition is open to pupils in S1 – S3, and these youngsters could be mentored by senior pupils throughout the development of the project.

Support and Guidance

The choice of software and hardware is left to the school and the young people, so they could carry on developing a solution in Scratch or use any other software / hardware environment they are comfortable with.

CodeClub.org (https://www.codeclub.org.uk/) provides easy-to-use templates for teachers and pupils to use and there is a simple set-up for the school. Codeclub.org.uk have full details of how to set up a code club. These are in place in many of our schools. For schools where a code club is not running but who would be keen to consider forming one, Code Club provides all of the advice and support required. It is very straightforward. Most Code Clubs meet once a week, at lunchtime or after school, for around 30 minutes.

 

 Teams

 A team will be made up of 4 students and preferably from a mix of year groups.

 All work should be extra curricular, ie lunchtime or before/after school club or meetings

 Practical consideration for the Final at RGU

 The teams will be required to perform a 5 minute presentation to judges, this will be entirely on the project, not on the personnel involved.

 The teams will be expected to have a complete paper/digital documentation trail, and for example this will include meetings where ideas were generated, timelines, user and technical documentation, presentations and advertising or promotional material, with the latter preferably digital (movie or animation). The judges will want to see this record of the project , so it may be an idea to video meetings, prototypes, final product and edit these as required. This part of the project will account for 50% of marks available.

 Presentations

 You will be allocated about 2 hours to set up and perform final checks on your software and hardware and during this time judges will be around and will take an interest in what you are doing and may ask questions.

 The teams will be allocated time to present to the judges , the presentation will include a working demonstration of the project tackled. They will listen to your presentation, and you will all be available to answer any questions.

 The top three entries will be chosen and each team will then present to all of the pupils, primary and secondary, and at the end of the three presentations the pupils will vote for a winner. 

 

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