Last year we were approached to provide some details of what the experienced Competition Judges are looking for when they are assessing the work of the teams.
The judging criteria, looks at lots of elements, not just the final game, but everything that has led up to the production of the final game.
The criteria will be posted here by December 2019 and we hope this will inform all participants.
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:
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.
As soon as the team(s) are ready to go, preferably beginning in November 2019
The final at RGU will have 1 team from each cluster.
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.
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
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
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 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.
NEXT UP….
If you have more than 1 team registered in your school, then you will need to be thinking about and having an in-school competition to choose the best team to go forward to the Semi Finals. If you only have a single team , then the young coders can carry on perfecting their games, presentation pitches, posters, documentation and artefacts, ready for the cluster Semi-Final
This animation explains the next steps and can be shown to your class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZQdhIpcYXI&t=76s
Semi-Finals…
The semi finals will be judged by industry experts to identify the teams that will progress from each cluster. To achieve this the games must be loaded up into a folder for your Cluster in Glow
Please check here to find the teams you may be competing with in your cluster semi-final. You may find that there is only 1 team registered and therefore, you will automatically advance to the final. (BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO UPLOAD YOUR DOCUMENTS TO THE GLOW SITE )
OR..
Arrange an In-Cluster competition (good practice for the final) and let the pupils and teachers decide on a cluster winner. (then post the winning team only files into the folder in Glow)
This must be completed by (Date to be decided) we will inform schools on (Date to be decided) of the winning teams, allowing plenty time for schools to organise transport to RGU.
All of this information is available on the GamesCon blog but if you need any help or questions answered please contact myself or Susan.
Secondary Schools
Each Secondary School registered can send 1 team to the final. Your final project may be different from the Primary Schools so could you please send to either Susan or myself any equipment you think you may need ( big table, power, etc) ASAP, also please confirm how many teachers and students will be coming to RGU.
The date for the Gamescon 2020 will be Thursday JUNE 18th
This will be an all day event, and leading up to this you will have taken part in school heats ( if more than one team) then winners from the school going to a cluster final, with the cluster winners going to RGU in Aberdeen
We have had a few secondary schools compete over the last 2 years and this year we hope to see teams from as many secondary schools as possible, and we look forward to seeing their projects in action.
It will be a great day , with presentations from Games Developers, Students , Education Scotland, and a few surprises.
Best of luck to all the teams
Please click on the link below to view the Adobe Spark page with pictures from the GamesCon 2017 final.
Please have a look at the Sway below to see where the Grand Finale will be held on June 2020
I have created a Glow Site for schools to upload their games when they are finished. There can only be one team with one game from each school registered.
There will be one team picked from each cluster to go forward to the Grand Finale at Robert Gordon University.
Good Luck!!
*Click on the image below to access the Glow Site.*
Contact james.mclean@aberdeenshire.gov.uk to register the team(s) who will be taking part from your school.
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