Story starters are vital.  They either open up the creative landscape or just close it off!  We did try to spend time ensuring we could develop something that could be taken further.  There were a number of false starts in this process!

Meanwhile, down On the Farm (by E):

There I was standing, like I was an animal on a farm.  There were mountains as tall as a giant.  The grass lying next to me was green, just like emeralds and I was scared that some animal, like a chicken or something would talk to me!

There was a path, the colour of sand, I was tempted to walk along it, I did of course, me being me!  The next thing I came to a chicken crying for help.  His wife had been kidnapped, he didn’t know what kind of creature it was.  So, he told me to go to the pigs and that they would tell me the information I needed.

We have looked at how we can use conversation to develop storyline.  The class agreed that this would be a good of way of letting the player know what the game was about and what they would need to do.  This allowed us also to develop vocabularly beyond the basic use of said, looking at how emotions can be portrayed through the words we say.

We also studied the use of conversation in graphic novels.  One of the books we looked at had no speech at all!  This opened up a whole different discussion (or lack of, even!).

How’s this for a conversation?  This is just brilliant.  It sets the scene and leads the way in for the game to develop and for a story to develop.

“Hello I am Isaac and I would like to welcome you to our town,” Issac said quietly.

“What is wrong, you sound sad?” asked Abigail.

“Well, the evil King John has stolen all of our money and happiness, it is terrible!” trembled Issac.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Abigail

“Well I do not know, em you must go and see the poorest of all they will tell you what to do,” explained Issac.

“Where do they camp?” Abigail asked politely, trying not to upset Issac even more.

“Up in the woods there is a camp, they have to live there as their homes have been taken over by HIM , anyway yes go to the woods and you will find a fairy, she will tell you what to do and if you ask nicely she may go along with you,” explained Issac.

“Would you care to come with me?” Abigail asked.

“I would love to help but I have duties here and I do not think I would be allowed to leave,” Issac told Abigail politely.

“Oh,” Abigail murmured sadly.

“Well I suppose they wouldn’t mind if I was helping the town,” whispered Issac.

“GREAT!” shouted Abigail “let’s go!”

At last, a story, well part of one.  I really like the way the story so easily lends itself to being continued.  This was part 3 of 4, though some pupils really wanted to take it further… (ok, go on then!).  We used this as a model example before we went on to write our next pieces, looking at what C should include, what he needs to continue, who he should mention, who he no longer needs to worry about – the beheading seemed to go down well with the class!

I don’t think the class had ever been given the opportunity to write a truly extended piece of writing.  It seemed they were use to wrapping things up in one lesson.  This led to a few issues about not killing off everybody and finding the treasure on day one, which challenged me to make sure my planning templates allowed for the stories to be continued.

The Adventure Author games really allowed some to imagine what the characters would be going through, what would happen stage by stage, or even level by level, for those who were more serious gamers.  Some writers ended up writing more of a guide to the game than a story.  Some got a bit fed up and decided to write a totally different story.  I think I’m ok with this, especially the later.

I particularly like the word choice in the following passage.  We did spend quite a bit of time trying to develop vocabularly, but there are some real crackers:

vigorously, brutal, lunged, pleading, even executed.

Do you have any comments on the passage?

The Outbreak

Chapter 3

I fought the wolves vigorously. It took me about fifteen minutes to kill them all but I was wounded quite badly because Elrond left me to suffer and ran with the crystal skull, I  of course followed him after I had bandaged my arm.I  found him at the castle gates with two small people wait a minute they were dwarves one of the most brutal race in the world so I’ve heard.

So I started to ask him questions “So Elrond you freak why you leave me to die?” I said looking for answers.

“Save me the sob stories Alex” He replied fiercely.

“ Never really liked you I actually work for the king because he pays me lots and once I place the skull on the altar I will tell him and he will kill you Eh lads” Elrond cried  looking like he wants a fight.

“Yeah sir in fact I will kill him now” said the first dwarf.

“Leave some for me” Said the other dwarf.

He lunged at me with the dwarves by his side and I drew my sword battle ready.   I fought long and hard and an hour later the dwarves were dead and Elrond was on the ground pleading for mercy and before I executed him he said “The king will see you now ha ha ha” Then I chopped of his head .

I broke into the castle…

There is just a wealth of Literacy work that can be developed through Adventure Author and Never Winter Nights 2.  We are trying to use the fantasy adventure genre to develop our games, stories and reading.  The current books we have are of this genre, though I would be open to a few more suggestions for good fantasy adventure reads for P7s.

We had spent the initial stages of the project developing our landscape, the setting for our adventure.  This involved a number of collaborative efforts being developed for days on end.  There were also those who chose to scrap everything they had done and start again (quite often) and those who wanted to take their own work in a different way from their partner, so had to copy their files over from their partners login.  Some of the class actually managed to work this out all by themselves – remind me to ask them how to do it soon!

The toolkit is visually rich, it just lends itself to powerful description.  There is such opportunity here to develop vocabulary, synonyms, adverbs, adjectives, plus so much more.  I think I may well make use of our Moving Image resources and get some commentary on each game screen from other members of the class, filming it as we go round, then make some form of master edit!  From this we could even develop a word bank of powerful vocabulary to use in our own story development.  I think that’s a great idea, just come up with it!

Making use of our free local maps from Ordance Survey, we investigated coordinates, keys, terrain and how the landscape is represented on the maps.

The initial Area of an Adventure Author game is a 6×6 grid.  This can obviously be attacked randomly, or it can be utilised to form a path through the game for the player.  We investigated some maps of Middle Earth and looked at the journey that the Fellowship had to make to fulfill their quest.

We used the simple template that is attached here to design our initial terrain, some of this was done from a blank canvas and some from what was already present.

area map

Using our group reading books, we tried to keep a record of interesting description of characters.  We grouped them into 5 main categories, having looked at the different sorts of characters that had appeared in our novels and that could feature in our own stories.

Evil: Mad, Mental, Crooked, Crazy, Repulsive, Rotten, Devious, Dangerous, Horrible, Nasty, Sly, Mean, Bad, Outrageous, Demonic, vicious, Angry, Horrid, Cunning, Not nice, Nonsense, Unkind.

Big: Gigantic, Massive, Giant, Huge, Tall, Large, Enormous, Humongous, Immense, Extraordinary.

Strong: Tough, Powerful, Brave, Muscular, Magnificent, Immense, Super, Mighty.

Good: Happy, Spectacular, Wonderful, Magnificent, Considerate, Fabulous, Nice, Hero, Excellent, Great, Fantastic, Brilliant, Amazing
Awesome, Responsible, Reliable, Pleasant, Kind, Lovely, Trustful, Thoughtful.

Small: Puny, Wee, Tiny, Little, Midget, Mini, Slim, Petite, Microscopic, Totsy, Short.

The list is attached as a pdf (Character Synonyms)

We’ve started working with Heriot-Watt University on the Adventure Author Project.

13 or so individually installed patches, extra RAM, suite refresh, crashed servers and a graphics card driver update later and we were ready to begin.  Was it worth the wait?  I can definitely answer in the positive.  I’d drip fed the class that we were going to start an exciting new project, but I hadn’t wanted to get their hopes up until we could actually begin.  ICT Support had been excellent, but it was still a bit of a nightmare to get to a starting position.

Because of this delay, starting towards the end of October, and the ensuing craziness that is a primary school at Christmas time, it has been somewhat of sporadic journey.  Hopefully, with shows now behind us, we have a slightly clearer run in until the end of term, which will allow us to get our virtual teeth stuck into Adventure Author.

The initial feedback from the class has been so positive.  This involved pupils sending emails from home saying how much fun they had had in class that day.  Also, some of the boys chose to go to homework club to use the computers rather than go out to play football at lunch time.

Initially, we gave the pupils space to play and explore in pairs… a class of 30 fits nicely into an ICT suite that way!  Worlds were created, as were Zombie armies.  Dragons were discovered, as were a number of functions that we planned to introduce later on!  Fancy that, finding stuff out for themselves, rather than waiting to be told in an order that suits the teacher… shame on them!  In a way, the next stage was quite a difficult step, to try to bring some order, some structure, some objective to the project, and share this with the class.  Do you want to create a fantastic computer game, or would you rather come here and discuss plots?  Well, actually we’re going to do both!  And, actually they did!

My nano presentation can be found here: http://prezi.com/a6d6g8li5aup/

TeachMeet Falkirk photos, courtesy of shrmps, can be found here.

Have at last had time to (begin to) reflect on Teachmeet Falkirk, as the following two evenings were taken up with Parents Nights… nice!

For an unconference, there is still a heck of a lot of behind the scenes work and preparation to do, with @mvass bearing the brunt of that (although she did have a team of able and willing supporters)!

I think (for any teachmeet) the venue is important. We wanted somewhere away from school, which we got, but maybe for some, it was to far away from anything else! The building offered great flexibility, with space for break out plus having dinner onsite just meant for easy transition. The venue was ideal for locals, as it is used for other CPD events by the council. Perhaps it wasn’t the best for those coming from outwith, but is that so important?

Timing is also important. Part of me felt the 5 for 6 was a bit too late, as it was Falkirk inservice, so some folk were hanging about from 3 or 4. For those outwith the region, the M80 etc at peak time is a nightmare, so maybe a later start would have been better, but then the later finish for TeachEat is not so attractive.

Many folk have been discussing the future or evolution of TeachMeet and it is very interesting to see many local spin offs being planned and organised, like those in East Lothian and Perth. This is a really positive happening if the net is to be cast wider. Otherwise you can imagine it will just be a core of people returning, again and again. Not that this is a negative thing, perhaps it is important for the key players (?) to meet and be refuelled, before departing again to their regions, so a bigger event at, say the SLF, could still be important in keeping the TeachMeet snowball rolling.

The amount of kit on show in Falkirk was quite frightening! Is this attractive to the newbie? Is it more of a turnoff? Many of the ideas were ICT based, most Web based. Perhaps the CfE based upcoming TeachMeets will present a broader range of ideas? For those not too technically skilled, it maybe a bit overdone, though through the wiki and twitter etc, the message is spread to those who have some strength in ict. Perhaps there is a place for a lowtech TeachMeet? (would you still use twitter and the wiki to spread the word?)!

Just like the Co-op, local could be the way forward for TeachMeet. Obviously, the bulk of the workload would fall on key players, but isn’t that always the way? With a strong local support, future events may become easier to organise, perhaps simpler also.

Some amount of rambling. Any amount of sense?

Whistling. Is there enough? Should we teach it to our young people – Higher whistling anybody? Andrew Bird can whistle! No, he really can! Although it’s more of a warble (perhaps he’s a twitcher when not on show?). He can also do a lot of other things. But the only ones I know anything about are his ability to play a manifold number of instruments, almost simultaneously, turning a one man show, into a big band performance!

I think I first really discovered I liked Andrew Bird whilst driving up Highway 7 to Ottawa, Canada. His latest release was playing on one of those satellite radio stations with many letters and numbers in it’s name, KCTRWX 109.8 or summat!

Leaving his band behind, somewhere in Englandshire, Dr Bird made his way to Oran Mor, Glasgow, a venue that has notably hosted some quality performances for me over the last few years. This was one of those gigs were I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But that was refreshing. Playing solo, we questioned how he would sound. We of little faith. He just has to be one of the scientist racing for the prize, in accordance with The Flaming Lips. The stage was his laboratory. The instruments his implements. Music his creation. Layer upon layer of live tracks were laid down as he fulfilled the duties of all band members himself. Then there was the whistling. The angst. The humour. The sarcasm. The depth, yet accessibility of lyrics, themselves containing layer upon layer of meaning. This dreamy conception was like a blackhole to another place, a good place, a place to dream, to explore. Yet, like your favourite desert, too much would be sickening.

With the gig wife, sch3pl and Miss Bliss all happy, we headed into the windy streets suitably impressed and somewhat inspired.

(image used under creative commons license: from gussifer)