Design a Video Game by Gaming With a Gamestar Mechanic Educator STEM Coding Camp

Design a video game with a Gamestar Mechanic Educator, teacher Ms. Rachel! 

In this exciting introductory level class, students will learn how to create a video game by playing a video game! Utilizing Gamestar Mechanic students will create themes and collect items for their own game by completing levels of various quests within the platform. Students will learn how game systems work and how they can be modified by learning to think analytically and holistically about the gaming environment and the end user. They will experiment and test their theories and in doing so learn about cause and effect as well as what makes a game successful. Once they have created their game they can share it with others to play!  

Teacher direction, feedback and assistance with troubleshooting will be an important part of this course.

Students will be provided access to the educator's Gamestar Mechanic platform when camp starts. They will logon with the teacher's instructions.

Cameras must be on for the entirety of all of the classes. 

All learners must be enrolled students; if two learners are sharing a device, both learners must be enrolled per Outschool policies.

SEG does not do last minute transfers, after the limited cancellation period has expired.

Learning Outcomes:
- Students will cultivate critical thinking and problem solving skills.
- Students will develop "system-based" thinking.
- Students will sharpen their digital art and aesthetics skills as well as writing and storytelling through game development. 
- STEM 

Materials: 
Students will need a desktop or laptop - no tablets or chromebooks, please. 
Flash player 10 must be installed before the first class - most computers already have it installed, and we can help walk you through checking that with instructions we will post.
Internet access in order to access Gamestar Mechanic through our educator's account is necessary.

About the teacher: Rachel Strawn is a Media Specialist at a small school in North Carolina. She specializes in teaching library skills, keyboarding, coding and STEM. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communications from Franklin Pierce College, where she also minored in Computer Science. She received her Elementary Teaching Certification from the University of West Georgia. Rachel currently lives on a small farm with her husband and daughter. She loves raising her animals, growing vegetables, herbs and flowers.