Returning session

Today's session went relatively well. We had about 8 experts show up (three orginal) and I believe we were able to get quite a bit out of them. I'm really pleased with the variety of experts in this session - a good mix of ages and girls and boys. They all seem to be very comfortable with each other as well, so I'm able to pair them up in different ways and they still work well with one another.

I think we will be able to get some great things out of this group. I had them do guided game play when they first arrived - they could only use different peripherals including the drums, kilowat, eyetoy. I did not let them use guitar hero, since the majority of them, if not all have gotten ample experience with that controller.

Their favorites seemed to be the eyetoy and drums. Most hated the kilowat and told me repeatedly, even with trying different games. That seems to be the reaction I've received to the kilowat the last few sessions. Many think it is too difficult to use.

We also did some game design brainstorming with the game developers to come up with some different games that taught middle school students math concepts in a fun, effective way. The experts came up with some interesting ideas including a building game (figuring out the kinds and amounts of pieces you needed to build something and bugeting the supplies); a journey game (sort of like Oregon trail - you have a destination to reach and need to buy and manage your supplies to get there and keep from dying). I think we should be able to build on some of these concepts in later sessions.