Week 3: All About Video Games

All About Video Games

Reading: 

Kids Unite Art and Science and Create a World of Wonder: Knox Gifted Academy is designed to inspire innovation and excellence through STEAM by Michael Buist 

The opening sentence is enough to catch anyones attention and validate the arts in the same breath; "Nobel laureates in science are 25 time more likely than other scientists to sing, dance, or act or 17 times more likely to be a visual artist and so on." These are just some of life-altering inventions that can happen when the arts and sciences converge. As leading MacArthur Fellow Robert Root-Bernstein says, “Arts don’t just prettify science or make technology more aesthetic; they often make both possible.”  In order to take advantage of the results of arts and science converging, school like Knox Gifted Academy are designed to inspire, innovate,  and excellence. How do the accomplish this? Well where as most school would cut the arts and focus on the STEM subjects, school like Knox Gift Academy are focusing on using STEAM which is a teaching framework that brings the A for the arts into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The value of STEAM  is that it connects the different subjects together in the way
they would relate to the business world and to each other and Schools like the new K-6 Knox Gifted Academy in Chandler, Arizona recognize the power of this convergence between the arts and sciences and start this way of learning and understanding the value of merging art and science early in their lives.  During the school day, he says, teachers practice an interdisciplinary approach to education and try to make the integration of the arts and sciences seamless, for example a story told in English incorporates music, art, and language in one lesson.  This is the type of education I seeking and adding the additional element to the area of art and it is the art of movement. In the teaching of the arts often the body is disengaged as it is throughout most of the school day, in order to address this problem the arts should begin with a gross motor skill and then focus on the fine motor skills used to created visual art.

Watch: Canes Aracade Video

9-year-old Caine Monroy spent his summer vacation building an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad's used auto parts store. He father says his son, Caine, loves to figure out how things work and takes apart his toys to see how they work and that plus his love for games was just natural for him to build an arcade.  It started out when he went to work with his father who sold auto  parts and had alot of extra boxes so Caine cut them apart and created his first game with a basketball hope.  That lead to more and more games that became more complex and he eventually filled the hold store.  Thats when Nirvan, a filmmaker, stopped into the store and asked to play.  $1 for 4 turns of $2 for a fun pass which you get 500 turns with a expiration of one month.  Nirvan bought a fun pass, and Caine developed his business complete with an office, business cards, money, tickets, coins, and of course prizes.  At first the prizes where his old toys like his old Hot Wheels, then started to buy little toys as rewards.  He asked his dad to buy a claw machine for the arcade and his dad told him to just build it so he did with a hook and a piece of string and a lot of imagination.  After Nirvan played around for awhile he asked the father if he could make a film about the arcade. This is where I have read about this story prior to seeing this video.  I am a huge fan of the reddit website and flow its stories, just like this one, daily.  I first read about the meet up and saw pictures of the arcade and meetup.  I enjoyed this video because it provided all the context behind the arcade and boy who made.  This is such a great story about technology, the internet and how our views of them can be flipped upside down and be viewed differently such as building an arcade out of cardboard.

Explore: StemtoSteam.org /Edutopia.org /Codecreate.us

 1. StemtoStem.org

This website was easy to navigate and laid out research, case studies, events, and more pertaining to the teaching of STEAM instead of STEM.  It provided tons of great information about why arts should be added to the crucial subjects of STEM.  Not only does it provide resource, articles and press about this topic it also links to other resources.  The front page displays different attention grabbing headlines and videos including a video from Seth McFarland creating of Family Guy. This website would draw in older students but mainly geared towards educator, parents or other adults looking to research the benefits of STEAM.

2.Edutopia.org

With a headline of What Works in Education, edutopia covers not only art education but all education with topics that are current and trending in the educational world.  With a trending daily scrolling headline at the top, this website is update and knowledgable about what is happening in education.  The specific article looked at was in the same vein of the STEM vs STEAM as the previous website. Instead of offering as signular article on the topic though, this website gave a list that included 3 different compilations that look at different approaches to integrated studies. The three topics included;STEM: Science, Technology, Enginnering, Math; STEAM: STEM + Arts, Design and Humanities; and Maker Education.  The way these grouping were order provide a downward flow so that once you had an understanding of the previous topic then you could move down to the next grouping

3. Codecreate.us

Using the quote "Making Technology Like Art and Art Like Technology", this website says that they aim to provide dynamic and creative experience for young people,educators, families, bringing by providing innovative opportunities for learners to imagine, reflect, play, and create. The list local events for students to click and learn more about as well as along the sidebar where students and educators can signup for workshops.  The sidebar also provides information about the organization and they educators.  To get a feel for the type of workshops and events that you can attend there are videos you can watch about them as well as video about different technology challenges and special events.