Gamertell

Remember when you couldn’t wait to get into high school? It was the place of learning all those subjects and educational keys to really start molding your future and setting your sites on the career of your choice. But after you enter, the classes became harder and though you excelled at one subject you moan as another flopped. It was no longer fun, challenging and at times you feel disconnected.

For Steve Waddell, CEO and Lead Developer of I Support Learning, he remembers that all too well.

“Essentially, I was one of those students who was not engaged in school. From middle school on I had a hard time getting connected with my classes,“ Waddell told Gamertell. “Later in life I began designing curricula, and realized that there was a better way to engage students. To create a learning environment that has the intrigue of a game, the in-your-face reality of an internship, and meets the math, science, language and technology requirements schools are required to meet.“

He explained the importance of not just giving them information and hope they understand, but to find a way to engaged a student with their education and feel connected. Through I Support Learning, one of the available curriculum is videogame design.

“The videogame design curriculum is about making learning relevant to the learner by showing them how math, science and language are used in the real world. The big benefit is engagement,“ Waddell said. “If a student isn’t engaged, as I found myself in school, then it becomes very tough to learn. This is pretty much common sense. If your audience isn’t listening to you they won’t get the message. We’re also excited that universities around the country are starting to give students, middle and high school, who take our course math, engineering and technology college credits.“

When asked if such a course would be too difficult for an average high school student to understand, he said no because it is presented in a way that they will actually learn more quickly.

“First, it is in the delivery method. The way we deliver the knowledge the students need is all very contextual,“ he explained. “If you put something in clear context for a learner they learn much more quickly and I would argue can learn more complex topics. Again it is about engagement. Second we have middle school students building, with code, real games. This is why the future game designer challenge competition has divisions for both middle and high school students. High school students typically will create more robust games, but the middle school students create some very inventive games and concepts. It is a blast to watch.“

Waddell said the video game design curriculum is not the only course that’s becoming popular. Other curriculum are available for students who are more interested in subjects including cartoon animation, artificial intelligence, mobile robotics and web game designs.

“We also have courses in music video production, building green, horticulture, robots and invention, green industry, and biotechnology,“ he added, explaining that regardless what courses the students chooses, all of them provide educational experiences they can apply to any career they pursue.

“That is the advantage of teaching the student in context. By showing how the math, language, science, technology all work together it allows the student to take with them an experience that translates anywhere. For example, with video game design the students are immersed in the design process. While, yes, they are programming a 3D game, they are also creating audio, imagery, story lines, presentation to sell their game concept, learning about careers and working as part of a team at a company. We have had fortune 500 companies visit our offices just to see how we teach the real world skills. Needless to say, we have made quite a few friends in the corporate world.“

Waddell said he has had nothing but 100 percent positive feed back from the students, teachers, administrators and even parents participating in one of the courses offered, and shared an incident that occurred one day.

“I got cornered one time by a dad who works as a programmer. For years he had tried to get his son to look at programming,“ he said. “Video game design had sparked an interest with the son and the dad was ecstatic to see the son interested in school. I was just in LA last week and spoke to some students who had just completed our video game design course. Both students admitted that they didn’t want to be game designers, but the loved the way the course ran. The way they learned at their own pace and how they lived the virtual internship.“

The virtual internship is somewhat a different concept to the traditional school curriculum he explained and added that parents and students should keep an open mind about the courses before they commit to one of the courses.

“This is a first-person virtual internship,“ Waddell said. “It runs like the real world. If you are expecting traditional learning methods then you will be pleasantly surprised with a fresh way to learn. To date we have enjoyed great success. We have seen success with helping to raise state and math reading scores. We have teachers reporting less absenteeism. We have mid and late career teachers feeling newly invigorated with teaching again. We have stories of students staying in school because they are finally engaged.“

Currently, the program is offered in nearly every state in the united states with 11 of 15 of the largest districts as customers. The average cost of a course runs from $2,495 to $2,995 for full school licenses. According to Waddell, the program is seeing their first elementary adoptions along with other exciting news.

“This year we have seen the first universities adopting our courses at the freshman and sophomore level,“ he said. “So, we see our courses expanding. We also have international partners who are taking our courses to other continents. We are having a great time.“

To get involved with the program, Waddell offers this: “Live it. Learn it. Being engaged makes all the difference in the world if you want or need to learn. Anyone is welcome to contact us at (877) 828-1216 or .“

Site [I Support Learning]

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