Jumping forwards. And backwards.

This post will be about my plans to incorporate gaming stimuli in the near future. Our school IT infrastructure is going through a major upgrade, hopefully resulting in a stable and capable network. Woohoo!

At the turn of the year I applied, and got into a trial run by Valve software .

They are rolling out a pilot program that was started in the USA last year, involving their multi award winning game Portal 2

 

 learning with Portals has a fair science, creative thinking and mathematical focus, however, there have been some fascinating projects run through it, using the game as a starting canvas for narrative writing.

The educational package delivers the game, and a full level creator/editor (all for free)
The game itself offers a limited narrative, and simply exposes the user to a first-person perspective environment, with a series of open ended challenges. All of which have to be solved by creating Portals - in through blue: out through orange. The player character is confined to a mysterious laboratory environment.

Teachers from across the pond have been designing simple introductory levels, deliberately blank to stimulate children in to inventing their own plot, and characters. 
The game does require a semi decent i3 or i5 processor, and fortunately a few of our newer desktops in the ICT suite are capable of running it. It is worth noting the original Portal game runs fine on my not-so-decent dual core laptop.

As out infrastructure solidifies, I shall share the planning and progress through this project. The game itself is well known, and I shall have to work to strip the game narrative from a few children's minds - but that is no different than the way many of us have been approaching games through the Wii project.