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Gaming Worlds: Secondary Students Creating an Interactive Video Game

With the soaring sales and rising popularity of video games with youth, how might art educators utilize this technology to engage secondary students? How might we develop more creative high school or university programs where secondary students can create video games through active, experiential, dialogical learning (Dewey, 1910, 1934)? Art educators have written for some time about digital visual culture within the field of art education (Dunn, 1996; Heise & Grandgenett, 1996; Keifer-Boyd, 1996; Krug, 2002; Sweeny, 2004; Tavin, 2002; Taylor & Carpenter, 2002); however, there are few case studies examining the learning potential of secondary students through the act of creating a video game. Patton and Kenyon (2010) address pedagogical applications of video games, providing examples of game development workshops, such as the Smithsonian Associates Summer Program. They also mention different types of gamebuilding software and a need for more student opportunities in creating interactive systems and devices like video games. At the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), students had the opportunity to create a video game through a summer program. University of Texas at Arlington: SEED Program Since the summer of 2006, UTA, in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, has invited secondary students to participate in their summer SEED program on campus. The program was developed by the Dean of the School of Architecture and the Chair of the Art + Art History Department. SEED (Strategies, Events, Episodes + Devices) is taught by distinguished faculty at UTA and stresses experiential learning (Dewey, 1910, 1934) through development of creativity and exploration with a variety of art and design media and methods. Although the program has morphed since its inception, each 2-week summer period a different medium is chosen; the seven programs thus far have included painting, printmaking, illustration, 3-D visualization (2-D drawing and 3-D sculpting), video game creation, and more. Every fall, 30 high schools in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex nominate two student candidates for the program who have an interest in art and design and would like to enhance their creative vocabulary and develop their art portfolio. This article will discuss, examine, and share the process of development and implementation of the SEED program’s student-created video game as a case study (Flyvbjerg, 2004; Stake, 1995, 2005). Additionally, potential learning outcomes from the process of creating a video game are explored through a social constructivism perspective.