Even though I spent last night and this morning in Ojai, I’ve still been getting a good bit of work done.
Right now, I’m sitting on the porch at the Lavender Inn typing away at the Fish Lake Game Design Document, adding more math to Level One in keeping with recommendations from the teachers in our beta test this past spring.
Since the game play that will have just ended has students trying to avoid poisonous snakes on the path to the fishing spot, my notes say “Have a problem about snakes”.
Here is what I added to the GDD.
Make movie showing prairie rattlesnake and saying that it is the only venomous snake in North Dakota (is it still in North Dakota or are they eradicated). Also point out the distinction between venomous and poisonous.
As Easter egg one of the times they die add the snake story from Erich (do we have that as a video?)
Make this an interactive problem. Each NEXT shows new scene and shows the next cell. Maybe have some animation in scene.
The prairie rattlesnake was the only venomous snake in North Dakota.
SCENE with background & Anookwesens (maybe canvas)
— Can be a table with cells hidden
Anookwesens walks two miles south. NEXT
She sees 8 snakes. Two of them are rattlesnakes. NEXT
Zoongey Gniw walks one mile north. NEXT
He sees 4 snakes and one of them is a rattle snake. NEXT
Willow says they should not go south because it is much more dangerous. Zoongey Gniw says that there are more rattlesnakes to the north. Anookwesens says they are the same. WHO IS RIGHT?
- What do you think?
- There are more to the south
- There are more to the north
- It is the same
- I don’t know
(On click, text box comes up)
Explain your answer.
Whether they are right or wrong, their answer is written to the database and a movie (or web page with audio) comes up and shows that 2/8 is equivalent to ¼ so they are the same.
Now, since it is 1 pm, I am going to get off the porch, go wine-tasting at a vineyard down the road and head home
Despite the fact that Maria suggested I do the programming before the wine-tasting, when I get back to the office I am going to code all of this except the movies, which I’m going to assign to a couple of our staff members. That is what I call a workday well spent.
P. S. Unlike a lot of companies who operate in stealth mode and want to keep what they are doing secret, we’re the opposite. Yes, we have good ideas but we also want to hear from other people’s good ideas and I don’t think that’s going to happen if we run around pretending that we are the CIA. Besides, I’ve never believed the value of our company was in having ideas no one else ever had. I think it is working continually to put those ideas into practice – that and having really good people working with us.
P.P. S. – Just to be clear, sitting on the porch and updating the game design document wasn’t the ONLY thing I did today. Besides, it’s only 1 pm & I usually don’t start work until past 10 am. I’m just getting started