Time is a funny thing for us humans. It always seems like it either disappears too quickly or idles by painfully slowly. But even if we are not great at gaging time, what is more important is being able to evaluate and learn from the past, live in the present, and plan optimistically for the future.
This got us here at 7 Generation Games thinking about how far we have come since the beginning of the year. While time has seemingly whizzed by, we have experienced many crucial milestones for our team and our Spirit and Fish Lake games.
- We came back from North Dakota in January with 68 improvements to make. By April, we knocked out 45 and received another 54 suggestions from staff and students who have been using the game weekly. We are working on improvements every day!
- Spirit Lake is now installed in five schools adjacent to the Spirit Lake and Turtle Mountain reservations. During our last trip to North Dakota, AnnMaria met with a sixth school (St. John) that will be installing the game in the near future.
- 7 Generation Games hosted a Tweetup in Las Vegas in coordination with Evrybit and Armbar Nation.
- Maria attended EdCamp Magnet in the Twin Cities in February, and we also sponsored two other EdCamps in Iowa and Bemidji, Minnesota.
- In March, we hired Jessica Bueler to take over our social media channels. She now regularly posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
- Maria attended the 2014 National Forum on Dropout Prevention for Native and Tribal Communities in the Twin Cities at the end of April.
- AnnMaria met with Sioux City, IA school staff and has sent them a game link.
- AnnMaria met with staff from Minot State University and Three Affiliated Tribes at the Pathfinder meeting in Minot, along with Erich Longie and Willie Davis.
- Maria worked on the 7 Generation Games full-site overhaul. We will be launching our brand new website this fall!
- Our biggest priority has been making an all-in-one install package – no more disabling pop-up windows, downloading Firefox or QuickTime if you don’t have it, or downloading unity. The install process went from 5 minutes to 30 seconds. Hurray!
- We kicked off our very first anti-hackathon and began collaborating on a Choose Your Own Adventure Game with super heroes that were destined to save the world that incorporates both science and math.
- Jessica attended the Thirty-First Annual Ninth District PTA Summer Leadership Conference in San Diego and connected with over 50 teachers and homeschooling parents to send them a demo of our Spirit Lake game.
- Currently, AnnMaria is in North Dakota attending several different events with Erich Longie, our cultural consultant, and spreading the word about our games.
There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are enjoying ever step of the way! We hope all of you have had an equally fulfilling past couple of months, and we wish you a happy and productive second half of the year!
Until next time,
Diana J. The Blogging Intern