Name / Team member names: Melissa Yasemin Mundy
Working title: Uhero
Blog URL: https://padlet.com/mel_yasemin/digital001#
What is the intended idea / concept behind the proposed project?
A game for pc that is also available as an app on phones and tablets (apple and android). (Could possibly be made into a cartoon series, and comic series in the future depending on how it would turn out. Could possibly even go into VR or educational holograms).
The games main aims are as followed:
– To help children gain confidence and learn in a more creative way that is more supportive of them and more personal to their own learning preferences and capability,(especially if they have a learning difficulty).
– Help parents and teachers have a better understanding on how children enjoy learning, what they need to improve on, and what they’re good at and to encourage them either way.
There are some gameplay information on the padlet page under ‘overall rules/information on gameplay’
Justify the idea / concept in terms of the needs for its existence (if purely for entertainment, state this and how the output will be innovative/original and creative):
Children are our future and therefore their development is highly important. However, some children may feel too pressured or stressed at the really early ages of primary school. This could be seen as really unfair and take away from their childhood. As well as learning and developing they should also be encouraged to be themselves and make the most out of being young.
Children are all unique and have different ways of learning, different skills, and some may have learning difficulties. A child whom may be very talented at sports, but lacks in academic subjects such as maths, their confidence may be lowered and it may even result in them losing passion in what they’re good at and not trying to improve what they’re not as good at. Children should be showed that just because their work may not be better than others, it still doesn’t mean their work is not good.
This game is aiming to help children learn in a more fun less pressuring way than homework and grades. (it’s also a bit more modern than homework as it’s digital and interactive). If they lack in a subject it will show on their profile that teachers and parents can see, they can also see what’s the best way they take information in and what they enjoy. This will hopefully help take a little pressure off children and help them gain confidence, especially if they have a learning difficulty as well as giving them plenty of time to run on imagination and play with friends and family.
Furthermore. This will hopefully prepare children for secondary school and show them that they are all capable of doing well in every subject, even if it’s not for them, or they really struggle with it, as long as they just get the help they need and try their best to do well. In addition to that, if they aren’t as good in one subject than others, they should be encouraged more to improve but also focus more on what they’re good at (as sometimes when you’re good at something teachers leave it out and not help you progress in it, as they’re focusing on helping you in subjects you’re not as passionate about). Feeling positive about what you can do from a young age will help in the future as they’ll feel more confident rather than some people growing to believe that they’re not as good at certain things than others so why should they bother?
For example, I used to be good at drawing in school but struggled in a lot in English (English was my second language, yet I believed I was really stupid for not fully understanding everything despite knowing two languages, (but I didn’t see that as a positive at all). I struggled in pretty much every academic subject because I had a more practical/visual way of learning although I had a huge love of reading fiction books, I just couldn’t understand non-fiction. This made me lose hope for a lot of things and so I just accepted that I was no good and gave up. Even though, I was just as capable primary education failed to show me that. My cousins show me incredible work for such young ages of 7 and yet throw it away because they didn’t get the best mark on it. Hopefully this game/app will give each child a more personal approach and give the extra help when needed in a supportive positive way and prevent having some kids feel useless and possible develop a mental illness.
Describe the intended audience:
Primary school children from the ages of 5-11. Working to middle class backgrounds. Aimed at all children learning styles, children with learning difficulties, basically all children but more focused on children who possibly may be struggling and/or come from backgrounds who can’t support children or get the personal tutors/education, including those whom may speak English as a second language. It is targeting both genders.
How will this project extend your or your team’s creative and technical skills?
It will improve my research skills, writing, game developing, and software skills/understanding. It will also help me look more into branding, and interactive technology. Working with a target audience that is different to me will also help develop my creative and technical skills, as I’ve never designed anything for an audience younger than me.
Outline how the practical work will be carried out by you / the team (division of labour) and the time-scales involved for each task:
Deadline: Friday 7th April, 10 weeks left.
– A lot of research, this will be the main focus for 3 weeks but will be looked into as the project develops (although doesn’t seem practical does it?). Pre-Production paper work including budget.
– Designing, Main focus for the next 2/3 weeks, again may still be modified as weeks go on. Including logo design, and looking into colours/target audience. (adding ideas to padlet as it goes on)
– Looking into/working with game developing software and making it interactive on Adobe XD. For the next 3/4. This will include mini game designing, character design, accessory design, and interactive design.
-Main focus for the last two weeks finalising it making sure it all works and has all appropriate paper work, online work, and assignment work to go with it.
What other work (by animators, designers, film-makers, writers, digital media producers, etc.) is relevant to your project? (This work may either be relevant for its conceptual or technical similarity):
Apps on educating children:
Forestry – app that teaches kids on forest animals.
Archie’s magic pencil – teaches really young children to draw.
A Parcel of courage – A really attractive style of visual book for children.
Dr Panda’s Hoopa City – educating teaching and letting them build their own city.
Designers for children:
Dr. Seuss – Dr Seuss has an amazing range of books with a really interesting illtrative style.
Styles also that are nice are from the game called Monument Valley, and cartoons such as Adventure Time
Educating children programs:
Cyberchase – This is the best for my target audience, helps educate kids in problem solving.
Dora the Explorer – animated series educating children in problem solving and sometimes Spanish. Dora the explorer also has some mini games for children
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! – animated series that mostly teaches science.
Comic books/graphic novels:
Zita the space girl book by Ben Hatke
Amulet: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi
They’re relevant to this project as that have a style suitable for my target audience and influence on characters that may be in the game. Also important comics are the ‘DC’ series and ‘Marvel’ as they’re most popular and their superpowers will be in the game such as flight.
List any critical texts that are relevant to your conceptual intentions:
I will mostly be looking into texts based on learning difficulties, how to target children effectively, game/children design, also the most effective ways on how children learn, different learning styles. However, I’m mostly interested in the digital side so will be looking into app/game development and possibly branding:
eBooks:
Fichtner, B., Kontopodis, M. and Wulf, C. (2011) Children, development and education: cultural, historical, anthropological perspectives. London: Springer.
This is useful as I need to learn the best way to approach children and how they learn more effectively before I create a game or software that educates children.
Books:
Young children learning is a book edited by Tricia David is one of the main books I could find on children learning, despite is being published in 1999 so some information could be outdated there is interesting information in it on how a child thinks at different ages and what they can take in.
Brown, D. and Roberts, V. (2014) The iPhone App design manual: Create perfect designs for effortless coding and App store success. London, United Kingdom: Ilex.
McWherter, J. (2012) Professional Mobile Application Development. Edited by Scott Gowell
Goldstone, W. (2009) Unity Game Development Essentials. Lincoln.
Salen, K., Zimmerman, E. and Tekinba, K.S. (2003) Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
These books have good information on what makes an effective game and design inspirations.
Online texts:
Game developing: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/developer-advice/how-start-your-game-development
http://kotaku.com/5979539/a-beginners-guide-to-making-your-first-video-game
App tips: http://blog.lemberg.co.uk/useful-tips-developing-successful-educational-app
Possible funding for games/apps could be Kickstarter.
Understanding learning difficulties: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities (although they’ll be a lot more as the research goes on)
Journals:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/001440298605200502 – (Educating Children with Learning Problems: A Shared Responsibility)
Working Memory Impairments in Children with Specific Arithmetic Learning Difficulties
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (book)
Digital Game-Based Learning