Changing the world is hard work. My personal hopes for Stratolab are to help young people take control of their lives, and that in this endeavor, Stratolab will grow to help more and more people. I know it’s a long, bumpy road to reach those goals, but really the journey is the important part right? Here’s to enjoying the journey…
I’ve had the pleasure of working on Scoot-n-Doodle for the past few months and you must try it, it’s so much fun.
Scoot-n-doodle is video conferencing plus a drawing pad with games for families. Have you ever tried talking on the phone with your young nephew–a one minute conversation is about all you can hope for. It’s so hard to keep them in one place and there is not really much to talk about. With Scoot-n-doodle, you can play hangman, tag, or other games from your childhood. I’ll often play with my nephew for an hour at a stretch—what a difference between a painful 60 seconds of strained conversation to an hour of fun drawing crazy dragons or games of tic-tac-toe.
If you want to play with your relatives but they are far away, try Scoot-n-Doodle. It’s part of Google Hangouts so you’ll need a Google Plus account.
-Winston
James Squire has an interesting article on using video games in education:
Cultural Framing of Computer/View Games
He talks about research on using SimCity and Civilization in the classroom, and also brings up Education Arcade project. My take-away is that how the game is used in the classroom is as important as the game itself. Just playing the game may be somewhat educational, but real learning happens when the players discuss the game afterwards, generalize strategies learned in the game to other situations, and identify places where the game is different from reality.
Stratolab’s new business is writing software—tools and games—for learning. We have started working on several projects including a math game and a training simulation for teachers. We have many more ideas too, but first things first.
In this era of change, Stratolab is changing too. We are shifting our focus from after-school classes to software. In the new year we will be creating video games that teach. As a result, we are closing our cozy studio. January 31 will be our last class.
Last Chance to Take a Stratolab Class. Call Now. All courses are 30% off in December and January. This is your last chance to experience Stratolab. Tell all your classmates. Email all your friends!
Eric Scott is our new Advanced Computer Programming teacher. He runs Dolphin Micro, a web development company, but loves to teach a bit on the side. I have worked with him and he is an outstanding programmer. I’m very happy to have him on our team teaching our Game Programming for Teens course.
By the way, he also has a lot of experience in Marketing and Sales so he is a great consultant for building websites. If you need a website built, we recommend him highly.
Expect the return of old favorites as well as some exciting, new courses here at Stratolab. For starters, Video Game Programming is available after-school and weekends too. Robotics Jr. (Ages 9 & up) and the more advanced Robotics for Teens (ages 13 & up) is back and refitted with new goals & contests. For all you builders, tinkerers and general gear-heads, DIY Electronics teaches you how to build a mini-music system that will rock your socks off. Returning with new tricks and techniques, our wildly successful 5 C’s of Comic Book Storytelling is bringing heroic justice back to Saturday mornings. Brand new to the line-up is Anime and Animation where you create stop motion films and Japanese style cartoon creations. A new course, Comic Illustration with the renowned artist & teacher John Rapone, covers drawing and illustration to bring any story to life.
For summer 2008, our innovative ensemble of instructors have devised two new courses for the summer. Also we will continue our StratoLounge experiment on weekday afternoons starting the second week of July. For details, see the Courses page.
Comic Storytelling and Animation covers two subjects: the six C’s of comic storytelling, and stop motion animation. The Six C’s of Comic Book Storytelling – the greatest heroes and the vilest villians come together in your own professionally plotted graphic novel. Stop Motion Animation – bring to life your favorite action figures and inanimate objects with voices and sounds effects in this all fun, all action, stop motion animation class.
Electronic Music and Devices covers two subjects: electronic music and Do-It-Yourself electronics. Electronic Music – Compose songs and soundscapes, learn arrangement, production, and special effects. DIY Electronics – One person’s trash is another person’s portable stereo system. Build headphones and other musical gadgets out of things commonly found in the recycling bin!
Congratulations to Julia, Will, and Eric — winners of the Master Robot Builder award. AMNH’s Robotics Camp studied mechanical engineering, a little computer programming, and learned something about teamwork and communication. What a fun week it was.
Mark Shuttleworth, software engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist from South Africa, is funding work on developing software tools to help education, especially analytical thinking and problem solving. Here’s what he has to say:
This is exactly what I’m interested in, so I couldn’t help adding my two cents.
February 2006 - One of my good friends here in New York is Duncan, who I’ve known since our days in the mid-90′s writing Star Wars games at LucasArts. His friend started the company GameLab which writes great smallish games. They do lots of short games — games for when you have an extra 15 minutes to waste, rather than the epic immersive games like Halo or Red Alert.
GameLab hosted a non-electronic games night, i.e. board games and card games. I got to see their office space and It was a gamer’s fantasy come true. In a grim looking building near Canal Street, we walked up two flights of stairs to a door with a huge pixellated Space Invaders image on the door. “This must be the place.” I walked in and every visible surface was covered with something related to games, comics, or computers. Bookshelves were filled with Japanese Manga, Marvel and D.C. comics, and also a huge collection of old hand-held electronic games like the Mattel Football. There were dozens of programmers and artists putting the last touches on their work before relaxing to an evenings entertainment of pizza, card games, and idle banter.
We played one hand of The Family, a card game where you play Mob bosses trying to eliminate your competition before they eliminate your. Pretty good, but not as fun as Kill Dr. Lucky. Kill Dr. Lucky is similar to Clue, but instead of trying to find the killer, you are trying to do the evil deed. Corner Dr. Lucky in a room without witnesses and attack him with weapons on hand. Or if no weapons are around, at least try to poke his eye out. But your opponents have their own vendettas against the poor doctor, and will try to foil your plans in order to take the honor. A humorous game to top off a pleasant evening.
Copyright © 2009 Stratolab
