Theatre 
No Comments Helping build the set for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” these days. Our Gwen will be in this one, starting in March. I have to say, I really like just building and not being in charge!
Game Development No Comments This year I’m relaunching goodlearning.com with a narrower focus. Goodlearning users will focus their creative learning around specific beginning-to-end game projects. Every project begins with the game concept, requirements, and other design considerations. Then each project ends with a completed project — with each users’ personal flair to boot.
Most folks tell you businesses should be designed to:
I totally understand scale and “working on your business, not in it.” However, Goodlearning.com is something I want to do more than anything else. At this point, I want to provide nearly individual attention to each student as I can.
This morning, as I considered what game mechanics the site should use to encourage users to keep moving forward, I decided I want to “validate” certain steps students take. At different milestones during game projects, students can upload the work they did for a lesson (a starship sprite, for instance) and I’ll “validate” that item. This gives them additional points specific to validated exercises. It also gives me a chance to keep on board with each student’s learning. I won’t be grading their work, per se, but if I see they are not on the right track I can offer some assistance.
So, if I get 1,000 students — a goal for 2012 — and only half of them submit items for validation — I’m going to be one busy beaver! I am considering options for allowing more senior students to do validation, but that’s thinking way too far ahead.
Anyway, if you want to learn creative technical skills while having a great time, keep your eyes on goodlearning.com. I’ll try launching a kickstarter.com project soon to get some funding I need, and after that you can sign up and get moving.