Mini Game Jam – Kids, Computers, Games From Scratch

The interest in computing and game development in schools has been on the rise recently.  Encouraging kids to explore the opportunities of game development, as well as a wider understanding of computing software development and the whole science and technology thing.

Its all very encouraging.

The latest event to be announced is a mini game jam, taking place at the University of the West of Scotland, for primary school children.

Organised by Amanda Wilson, a 3rd year PhD student, the game jam will introduce the children to Scratch, the development technology created by MIT, for kids aged 8 and up.

The mini jam has a lot of buy in from the universities involved in game design and development courses.  From the University of the West of Scotland, Dr Thomas Hainey, Dr John Sutherland and Dr Daniel Livingstone and (possibly) Professor Thomas Connolly will attend, while Glasgow Caledonian University’s Dr Jon Sykes and David Moffat will also be involved.

Scottish Women In Games’ Maxine Dodds will be there to fly the flag and offer encouragement/advice.

Amanda has received support from Computing at School Scotland (4 x Amazon vouchers for a first prize), Computing at school (help with refreshments) and Science Connects/STEM ambassadors (promotional pens/rulers).

All of the games created as part of the mini game jam will be uploaded to the Scratch community and shared with the world.

We’re delighted to see an event so clearly focused on primary schools.  Scratch is a great tool to help kids build and publish their own ideas and explore the whole idea of developing games and using computers for far more than entertainment.

Kudos to Amanda for organising the event and sincere thanks to everyone who’s taking the time to get involved and participate.

More of this sort of thing would be just lovely.