 Hello everybody. Thanks for being with us today. We would like to share with you our ideas in how game-based learning can be a teaching skill that will transform the way we learn. I'm Alejandro Suarez, founder of Creative Advocativa Kids and with me is our director of education and learning experiences, Sara Cuevas, and we will do our best to leave you some content that can be useful for you to teach in a new and different way. Nowadays, learning is being transformed with all the elements that surround us. Children are asked to develop hard and soft skills to be able to solve real-life problems and be prepared to enter into the labor force. Also known as the forces, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication are the skills that are being asked for the kids of the 21st century and are expected for teachers to include the Hayden curriculum. We should remember that the principal aim of the curriculum should be asward to the students, necessities, generating meaningful learnings, which will prepare them for the future. Constantly innovating the learning process makes it possible to teach the children of different generations without staying obsolete. One of the educational trends that are currently permitting the teaching mentality is introducing games and video games as their active resources. This seems as an extremely innovative idea, but three centuries ago, the German pedagogist, Frederick Friedl, was already speaking about games as the highest expression of human development. That is because Friedl recognized that gaming allows a person to learn from all the elements that surround them and to practice with their knowledge in the controlled spaces. It is easy to agree with this idea, but taking it to practice is not a piece of cake. Today, we will mention two ways to incorporate games to the learning process. Each of them could be used in different contexts depending on the objectives of the project that we are aiming to teach. The first one is gamification, which is the strategy that incorporates game elements to a training process. It helps to recognize achievements by rewarding the students when they sense a desired behavior or reach a learning outcome. It could be defined as an educational path enriched by fund resources. The second one is game-based learning, which consists on merging the core content and objectives from a training and a game. This permits to make the whole learning process fun. During the game, children will develop specific skills, use and consolidate their knowledge in a cheap learning outcomes without filling part of a traditional learning process. But again, both are great resources to incorporate fun and creativity to educational activities. But because of how it works, game-based learning helps to engage children on their learning and created an environment that boosts the imagination and the desire to be part of the process. This itself is one of the things that we as teachers are most looking forward to, producing the kids the licking of an earring. We are sure it is not a surprise for you to hear that video games are the most played game in the present. On a typical Thursdays, Steam Video Game Platform registers up to 20 million users playing per hour. The industry is growing so fast that on 2021, the quantity of gamers is expected to be close to 2.8 billion people. This is around the 36% of the population of the world. And it is why teaching by using this resource is a right guess by approaching the students with something they already like. Now, here is a fact that might not surprise you either, but that will help us to identify our opportunity area. It goes as follows. On 2016, 27.5% of all the games sold in the USA were shooter games. What do we expect society to learn if what is being offered on these daily teaching resources are killing skills? And of course, it is now our aim to eliminate these games, but to take advantage of a great resource to enlarge the opportunities that students have to learn. Even though these popular games can develop some skills for young generations like strategy, teamwork and resilience, among others, giving kids the opportunity and knowledge to create their own games will develop new skills like creativity, problem solving, technology literacy, and several others that will become a competitive advantage for them to be successful in many fields for the future of work and at the same time will project the educational platform which we count with. What a huge responsibility trying to create educative games that will apply to all our students. But what if we incorporate developing video games in the curriculum? How can we do it? Let's talk about coding. Coding is the process of creating instructions for computers using programming languages. It is used to program websites, apps, and other technologies. The GDL-Trial industry is growing as the fastest pace in history, provoking the creation of millions of jobs related with coding. Industries and jobs from several areas like design, marketing, finance, medicine, and many others will consider the ability to code as a must or a competitive advantage under your workforce. Coding develops a variety of skills as logical and critical thinking, as shown in problem solving. Also teaching these steps in early stage will create more profane learning experiences that will stay for life and establish a structural mindset that will become a competitive advantage. Being able to communicate with computers is as hard as communicating any other language, just adding the complexity of making the instruction perfectly clear for inter-reproduced information. The earlier children are introduced to coding, the easier and more natural it will be for them to apply the knowledge in their early activities. If we choose the correct activities, also be fun for them to learn. It is easy to create video games if you know what tools to use. It is possible to create your first video game by using basic concepts of coding and either using them as a radioactive resource or as a strategy for the children to learn. As a radioactive resource, we can create video games which can incorporate the lesson subjects. For example, this is an easy game for health education. To put the organs on the right place is an easy way for children to memorize the distribution of the body parts. It can help them to create an alternative reality in which they can interact with the concepts on paper to see exactly where they are. On the other hand, we can ask them to create their own games using knowledge that they previously got and take advantage of their interest to impulse significant learnings while having fun. How can we create these easy games and introduce children to coding world? We can start with graphic programming which will allow us to teach the coding basics and logical thinking since an early age. M-Block 5 is an open source and free to use block-based programming software. Based on scratch 3.0, it uses colors and shapes to make it clear how to connect the blocks to create a whole instruction or algorithm for the program and the robots. It has a stage in which we can create animations that will work as a foundation of the video game, making it either consolidate learning by providing a virtual space to interact with or the key to allow them to imagine how something can be represented and provide them the resources to create an imaginary space to make it real. We can make it react with the keyword or with a simple additional Arduino-based component or robot which will help us to increase the fun and the opportunity to interact with it. So how can we do it? We would like to share with you five various steps to create your first video game in M-Block 5. With this, you will see how easy it can be when we are created enough to think in how we can make our classes fun. Sara will show you how to apply these five steps so we can create a video game right now and right after you finish this presentation. Perfect. So let's get started. Today we're going to use this simple example of a video game that we want to create right here right now with you. We're going to be using M-Block 5, which is Make Blocks Graphic Programming software and it's one of the most complete resources that we can use to create this type of beta games. Right now we're going to start labeling our program. This is going to be related with add additions and subtractions so we're going to just name it like this and it's going to be related to a monkey so we will put it here. We're not using devices today so we're heading directly to the sprites. In this sprites we can find a panda which we're not using today so I'm going to delete it and now we're going to add some other elements. In the first place our main character is going to be a monkey so here we're just going to type monkey and now we can choose any of the one we can find here. We're going to select this one because it has different animations and we like it. Then we're setting this monkey over here and we will start working out with some fruits. Since we're going to talk about add-ins and subtract we're choosing fruits which represent the numbers that we want to add. For one we're going to have one apple and for two for example we're going to use bananas. We have two right here and for three we will use some beans. Yeah we're just going to type it perfect so yes we have three beans and we put them right here. Now for fourth and fifth we couldn't find any fruits that actually had this number so we're going to use cakes which actually have the number. So here we're going to choose this cake that has four raspberries and finally we're going to add another cake. Yeah we're going to write cake right here and we're going to choose this one which has five cherries on top so it's really easy to see the number that each of them has and we're going to work with this for addition. And now for subtractions we're going to work with a bomb. This bomb is going to help us to subtract one point each time. Yeah so we're going just to put it here and yeah. Now for complementing this game we will be using some background and for the backgrounds we just have to move on to this other part in which it says backgrounds and we will start to select some options. First we would like the monkey to be on an open place to be able to play. So we're going to work with this forest. It's this forest but it's like a jungle to me and now we can add some other random place. I think we're going to select today and a specific place on space so it's going to be fun to send him there if he loses. Perfect once we have this information here we're going to keep it aside until later so right now we're going to try to start working with the sprites and begin with all the programming so let's get started. Yeah we are selecting each sprite. Perfect we're going to start today with the monkey because it is going to be the first one that we're going to use and it's going to be our principal character so it's going to cap the lead of all the programming that we are doing today. We are creating the biggest part of the code on it also joining all the information from the other stuff. The fruits will be using this to work so right now we're going to start by using this event block when the flag is clicked and yeah with this we're going to start right now. We're making an easy program so we hope you can follow it and enjoy it for all long. Let's start with this monkey and this program will have several elements to complement to create a full working video game. Now we're going to hide all the other objects to make it easier to work with each of them so we're going to start hiding all of them one by one. It is really easy because here on the bottom of the page you can see again an eye so with this eye we will be able to select each fruit and when selecting each fruit we're just going to ask it to not be shown and that way we're just going to work one by one. It's going to be really easy. Okay so heading directly to the program we're going to start by creating some movement for the monkey. We want him to be able to move side by side and have all other stuff to can move on this. So for this we're going to head to the blocks of control and on them we're going to choose this if then block to start working and we're going to use this other block which is used to control with our keyboard and we're going to choose two different options the arrows so we're going to use the right arrow and the left arrow to move the monkey on the stage and we like you know that we have two axes so we have X and J to work with which permits us to move the character in the whole stage. What happens if we choose the axis Y? Okay let's look for it perfect so yeah here we can see the one that controls the X and the one that controls the Y axis so yeah right now we're going to use the one with the Y so we can see how it works and understand why we're choosing each of them. We can do this with kids so they can see what is the difference between the axis Z of Y and the one on the X. Yes so right now we're going to start trying out what we're doing and for this we're going to make a little test first we're going to add this forever block which will help us to keep making this happen and when we press the arrow it moves to the top because the Y axis is the one that moves like this upside down and if we change it for the one in the X axis we're going to be able to see that now the motion goes side by side that's the way that we want to work today. So we're going to start with this one with the X axis working and now we're going to try to duplicate this information in order for us to have it to go into the left and to the right. So right now we can see that even though we have selected arrows right and left they keep going to the same place because the number is the same so we have to add a minus 10 in order for it to move to the other side perfect. Now once here we will recognize that the monkey actually seems pretty big to this stage so we have recommended to change the way it looks so we go to looks and here we can select the block for change the size. We are planning on changing it to around an 80 percent of the actual size of the monkey and now it seems pretty okay with all the information of the game it seems pretty accurate the size right. Okay so from here we are going to start working with the other sprites so we are going to add them to the information that we have right here. We're going to start with this apple we're going to make it sim and right now we're going to start with this one and then we will use the same information to work with the other sprites so we should remember that the apple value is one because it's just one apple. Now we have to add again this block the if then block this will allow us to ask about what is happening on the screen. In this case we're not going to ask about the side or if we are touching some key but what does the monkey is actually touching so yeah we're going to select this one first and we're going to change the idea of the mouse pointer instead of it we're going to select this sprite the apple one which is the one that we're working with right now and now if you remember we said before that this monkey could have some different animations so we're going to start using this to see how it changes. We're going to collect we're going to see the different options of how the face of the monkey can be and now we're going to put this same block in two different places so we're going to keep it with the face to a that it's kind of happy when it's normal and we are going to keep it with the face to be that it's kind of excited when it goes to the apple. Right now the apple is not moving or doing anything actually but each time we put the monkey over it it makes him happy or excited so the now we're going to ask him to wait until he stops touching the apple. Right now it's not so clear why we're going to do this but in a few seconds I'm going to tell you exactly how it works so here we can see that we have two moments one when the monkey starts touching it and then when he ends up touching it so yeah right here we're going to start doing some other elements and say that we can find out how to to work with this now this is really easy and we're going to start working with some variables a variable is actually a data which will be changing while the program is running so we are just going to head over here when it says variable and we're going to create one we are going to use more than one today but right now we're going to start creating this one we're going to name the score and we will give it the information from different points that the monkey can have and every time it touches a fruit it's going to change the score so first we're going to set the score for zero because we want it to start like zero and then we're going to ask it to change it by one each time it touches the apple here on the screen we can see the actual score and then each time we put the monkey over the apple it's going to add one point now what is important about this is what happens if we take off this that we were saying a few seconds before that we don't know how or why so here you see that the score is going to change rapidly because it doesn't have any reason to stop so the information that we are asking it for here is that it doesn't count again the apple until it stops touching the monkey so that way we just counted one time each time they touch okay perfect so right now we're going to start with the actual programming of the apple when we touches the apple and go to this screen we can see that the code is completely clean even though the monkey's code is stator so the apple is completely a new spot to work with and we're starting at the same the same way with this block with the flag the green flag and now please watch the size of this monstrosity we have to fix it if this apple ever touches the monkey's head he is going to get knocked out so let's change the size by adding this block let's set it to i don't know maybe around 50 percent let's see how it looks okay touch okay it still seems like pretty big right so i think that we could change it to 45 perfect and now yeah yeah i think that size is a little bit better even if you see it's big you can keep changing it so right now what we want it this to do is to keep like it started moving but we always want it to fall down so we are going to point it in 90 degrees so yeah we can see that it is right now in this position and so the apple is not going to be turning around now we're going to see where we want it to be first we're going to try to move it to the top and here we're going to see where in the axis x and y we can find them so the first thing that we want to do is to set this in top like the the most top part of this screen we're going to try to make it to 250 but it actually doesn't even move so we know that the 190 is like the limit of the screen in the top so yeah we're going to leave it like in 190 and that way we're going to know that it is on the topest part of this screen and then we're going to choose the place where we want it to appear so we're going to like we could just one spot for it to appear but we don't want that we want it to appear randomly in different spots on the x axis so the the monkey doesn't always know where the apple is going to be so right now we're going to see yeah on the x we're going to set also the x but we are going to add something that makes it differently that makes it appear in different places for this we're going to head to the operators perfect and we're going to add this block that says pick random so it's going to choose random numbers between two different positions so for this we're going to see how long our screen is and we know right now that the number is around 236 minus perfect and then obviously on the other side should be something similar perfect okay yeah around yeah the same the same long length for the other side so now we have it and it can choose randomly any place so each time that we press this code it moves to different places that is something that we want it this to do uh perfect so right now what we want this to do is start moving upside down and we're going to ask it to move like around minus 10 or minus five I don't know I think that we want to try minus five on the y-axis it actually just modifies the velocity in which this apple in this case is going to be falling down that way we will have this opportunity or it's going to be easier for us to catch it and to have the numbers that we need so yeah I think that we're going to use this minus five option and now we want it to keep going down until it reaches a certain level on the down part of the screen so we can choose different things for this to happen it one can be the limit to the down part of the screen but the other is actually the last part in which the monkey can touch it so yeah that's I think that we're going what we're going to decide today so we're going to repeat it until the apple is on the place in which the screen ends for the monkey so if we can see here we're going to compare the information and this way it's going to be easier for the program to understand when we're going to compare the y position the position of the apple in the y-axis to a number and this number is the one that we're going to obtain from this information so it's going to be minus 100 and it's going to be changing by minus five until it happens so yeah right now we can see that that's what happens and now the apple is closest to the monkey now once we are here we will like it not to stay on the monkey's hand but to return to a place above his head so we're going to set again this spot the y in like the 190 on the y-axis and this way we're going to be able to have all the information correctly so each time it touches the bottom of the page it is going to be up again and now here we're going to try to repeat it so each time it repeats we are going to be able to see that it changes the place in which it is so right now we're supposed to catch as many apples as we can and each time that we catch one you can see that the score changes so this is why we're going to have this whole information right here we only catch nine up to the 10 apples that we were able to catch because we had 10 repetitions of this activity so yes perfect so in this case we have this but we can change it in different ways so it can be one option is this one repeat during certain amount of moments but we can also use the repeat until and for this one we will be able to add some other characteristics that we can depend on so in this case we can see that it's a comparison between the timer so it will take some time as any other game and we will compare it and it has to be bigger than and we're going to use 40 today because it's easier for us to start working with this but later on we could change it to whatever we we feel like having so yes right now we're going to make our small tryout and we're going to give 10 seconds to the monkey to try to catch everything and he starts running and as you can see even though he catch almost everything I think is only six points because in 10 seconds it only took like the possibility to catch this so yes now we have a whole thing that's working with time like any other game and we could say that this is going to change because 10 seconds it's really a small amount of time and we would like to add here that it has to wait why waiting because it will help us to control when the game starts so the apple is not going to begin to fall until we press the space bar and this way we're going to be able to control the whole game as you can see now we have all other elements that we have to work with finally we have this other element that it's going to be waiting if we don't wait like we saw before the apple is going to be falling and falling and falling again a lot of times but something that is going to make a little bit more interesting our game is to be able to wait different amounts of times easier so here we're going to put that we are going to wait to fall again a random number between one to ten and then the apple is going to fall let's try this one again so it is waiting for us to press the space bar and now once we press it it's are running and yeah it waits different amounts of times it depends on the random number that it obtains and we only have 40 seconds to catch them all so it is a combination of luck and actual good work with this so yeah now i think it has finished the time perfect we're going to stop this and now let's see so we as you can see have a lot of more objects or sprites to work with but it could be a really hard work for us to make all the programs but if we select this one and then take it to each of the elements that we're working with you can see like right now we're going to see it but we are copying our program on each of these different sprites so we don't have to make all this programming a lot of times but on each of them we have the program and they are going to be doing the same thing than the apple so we know that all of them are going to be working yeah so let's see they are all in the top and now we can go to the monkey and on the monkey we have something that it's missing right now we only have this first one that contemplates the apple and among the apple we have a lot of more things that we're going to be using so let's duplicate this element in order for us to have all the different options yeah we're going to put them all inside of the same cycle so that it is easier and okay I think this one is the last one perfect and let's go to the top so first we have this comparison of the apples but then we will start working with bananas so it is if bananas then it keeps like this we have to change it by two and again we eat bananas until they stop touching the same thing with beans we have to set the number three and beans again perfect then for four we're going to sorry the first cake and we have to yeah perfect and we're changing it for four perfect the last one of the cakes is going to be the number five and cake again so I know we're still missing one of this project but it's a little bit different so first we choose bomb the same way that we have been working with all the others but we here we have to change the phase that they do because with bomb the idea is that he feels a little bit sad perfect and now there's this last one that we also have to add one but we said that we wanted to decrease it so we're going to set a minus one and now the program is ready so yeah let's see so each time we catch any fruit the fruits are going to give us a number it's going to be adding perfect so yeah we can see that it happens and in the case of the bomb it will decrease our number perfect yeah it is working exactly how we want it to excellent now here we have to work with two more things one is related with the background which will make us feel more like in a game and the other one will help us to compare the actual information that we have so yeah let's get started with the backgrounds we're going to go to the option look and then we're going to select this one that it's going to help us differences in the back part of the image and we're going to set the forest five that's the one that we choose before and yeah this way we're going to actually be on the place that we want to be and now we said that we wanted to work with some other variables so right now we have one score that it's the one with we have been working with until now but we would like to start working with some other variables that will allow us to create some more information so let's see we enter again on this variable and we make a new one here the first one we are going to create something named zoom perfect and we are going to work with this later and we're going to create one more that which name is going to be time so now we have two different new variables and we're going to set them all together at the beginning of our program this will help us to understand what we are doing and to see that our program is working correctly so score we want it on zero time we also want it from to value zero when the program starts but we have some so yeah we're going to set some here and we're going to give it some values this value is going to be a peak for a random number we can change the numbers depending on what we are seeing with our children so in this case we're going to choose to be picking random from 10 to 30 and this way we're going to have this first information now in this stage we can see the status from the three of them and we can move them however we like to make it easier for us to understand or to learn what is being said here so right now we have this information and we are waiting for this and you can see that the score and time starts in zero but some will change each time that we start again our program perfect so right here down we have this option of a forever but we actually don't want it to work forever we just want to work it for a little while so we're going to repeat it until we're going to repeat it until the time is over so it depends on how many times we want to give our children to work with but we're going to make again a comparison between the time and a number so it is going to be clear and in this case we're going to respect the 40 that we had put before on the other sprites perfect okay so now here the time has given us some information and now we're going to compare the time with a timer but we have another option that says round so I would like to use round but let's see why if we set just timer and we start the time or start the program you can see that the timer is moving really really fast but what happens when we use round then the timer is just counting one by one that makes it easier to read so yeah I think it's it's better for a game to have this option than the other one and like all the other activities we will wait until the space bar is pressed this is going to help us to give us a clue of when all the program is going to start and how to control it so perfect um if we want to know like the final scores and all this we will have to make some more questions so specifically we would like to know if the number the sum that we had before and the score are the same at the end of the game this is going to tell us if we are winning or losing so we're going to compare it it has to be exactly the same and we're going to set score and sum if score and sum are the same then and we have this option of else in this dog that we're using right now so we're going to do or the monkey is going to do something it has is he will say you win if the sum and the score are the same and we'll say try again if the sum and the score are different so yeah we're going to use some other other element to get a little bit funnier and we're going to try to make the monkey travel if he wins or lose so in the case of the monkey winning we're going to add this backdrop in this backdrop we are going to duplicate it and put it on the other one too if it wins we are going to send him to the bitch and if he doesn't we're going to send it to another planet so yeah right now our program is pretty much complete and we can make some tries so right now it is waiting for perfect and now we start trying to catch the different objects we have a 23 so we're supposed to start looking to get there we have 24 and okay so we're supposed to avoid all the fruits and try to catch just one yeah now we need a lot more of our bumps to be able to win and the time is almost okay yeah so right now we lost so yeah I think everything is working perfectly up to here perfect and now we would like to give some instructions at the beginning the rules are really important and if the kid is trying to work this out by himself it's not going to be clear so let's set this option it says hello and it says it going to say hello my name is changuito changuito is little monkey in Spanish so it's going to be funny for this who are learning and now that we have it up to here we're going to put it to wait for three seconds the information and now we're going to start changing a little bit more these options to say more things so then we will use this use the fruits to reach the some number some perfect number okay so now it's going to stay for three seconds also let's see if that's enough then we're going to make another one it's going to say well we can duplicate them as many times as we need and here we're going to ask the program to tell us what is the sum probably we want to need three seconds we may lose like useless sorry so yeah we can put it there and then duplicate again the the block perfect and now we're going to try to write something else here maybe we can put something like each fruit values as the number of fruits it has perfect and now let's do one more excellent so yeah now the bomb will decrease your addition maybe by one okay perfect i think these two last options should be a little bit longer because i think that the sentences are yeah be here perfect and i think that it's important for the kids to know what to do next so let's ask them to press the space bar if they want to start yeah perfect excellent yeah okay yeah super now we have this other option that it's going to put the monkey in just in the middle of this so yeah we're going to put it there and then add this element that compares perfect now if you want to see how it fully works let's get started excellent so this is the full game that we have been creating now we can how it fully works when we start it then it starts telling us this information about what we are supposed to see the number right now is 12 so each fruit is going to help us to add the different numbers and each time we are past this number we can and so strike them using this information so once it starts we try to keep getting this right now we're just missing a two so okay perfect we took it and let's see if we can keep like this for a few more seconds okay just in more seconds and then we will win perfect so yeah okay if we want to make it a little bit more difficult we can make the limits of the wall less flexible and we can also add some sounds to make this activity more interesting so yeah as you can see we can make a video game pretty quickly i hope you enjoy this so what do you think sometimes the first time you will do it it can look a little bit more complex but it will be very easy with a little bit of practice we believe it's all creativity in developing countries like the one where sara and i live we have to be creative and we need to do big things with very little resources however today more than ever knowledge and tools are more close to us if we know how to use them and also if we have the willingness to change the way we are used to finally let me give you our best advice we can we believe that for kids to get engaged in anything we have to provide them activities with these five key elements number one it needs to be fun nobody likes to learn boring things number two it needs to be easy kids feel depending on their level that they are able to achieve things in order to engage number three it needs to be meaningful for them it's different to learn while playing with video games drones robots electronics than any traditional method we can think of number four it needs to be in team no not everybody likes everything and we need to learn to work with others to achieve bigger outcomes and number fifth it needs to be with a purpose it is different when you understand why or how this can change your life instead of because it is required so we hope this presentation can be helpful for you and sara and myself are really thankful for you for the opportunity to be here and all of our teams in creative kids will be happy to teach you more about this or help in any way we can thank you very much