Imagining A Different Angry Birds

Wouldn’t it be great if Rovio, the makers of the popular game Angry Birds, came out with a version of the game in which you could design your own levels?

Imagine a nice touch interface where the building blocks – wood, stones, ice, etc. – were available to drag and drop into a set of your choice. You could place the pigs where ever you wanted, assign which birds could be used, and test to see how hard your puzzle would be.

Then, let’s say you were able to post the puzzles you created for others to play? You could be awarded “designer” points for how many times they were played. They could rate also them for more points. Points could be turned in for rewards, badges, new games, etc.

This is how games establish creative economies. Now that the playability is beginning to wear off on Angry Birds, it’d be great to play with it as a creative tool and have as much fun as the devs have.

The Urgent Social Blissful Epic Classroom

Jane McGonigal’s talk on gaming in the real world is totally worth the watch and I thank AJ Kelton for passing it on to me! I think what she outlines as gamer skills to be utilized the real world can ABSOLUTLEY be used to construct divergent assignments in an integrative classroom. Although, I totally disagree with Malcom Gladwell‘s theory in Outliers: that 10000 hours of practice at something = you’re an expert at it. Give me two hours on FarmVille; (something I’ve never played) and Google and I’ll can be an expert too.

Help me out here… add to this open google doc:

Bonus Points: Give students the Google 20 = 20% of class time to work on their own project! Not something you assign, something they come up with themselves and can turn in for credit. Let them write their own assignment.