Imagine a weekly “book club” for games, where kids can test new title, critique it, make video reviews? It’s not so hard to do.
- Use a simple “buy it, borrow it, bag it” rating system
- Get kids busy right away
- Keep it social, make sure younger children get to play with older children
- Involve parents; let them play along, and let children teach the parents
- Let older kids plan which games to demonstrate
IDEALS FOR ACTIVITIES
- A visit with a game designer or programmer (see the video below). Obviously it isn’t always possible to get a game producer from EA to come to your Mediatech. But chances are, you can find a programmer or web design expert to come in and give a presentation about how to design or program games
- Critique the same game on different platforms to see if there are differences
- Talk about gender and ethnic bias in games
- Talk about commercial agendas. Point out embedded ads, and ask children to try to find the next one
- Have a tournament, invite the local newspaper
- Let kids make and edit videos of the reviews (have parents sign permission slips, and review the
- content before it is posted!)
- Let kids show and tell new iPhone apps, online game news and so on
- Invite parents to participate or sit in
- Pair novice with experience children, to build self esteem
- Listen, coach, and let the games serve as the teachable moments.