#298.5 — AVID Creator Planet: Coming Soon on Roblox
8 min
AVID Open Access
Keywords
teachers, roblox, avid, game, students, learning, wormhole, platform, skills, developing, inviting, provide, solve, classroom, problem, lessons, experience, share, planet, super
Speakers
Michelle (66%), Paul (32%), Transition (2%)
Paul Beckermann 0:01
Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.
Transition Music 0:05
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what's in the toolkit? Check it out.
Paul Beckermann 0:17
Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann. Welcome to a special episode of Tech Talk for Teachers. We have an exciting announcement to share with you all. AVID has been working with the game developer, Super League, to launch a game-based learning experience on Roblox. I'm so fired up about this that I've invited a special guest to the show today to help us learn a little bit more. That special guest is Michelle Magallanez, head of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation at AVID. Hey, welcome Michelle!
Michelle Magallanez 0:48
Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me as a guest. I'm really excited to be here.
Paul Beckermann 0:52
I'm so excited to hear what you have to share about this new project. So to start, can you just tell our listeners a little bit about the game that AVID's been developing with Super League? You know, like, what is it? Who's it for? What should we know?
Michelle Magallanez 1:06
We're really excited to do this. It was an opportunity given to us by Roblox. They have a philanthropic part of their organization that's called the Roblox Community Fund, which offers funding for organizations such as ourselves, educational nonprofits, to build 3D immersive games on their platform that are really meant to provide kiddos with a game-based learning experience that can be used in the classroom or after school. And we've partnered with an amazing group of designers and developers at Super League to develop a game that is called AVID Creator Planet. And we're really excited about this game. It's intended for students, ages 13 and up. It will be available on the global Roblox platform, and we are developing curriculum that can be used by educators anywhere for students in grades nine through twelve. So we are super excited to launch this at the beginning of the school year, and we can't wait to be able to share it and get some initial feedback from users.
Paul Beckermann 2:20
That is cool. So AVID Creator Planet.
Michelle Magallanez 2:24
That's right!
Paul Beckermann 2:25
I kind of want to blast off to Creator Planet right now. It sounds fun. Anything game-based, right? Kids will super engage with. So I'm curious. What is the actual gaming experience like for this game? When kids play it, what are they learning? What are they doing?
Michelle Magallanez 2:40
I love it. Well, the context is the kiddos are placed on a planet in the far-distant future, far, far away, that is called Equinova. It's a nice little nod to AVID. Very much focused on bringing an experience that is available to all kiddos. And on this planet, Equinova, one day, a wormhole opens, and something comes out of that wormhole. And so the entire premise of the game is how these players, who are the inhabitants of Equinova, help the—I'll call them creatures for now, because it's going to be a surprise—who come out of that wormhole. So from the very outset, it's a game that's focused on empathy, and we use, through the lessons, a design thinking experience to really help introduce students to: How do you help other people? How do you lean in with empathy to solve problems?
Paul Beckermann 3:40
So that sounds like really universal skills that we want all of our kiddos to have. I love that it's sort of a combination of that, that whole child, you know, that interpersonal piece and knowing yourself, and kind of that resiliency piece, but then problem solving and that authentic kind of learning. What drove some of that as its impetus for your game?
Michelle Magallanez 4:03
Because from the very outset, we knew that we wanted our game-based learning experience to really help students and anyone who's playing this on the global platform learn those durable skills, those skills that they need in any career of the future. And so, that's at the very heart of what we're trying to do. So design thinking is the framework that we use to enter them into the experience by having them think about empathy. But the skills that we're developing are, how are they problem-solving? What critical thinking skills are they using? How are they developing a growth mindset, their leadership skills, their communication skills? And so, all of that becomes a part of their experience. And the game itself is very much focused on creating and building. And so, it's a series of challenges that they do in order to help solve problems and support the little creatures that not only need to survive, but thrive on this planet that is very different from their own.
Paul Beckermann 5:07
That's cool. I'm wondering if we have teachers listening, which I'm sure we do, that are interested in this and think, oh, I want to get into this. I want to check it out. What would you tell them? What should they know?
Michelle Magallanez 5:18
That the game officially launches on the global Roblox platform on September 3, and at that exact same time, on AVID Open Access, we will have a series of lessons that any teacher can download and use to support the learning in their classroom. And so, we've organized it so that there is a lesson for each challenge, as well as a culminating lesson at the end, which really invites teachers to think about "How might I use this as a jumpstart for a project-based learning experience for my students?" Taking what they've learned about communication, collaboration, teamwork, and use that as an opportunity for the students to think about—is there a problem within their community, their environment, that they might be able to solve using the skills that they have just practiced, and launch them into a PBL experience.
Paul Beckermann 6:16
That sounds amazing. It sounds like you've taken a lot of the heavy lift off the teacher's shoulders, and you're providing the gaming platform, you're providing the lessons. Sounds like a great fit for teachers,
Michelle Magallanez 6:28
And that's exactly what we wanted to accomplish. How do we provide a plug-and-play experience? Because we know so often teachers are a little nervous about bringing video games into the classroom, but research shows that it is through gaming and play that students really engage in the learning, and learn these very deep, critical thinking, problem-solving skills. And so what students are doing intuitively through the gaming experience, now we're providing teachers with the resources that they need to help students unpack and provide language to that problem-solving experience that they're doing that they can then apply in any context. And so, we wanted this to be as simple as possible for teachers, so providing them with the step-by-step resources for setting up accounts on the Roblox platform to lesson plans that provide what are the key questions that you want to ask? What are some things that students can do and think about that unpacks these durable skills so that everything is easy for them to automatically implement into their classroom situation.
Paul Beckermann 7:46
Wow. I was excited about this announcement before you came on the show to talk about it. I'm even more fired up about it now, so thanks for being here and sharing some of the details with our listeners.
Michelle Magallanez 7:57
Thank you so much for inviting me and letting me share. And I love what you do here, and thank you so much for everything that you do to support teachers.
Paul Beckermann 8:07
Absolutely. Teachers rule. And I'm going to say again, September 3, check it out on the Roblox platform. You can also go to AvidOpenAccess.org to get the show notes for this episode and some links and things like that. Mark it on your calendars. September 3. AVID and Super League will be releasing their brand new game on Roblox. You will not want to miss it.
To discover more free educational resources, again, be sure to go to AvidOpenAccess.org and of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
