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As appeared in Palo Alto Weekly
April 18, 2007
Creating tech heads
13-year-old creates video game to do algebra assignment
By Susan Hong
Most parents discourage their kids from spending too much time playing games on the computer. But 13-year-old Jaxon Welsh, a student at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School, has found a way to turn his passion for video games into academic credit. He created a video-game calculator to do his algebra assignment.
"It's just fun to program," Welsh said. "You can make it whatever you like. If you don't like something you can change it."
His algebra teacher, James Sperry, recently gave his class an assignment to calculate the minutes in which "Rotten Robby," a video character who stands at the back of lunch line, would get served if Robby cut "x" number of students.
"It's different," Sperry said of a student bringing in an animation of the assignment. "But the kids never surprise me with their creativity. They always come up with interesting things."
More and more students are using new technology such as movies, animations, blogs and video games as means to accomplish their homework.
JLS Middle School teacher Maureen Willis supervises the 2-year-old afterschool "Girl Tech" club, where kids learn to exercise their creativity using software.
Seventh-grader Paige Morkner created a 2-minute song on GarageBand at Girl Tech.
"You can take clips from other songs and mix them to create a new one," she said with a smile. "Or you can record stuff onto it and mix your own songs."
Another student in Girl Tech animated a poem.
"It was the most beautiful thing. It was just incredible," Willis said. "The art that went into it and the creativity -- it brings tears to your eyes, sometimes, the things that these kids can create."
Science teacher Ryan Fletcher has 50-75 of his students use iMovie and iPhoto to make a year-end project. Last year his class created a movie on earthquakes and an animation on the life cycle of plants.
His students loved it.
"I really enjoyed editing. It was fun to learn and play with iMovie," one student said, while another labeled it "awesome!"
"They're much more engaged" when learning through technology, Fletcher said of his students. "I see the overall benefits with the kids."
Students, like Welsh, have taken proactive steps to bring more technology use to the school. When Welsh approached Sperry about starting a Video Game Creation Club last year, the teacher had five old P.C.s donated from a local company. Now about 10 kids meet during lunch every Monday to create video games using a software called Multimedia Fusion.
Welsh, as leader of the club, passes on his knowledge of the program that he learned at iD Tech Camp at Stanford University last summer. Recently, he enthusiastically described the use of a function in the program to a group of four boys.
The club gives students who have an interest in programming a place where they belong. "They've really turned it into a more social activity," Sperry said. "I really like that."
Welsh has loved computers since he was a toddler, according to his mother, Jamie Jarvis, a chemical engineer. Jaxon's father is a computer engineer.
"He would change the display so it would look totally different, it would be reformatted and have different graphics. And he'd download software," Jarvis said of Welsh when he was 5 years old.
"He's a shining example of why a differentiated curriculum works," social studies teacher Shauna Rockson said, referring to how the school district allows its teachers to help students learn in their own way.
"It's actually been around for a while, but it's really coming to the forefront now more than ever," she said. "One size does not fit all."
Kids are aware of the debate around playing video games and their effects, especially wasted time.
"I know people who play 10 hours everyday. It's sad, you know. It's fun to play video games, but that should come last," student Colin Kelly said.
"It kills your brain cells. It makes you stupid. You've gotta limit yourself," he added, saying his mother limited his playing time to a half-hour a day. "It's self-control.
Even since limitations were placed on him, Colin said he's been engaged in a wider variety of activities.
"I get homework done. I love to read. I love to write and sing. I absolutely love to play soccer. That stuff's a lot more important than a little virtual world."
Willis said that computer games can be a gateway to a bigger future for kids in technology.
"We know this is a watershed time -- sixth, seventh, eighth grades -- and you don't want to get it into anybody's head that they can't do that (technology)," she said. "They are digital natives, and we're digital immigrants."
"I love it when they first discover that they can make it (a character) move where they want it to go," Jean Babb, an associate supervisor for Girl Tech, said. "It's like, 'I'm in control.' And how many people can say that about our lives?"
"We need to understand that we have important relationships with video games, one of them is as a teacher. If we play an educational game, they are natural teachers. All games are natural teachers regardless of whether they are intended to be," Iowa State University Professor Douglas Gentile, an expert on video-game addiction in children, said.
"I think we need to think about what are the implications. We want to open up the conversation," Indiana University Professor Sasha Barab, creator of educational games, said.
"Games provide very rich experiences in which to begin a conversation with kids about all kinds of issues," he said. "They allow kids to try on all kinds of identities, and they put kids in a position where they really have to think through the consequences of their actions, which is something a kid may not think about (in their everyday world)."
On top of his love for computer games, Welsh plays the piano and competes on a football team several days a week. He spends an hour a day on the computer and has so far programmed a handful of games.
"It's easy," he said. "You can have a sense of pride."
Editorial Intern Susan Hong can be e-mailed at shong@paweekly.com.
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