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August 4th, 2011 by: Elise
Junior programmers are flocking to Stanford, MIT, and elsewhere to hone their app-writing skills
By George Anders
Michael Matias traveled 7,400 miles to camp this summer. Usually the 15-year-old computer enthusiast finds plenty to do in Tel Aviv, his hometown. But when a friend won renown as a hotshot programmer after attending a California tech camp, Michael and his parents made camp a key part of their trip to the U.S. in July. In July the Matiases found a short-stay home near Stanford University. Michael spent his days on campus in a fast-paced course run by iD Tech Camps, learning how to develop applications for the iPhone. “Maybe I’ll end up building the next great app,” he says.
Click here to read full article.
August 4th, 2011
Posted in: CEO's Blog, iD In The News, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College of California, Stanford University, UC Berkeley
July 29th, 2011 by: Elise
Camp gives Davis teens a tech advantage
By Anne Ternus-Bellamy
July 29 2011
Sixteen-year-old Michaela Ma didn’t just learn how to design a website this week; she actually created a professional site for her dad, dentist Dr. Jeffrey Ma.
Fourteen-year-old Ricky Tan didn’t just learn how to create a level in a professional first-person shooter game, he designed one that he and others could use in tournament play.
And 13-year-old Tioga Benner mastered the art of arcade video game creation.
All three Davis teens were participants in iD Tech Camp at Sacramento State University, where 30 students ages 7 to 17 learned how to build robots, create video games and websites and learn the basics of programming.
The 13-year-old camp, which takes place every summer on college campuses across the country, divides students by age and interest into small groups. This week at Sacramento State, the youngest participants were building robots using Lego Mindstorms materials, while older students were doing more sophisticated work.
Ma, for example, was creating a website for her dad’s Sacramento dental practice that she hoped to unveil on Friday at the “family showcase,” where students show off their accomplishments. By midweek, the Davis High School junior had created the site’s banner and logo, as well as an Adobe Flash Player animation of teeth being brushed.
“It’s a little bit hard because I’ve never done it before,” Ma said. “And the animation took a really long time.”
But she was looking forward to revealing the site to her dad.
“It will be a surprise,” she said.
Nearby in the large, colorful room, Benner, a Holmes Junior High School eighth-grader, was creating an arcade-type video game, complete with a character being chased through a maze by bad guys.
“Every five seconds these guys shoot something at your character,” he explained.
This was Benner’s second iD Tech camp. Emerson Junior High student Ricky Tan was a returning student as well, and like Benner, Tan was working on a video game as well, albeit a more involved one.
Tan was one of the students creating their own levels in a first-person shooter game using Unreal Development Kits, the engine behind the popular game, Unreal Tournament 3.
“We’re making a level and when we’re done, we can load them up on each other’s computers and play each other,” Tan said.
“It takes a lot of time,” he added.
“It’s pretty complex,” agreed camp director Brian Campbell.
Campbell, who teaches math at Albert Einstein Middle School in Sacramento, has been directing the local iD Tech Camp for five years.
“It’s really to get kids interested in technology,” he said. “And they love it. They come back year after year.”
At the end of the weeklong camp most of the students take their project home with them on a flash drive. The one exception: the youngest students, who spent the week building robots using the popular Lego equipment. They don’t get to take their robots, but do get to take videos of them home.
Seven-year-old Elk Grove resident Kayla Rabey made a pair of robotic puppies during the week.
One of them, she said, “goes and then stops and sniffs like a puppy.”
The second one “is going to move by himself and make noises,” she said.
On the other end of the iD Camp spectrum were the most advanced students, learning programming.
Vacaville High School student Marissa Albidress was working on a program to average out numbers.
“I’m learning the basics of programming,” she said.
It’s her first time at iD Tech Camp, and she’s hoping to use what she learns here on the Vacaville High robotics team.
“I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to do anything technology-related.”
As would Campbell: “It’s really gives these kids an edge, an advantage,” he said.
Wayne Tilcock/Enterprise photo
Click here to read the article in the Davis Enterprise.
July 29th, 2011
Posted in: California State University, Sacramento, iD In The News, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College of California, UC Berkeley
July 14th, 2011 by: Elise
Summer Camp for Kid Techies
By Kara Tsuboi
When I was a kid, I went to my fair share of educational summer programs: language camp, clay animation camp, invention camp (and I loved them all). But those are so 20th century. These days, the hot, educational activity during the summer months is tech camp, the obvious choice for kids who are obsessed with playing on their computers, conquering video games, and mastering the thousands of apps for their iPods, tablets, or smartphones. To view the video and read the complete article click here.
July 14th, 2011
Posted in: California State University, Sacramento, Do Something Big, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College of California, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Uncategorized
July 11th, 2011 by: Elise
Budding techies spend their summer at app camp
Samantha Johnson won’t have a sunburn or mosquito bites to show for her time at camp this summer. But the 11-year-old will take home something else – an iPhone app called “Cupcakes vs. Bunnies” that she developed herself.
Samantha spent last week on the Stanford campus sitting at a flat-screen computer, shoulder to shoulder with her fellow campers, learning the fundamentals of designing a game app for the iPhone and iPad.
Click here to read the full article about our summer camps held at Stanford
July 11th, 2011 | Tags: academic summer camps, computer camps for students, programming camps
Posted in: California State University, Sacramento, iD In The News, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College of California, Stanford University, UC Santa Barbara
July 11th, 2011 by: Elise
Digital Kids: Summer camp teaches kids how to create iPhone apps, video games and more
By Alia Wilson
After rocketing off a jump and shooting into the sky, a race car lands sharply back on a track with turns and loops, not unlike something from a Hot Wheels commercial.
The creation is straight out of the imagination of 11-year-old Cameron Mungall of Sunnyvale, who’s one of hundreds of students ages 7 to 17 participating in iD Tech Camps held at Stanford University this summer.
Founded by the company internalDrive in Silicon Valley, iD Tech Camps are week-long sessions for beginner to advanced students at 60 universities throughout the nation. Students can sign up for a particular course, where they can create iPhone apps, robots, video games, websites, C++ and Java programs, movies and more. Campers complete a project by the end of the week using the latest tech products, such as Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Final Cut Pro and others.
“We get to do a lot of things and we get to do them freely,” Cameron said. “The instructor is really nice and he doesn’t limit us that much.”
Students in the 3D Game Design Course Racing Games are led by instructor Cal “Hops” Wasylowich, a 2D and 3D animation student at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario.
“They’re programming without even knowing it,” Wasylowich said. “I’m more than happy to show them how to do more advanced things, but I encourage them to learn through playing with the program and let them figure it out on their own.”
It’s not uncommon for students of the camp to not only become more tech savvy, but to take their newly acquired skills back to school and beyond.
One student developed several iPhone apps, which were featured in The New York Times, and had a high school research internship in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another student now works for Electronic Arts as an after effects editor, and another became art chief for her school’s literary magazine.
“The thing that draws me back year after year is being able to see a whole new generation picking up on these software programs,” said Emily Lindsay, director of the Stanford location. “It’s a really cool set-up. Just the sheer size of the Stanford location means there are so many opportunities to meet more people and learn from each other. Seeing so many people with such similar interests and sharing them is what we really get excited about.”
The camp is celebrating its 13th year with more than 120,000 students who have participated. Not only do students and instructors come from Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountain View, Saratoga and Palo Alto, but also from abroad. Some have come from as far as Japan, Taiwan, Egypt and England.
“We’re teaching kids important skills that are important in the 21st century in a fun environment,” said Karen Thurm Safran of iD Tech Camps. “They’re taking something that started as a passion and taking it a step further.”
The older and more experienced students get, the more intensive courses become available, including the iD Gaming, Programming and Visual Arts academies. Students can learn first-hand from industry professionals in Silicon Valley on how to create commercial video games for the Xbox 360 or apps for Google Androids.
July 11th, 2011 | Tags: 2D & 3D video game camps, CA summer camps, children’s camps, programming camps
Posted in: California State University, Sacramento, iD In The News, Santa Clara University, St. Mary's College of California, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara
July 14th, 2009 by: Ryan
Young people booting up computers for iD Tech Camp at Stanford run by Los Gatos residents
By Shannon Burkey
Building robots, developing the next big video game, filming and editing a movie using the latest in cutting-edge technology — these may seem like jobs for only the most technologically savvy adults, but it’s all in a day’s work for the kids in iD Tech Camp at Stanford University.
“This is a very hands-on camp,” said Karen Thurm Safran, vice president of marketing for the camp. “While here, the premise is to not only engage the kids in technology but to teach them that they can take a hobby and turn it into a career.” The camp, now in its 11th year, has come a long way from the days when 1989 Los Gatos High School graduate Alexa Ingram-Cauchi first conceived of the idea as a business project while an undergraduate at the University of Washington.
Based in Campbell, iD Tech Camp is a family-run business. Los Gatos residents Kathryn Ingram and Paul Cauchi, Alexa’s parents, co-founded the camp with their daughter, and her brother, Pete Ingram-Cauchi, serves as the president and CEO.
Since first debuting at Santa Clara University in 1999 with 270 campers, the camp has exploded in popularity and expanded to 24 states. Today, more than 100,000 campers have gone through the camp, which is now offered at 60 of the most prestigious universities in the country, including UC-Berkeley, Columbia, MIT and Purdue.
“Both my parents were involved with kids and education for a very long time, and they recognized that kids were not getting quality technology education because technology changes so fast that the teachers can’t keep up,” Pete Ingram-Cauchi said.
Finding instructors who are at the forefront of technology is a key element to the camp’s success, he added. With one computer per student and an average of six students per staff, campers receive personal attention and hands-on experience using leading-edge products from some of the top technology companies around the globe.
“Most of us are end users. With sites like Facebook, Youtube and Flicker, we’re all kind of on the periphery,” Pete Ingram-Cauchi said. “With this camp, we give the kids a chance to look under the hood and see how it all works.” “This camp is great because I’m not a fan of standard camps,” said 13-year-old Kieren Allison from Los Gatos.
Kieren attended the camp to learn computer programming because his father is a programmer and he said he thinks it is a skill that can be applied to many other things.
“My school offers programming classes but they are very basic,” Kieren said. “This camp teaches you the basics but takes you beyond that.” Campers looking for something a bit different can delve into courses in creating 2D and 3D video games, building robots, designing websites and filming and editing digital movies. At the end of each weeklong camp, campers each finish a project in whichever discipline they have chosen to work in during the week.
“I thought it would be really cool to build and program my own robot,” said 11-year-old Joseph Eschen, who attends St. Andrews School in Saratoga.
During Joseph’s week, not only did he build his own robot, but he also met daily challenges given by his instructor to program his robot to complete different tasks.
“It was really fun,” Joseph said. “Some of it is hard because you have to learn the programming first, but I’m good with computer stuff. I think that the fact that I got to meet new friends and work on new stuff was really cool.” Before spending a week at the camp learning 3D video game modeling, 12-year-old Jet Guitierrez-Bugari from Saratoga looked over the programs he had at home to better prepare himself for building his own games.
“I never knew how to do this type of 3D before, so I’m really excited,” Jet said. “We learned how to make a 3D game design and script it. Scripting is really cool because it lets you add your own touch to it.” For 11-year-old Joshua Allison of Los Gatos, the best part of the camp was taking something that was already a hobby and immersing himself in it.
During his week, Joshua took part in the digital video editing camp and was able to film and edit a movie from beginning to end with his fellow campmates using cutting-edge, professional-grade programs.
“I got to be the director of the film,” said Joshua about the movie that was written by campers. “It was a lot of fun making sure everything works and everybody does their job.” Joshua, who aspires to be a movie director when he grows up, has been making home videos for a while but said he really enjoyed taking it to another level at camp.
“This is my favorite camp by far, and I’ve done lots of other camps,” Joshua said. “It’s really cool because I have friends I make videos with at home, but they are not as into it as me. Here, everyone is really into it. And now that I’ve learned so many new things I’m excited to keep doing it.” In addition to the wealth of technological knowledge the students are receiving, camp founders also hope that by exposing campers to the campuses of well-known universities, they will get a feel for college life and be more apt to pursue their secondary education.
“I really like Stanford, and being here this week has made me want to try and get in when I’m older,” Joshua said.
Los Gatos resident Allison Lyons, who grew up attending iD Tech Camp and is now back for her second year as an assistant director, said her favorite part is seeing the same kids return year after year, eager to learn more.
“This camp is amazing. There are so many things that not only I learn but that I see these kids learn each day,” Lyons said. “Our camp is really high energy, and we manage to have fun while learning.” That is exactly what the Ingram-Cauchi family had in mind when they launched the camp.
“We’re having a lot of fun, and we really haven’t looked back,” Pete Ingram-Cauchi said. “I think I get the most satisfied when I see a kid who maybe came to us when they were 8, 9, 10 years old, and now they are going to college or getting these really hotshot jobs. We’re seeing it come full circle, and that’s really cool. We’re giving these kids the opportunity to do something big. We may have the next Sergey Brin, Larry Page or Bill Gates, and that feels good.” For information on iD Tech Camp, visit www.internaldrive.com or call 888.709.8324.
July 14th, 2009
Posted in: Santa Clara University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley
July 9th, 2008 by: Ryan
Computer camp teaches children new technology
By Heather Murtagh
Flocks of sheep can fly and talk with Scottish accents.
Well not in day-to-day life, but those are common sights in 12-year-old Eric Snyder’s modification of video games, also known as modding. Actually, Snyder does not yet know how to give the sheep the accents. But the flock is definitely soaring overhead. Learning to create these different situations in an existing video game is just one lesson students can choose to pursue at iD Tech Computer Camps. The camp is offered in 23 states, Washington, D.C. and through a study abroad program in Spain to students 7 to 17 years old. In our ever-changing technology-driven society, many of the skills children learn at an early age can be put to use for professions in the future.
Or in the case of 14-year-old Nick Peterson from Burlingame, those skills can be used straight away. Peterson first signed up for camp four years ago. The first two years he opted to go during the day. This year and last year he stayed over night. Each session gave Peterson the ability to build on tech skills.
During his various camp sessions, Peterson has taken digital video, Web design, special effects and gaming design.
He’s been able to use his video skills as a sort of side job.
“I love camp, and I learn a lot,” he said near the end of his one-week session.
ID Camps average about six students per staff with only adult staff. Additionally, each student has their own computer in which to work. Camps are partnered with over 50 universities — locally with Stanford University. Through the week, students learn skills such as web design, animation and Flash through projects.
Foster City resident Sandra Kung, 11, was able to build a Web site about puppies. She picked the topic because she really wants a dog but can’t have one.
Kung previously attended a different technology camp. She left it unimpressed and brought those same apprehensions to the first day of camp in Palo Alto this year. She was pleasantly surprised, however. Kung plans to help her friends design Web sites.
Fourteen-year-old Stephanie Lee designed a site about soccer. She plays for a local club team as a defender.
“It’s fun to be able to create [a Web site]. It’s a lot of fun and it’s cool to see when you finish,” said Lee as she showed various aspects to her soccer Web site.
Although the focus is on technology, it is still a camp, explained Lead Instructor Dory Abrams.
“It’s really fun but also educational,” she said. “It’s a hard balance, but we manage to pull it off.”
There’s special activities planned each night for the students like movie night, talent show and an ice breaker event where staff introduces themselves using costumes and funny skits.
Students also have set time away from the computers in the afternoon to play games and sports.
Participating in camp can be rewarding for the staff was well.
Director Lydia “Big Apple” Luxama teaches ninth grade English during the school year. This is her ninth camp season, and the sixth with iD Camps. As her time with the company expanded and grew, so did her opportunities, she explained. Luxama began as an instructor. Today she is the director at the Palo Alto location.
For Luxama, a big component of camp is enhancing the children as individuals. Students get tickets for things like working well with others or helping another person. Those tickets go into a raffle at the end of the week.
Eleven-year-old Paul Touma from Atherton had a lot of tickets stored in the lanyard around his neck holding his ID. Touma was participating in a special camp allowing him to choose a sport — in his case tennis — to participate in half the time with the rest of his camp focused on technology.
Touma was nervous to attend camp, which he regretted by the end of camp since he made so many friends.
Learning to create the games was easier than Touma had originally thought, at least once he got into it. He created a basic shooting game. Once home, Touma most likely will not make additional games since he simply does not have access to the software.
Creating first-person shooting games has a certain amount of violence build into it. The camp, however, has a patch on the software preventing students from creating games with certain violent actions, explained Counselor Emily “Thumper” Lindsay.
Lindsay joined the staff from Canada and teaches 3-D game design and game modding. Some of her students also create a puzzle game. Each has the chance to stump Thumper with their game. Students take turns attempting to stump each other as well, she said. Teleporters seem to be very popular with the students.
Sean Morgenthaler, 12, used his skills to modify games to make games he owns harder, he said.
Morgenthaler , from Portola Valley, began taking the classes in 2004 because he really likes computers. He definitely sees himself working in the computer science industry later in life.
“This is a fun place to go and do what you like,” he said. “It’s a lot different from some of the other computer camps. You have freedom. They give you guidelines, but you can use your imagination.”
For more information visit www.internaldrive.com.
July 9th, 2008
Posted in: iD In The News, Santa Clara University, Stanford University
July 10th, 2007 by: Ryan
No s’mores at this summer camp-it’s high tech
By Cyrus Hedayati
Computer screens at Stanford University display the latest in high-tech software, from 3D modeling and animation to web design and video game development. Students make their own movies, websites, comic books and even robots.
But these students aren’t old enough to be in college, and most of them are too young to obtain a driver’s license. They’re attending iD Tech Camp, a nationwide summer program that teaches children ages 7 to 17 how to use industry-level software.
This camp doesn’t stick young people in front of a computer screen all day. They learn how to use the programs–from Flash Animation to Final Cut Pro–in small groups of five or six, led by a camp counselor. In between, they eat meals together in the cafeteria and play team-building activities and games, just like any other summer camp.
“It gets them to think about how much time it takes to do animation. They learn that it takes a team to get it done. It’s not just, ‘Hey, I can do this all by myself,’ ” said counselor Bryan Woods–or as he’s known to his group of kids, “Maverick.”
Woods is one of the few counselors who are also alumni of the camp, entering when he was 17. Too old to continue the program, he decided to continue learning by teaching.
“I’ve had a lot of kids who are just so excited to be learning this stuff,” said Woods, a counselor for the special effects program. “It teaches them to think outside the box. When you get into high school, you start to lose that creative drive.”
One of Woods’ students this week, Savan Patel, began his education in animation with a video editing class at Redwood Middle School. Now going into his sophomore year at Saratoga High School, Savan is working on a short animation from footage he shot himself.
“The whole movie is that I walk down the street, and I see a car, and I don’t like that it’s there, so I erase it,” he said, pointing to his super-imposed hand using an eraser to wipe the vehicle from the screen. “Then [the car owner] wonders where his car is.”
Savan is interested in a potential career in computer graphics, though he said he might be a little too young to think that far ahead.
“It’s so fun to see the final product and say, ‘Oh, I did that,’ ” he said. “Any ad that anybody sees [these days] has animation.”
Based in Campbell, iD Tech Camps was founded by two Los Gatos High School graduates–Pete and Alexa Ingram-Cauchi–who envisioned a new kind of summer camp at prestigious universities across the country. But if most summer camps teach young people to brave the great outdoors, tech camps teach them to brave the ever-changing high-tech marketplace.
“We live in such a media-packed culture. We take that, break it down in sections and let the kids hold onto it,” said Tricia George (aka “Sunshine”), who teaches Fusion, a drag-and-drop game-making program. “A lot of these things, because we’re bombarded with them every day, they seem untouchable.”
Kevin Pan, going into eighth grade at Redwood, is using Fusion to make a game about a space marine trying to destroy his enemy’s nuclear power supply. He’s not sure what to call it, though he’s considering “Bob Super Soldier.”
“They’re like sponges; they soak up so much,” said George.
At the rate many of her campers are progressing, they could move on to advanced game development within a year, said George. Learning at iD Tech Camps is modular-based, so each camper uses programs according to their level of experience and advances at their own pace.
“It’s really amazing that kids this age are using 3ds Max, because it’s really industry-standard software,” said John Conelea (aka “Yani”), who teaches the 3D character-modeling program.
Several of Conelea’s students are designing 3D versions of Kirby, the popular pink Nintendo character, whose pictures are taped above the students’ computer screens.
“I asked [the students], ‘What’s on your mind?’ And they said Kirby, so I had them download some reference images,” said Conelea.
Three of Conelea’s students, Nate Morrison, Vincent Wu and Kevin Benzing, are also going into their sophomore years at Saratoga, and said the camp is way easier than trying to learn the software on their own.
“It’s fun making 2D things into 3D things,” said Kevin, who is modeling a 3D robot complete with tank treads, a jetpack, a spiked mace and a dinosaur head. He’s had fun playing around with 3ds Max, and even found a glitch in the program that allows him to give his robot spikes that never end.
“[Yani] taught me how to chamfer something,” said Kevin, referring to the process of rounding off the edges of a 3D image. “I said, ‘What happens if I do it again, and again, and again?’ ”
Though most of the youngsters are too young to know if they want to pursue high-tech careers, some, such as Savan, said they want to work with computers. While he is leaning more toward designing logos, he is also impressed by the animators behind this summer’s big budget Hollywood movies.
“I saw the new movies, Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers, and it’s just amazing what animation can do these days,” he said.
Each subject is taught in a weeklong course, and many still have availability for this summer.
For more information, visit internaldrive.com.
July 10th, 2007
Posted in: iD In The News, Santa Clara University, Stanford University
April 18th, 2007 by: Ryan
Creating tech heads
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.”
April 18th, 2007
Posted in: iD In The News, Santa Clara University, Stanford University
