College donates laptops in support of dual enrollment class

Funding from a state Dual Credit Innovation Grant Program has allowed Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Secondary Partnerships office to donate five laptops to Montgomery High School for use by students enrolled in the three-credit Introduction to Gaming & Simulation dual enrollment course.

Students in the class not only learn about the field and its history, but how to be active creators of interactive experiences.

“True to the core values of Penn College, the course also puts students in the role of developers, where they learn how to design, develop and assess their own games or simulations,” said Alicia L. McNett, co-department head and assistant professor of computer information technology.

The Google Chromebooks previously used by students at Montgomery High School cannot run the software necessary for the class.

“By providing the needed tools, Penn College enabled my students to continue their journeys into game development and debugging outside of the classroom,” said Eric Brown, who teaches STEM at the high school. “The quality of my students’ work and their levels of understanding noticeably increased after they got the laptops in their hands.”
 

The image on the left is a scan from the retail packaging for the Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set from the late 1980s. It captures a treasure from a revolutionary era of gaming and a ridiculously inauthentic experience. STEM teacher Eric Brown points out that most of the people aren't looking at the TV, the game cartridge being played is on the table beside the console rather than being loaded into it, the system shows no power light (so it's actually turned off) and two kids look to be playing the game at once even though the game only allows one player at a time. On right, a parody version includes students and equipment from the Introduction to Gaming & Simulation dual enrollment course at Montgomery High School. The class had a lot of fun recreating the scene but also ended up making an advertisement for the course that's a salute to an iconic moment in gaming history. 

The more powerful laptops enable class members to use GameMaker Studio 2, a specialized software that McNett said contains all the core components, such as rendering and physics engines, that enable developers to create games and simulations without the need to code everything from scratch.

“By using a modern game engine, students have the ability to focus on the experience they are creating instead of low-level coding issues,” she said. “They can focus on the mechanics and player experience and develop their games and simulations more quickly. This then allows them to have time for things like other essential activities of development, like playtesting, which is critical for understanding if their games or simulations are working as intended and are fun and engaging. They learn a lot through this trial-and-error process. They don’t just learn about development; they do it.”

Brown has been teaching Penn College Dual Enrollment courses at Montgomery High School since 2015. He said the opportunities for students to get a taste of college-level curricula, earn college credit, and gain confidence and independence through course completion has been a positive experience.

“From a teaching end, the process has been impressively facilitated and supported by every one of the various Penn College professionals I’ve interacted with along the way,” he said. “I’m particularly grateful to have such a friendly and helpful liaison in Alicia McNett.”