Mark Suter

Game Design as a High School Course: Gateway to Computer Science?

“I wish they had fun classes like that when I was in school”. – Student Parents   That’s how you know you’re on the right track. Alumni and parents of students tell you they’re jealous. Starting at my new school, Elida High School, I was given a lot of freedom to design new courses that […]

Using Minecraft to Teach Programming to 6th graders

“Learning to program is more fun when you can’t wait to see it run.” -Unintentional rhyme by student Using the free mod ComputerCraftEDU, my 6th grade students gave instructions to their “turtle”, asking it to build them a house. My gameplan: Minimum house dimensions of (in blocks) 5 wide X 5 deep X 5 high. […]

2040: What will edu look like?

Below is a creative writing excercise in response to the prompt “What will education look like in 2040, and how will museums play a role?” 3:29pm, March 14th, 2040 AD “My first and likely last journal entry on a Qwerty keyboard” I turn 28 in 15 days. Dad helpfully pointed out at breakfast that neurologically […]

Virtual Reality in School

The school year barely underway, we’ve already set a new #WorldsFirst. Rockettech students were the first students in the world to experience the HTC Vive virtual reality system. As part of a research study with foundry10, my students and I hope to help other educators around the world discover some “best practices” for how to […]

Minecraft in School – Programming with Turtles

As part of a partnership with BGSU’s Mark Stevens, Pandora-Gilboa students have been learning programming fundamentals on a BGSU MineCraftEdu server. They program the turtle, equip it with materials, then set it off! Students houses being built by their turtles: Each student begins by making a blueprint of their house on graph paper, including top […]