The Kids Competition with Little Big Planet and Spore
Little Big Planet 2 has just been announced by Sony, setting its fans into a spiral of oozing admiration and excitement. They've made two million levels already on the crowd-sourced game/gaming engine. Now kids are being encouraged to make more, with the Hastac/MacArthur Foundation competition.
While you wait for the release of LBP2, and given some of the impressive and ambitious work that has already taken place in primary and secondary schools with Little Big Planet and Spore, the latest call to action from the Hastac/MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media Competition is worth looking into, for a chance to win PSPs or even a visit to Electronic Arts' studios. Teams of two or three students can create a level on LBP or on Spore, submitting their entries before May 21st.

It's a great competition but schools will find publishing Little Big Planet levels to the PSN difficult unless their technicians allow PS3s on to the networks. The alternative is for the teacher to use their home internet connection to upload completed levels.
Posted by: Ian Simpson | May 11, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Good advice on letting someone else upload at home, although methinks that'll end up being the youngsters themselves. The most important thing is that all this is do-able in school, the hard part that is: thinking about the narrative, planning the gameplay, working out the increase in difficulty, maybe even finding a "learning purpose" specifically within the level. Should be exciting to see!
Posted by: Ewan McIntosh | May 11, 2010 at 05:07 PM
Games are good tool for education but they should be more creative and active for education..
Posted by: Ben10 Games | May 23, 2010 at 07:50 PM