Gaming workshops boost students’ interest in science and technology

<h3>An evaluation by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research &lpar;NZCER&rpar; has found that gaming workshops held in public libraries have boosted students’ interest in science and technology&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>Free workshops were held late-2015 and early-2016 at seven public libraries around New Zealand and participants were taken through the process of creating their own video game&comma; coding computational thinking and digital game design&period; The workshops drew 426 people from across the seven locations – 75 per cent of whom were under 18&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Gamefroot platform&comma; publicly accessible at make&period;gamefroot&period;com&comma; was used to create the games&comma; and the project was funded through the Ministry of Business&comma; Innovation and Employment’s Unlocking Curious Minds fund and developed through a partnership between Public Libraries of New Zealand&comma; Gamelab&comma; Hutt City Council and public libraries in Dunedin&comma; Timaru&comma; Nelson&comma; Hutt City&comma; Gisborne&comma; Porirua and Wellington&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Public Libraries director Tim Antric said some young people travelled for more than three hours to attend the workshops&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The evaluation shows many of them learned more about being creative and solving problems&period; This is really pleasing and is exactly what public libraries are for&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The evaluation also showed that participants thought the workshops had helped them learn to think strategically&comma; had demystified computers for them and had taught them more about themselves and others&period; Most said they had experienced at least one &&num;8216&semi;aha&&num;8217&semi; moment during the course of the day&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Most adults who attended the workshops were there to support young people to learn coding or design&comma; and a just under a third were primary school teachers&period; Teachers taking part in the evaluation said the workshops had been useful for their professional development and that they were better able to talk about coding with their pupils&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Organisers Gamelab are now creating supporting resources for teachers to use in their classrooms&period; Antric says improvements will also be made to make the workshops more engaging for female&comma; Maori and Pasifika students&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;