BYOND education

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Sep 24 2004, 9:42 pm
In response to Crispy
Crispy wrote:
Something like a promotional pack for schools - with an informational booklet, and the program, and the Blue Book, and perhaps a few choice tutorials or BYONDscape articles - would work wonders.

A basic course outline that shows how DM can be used to teach general programming techniques would be a good addition to the pack.


He doesn't actually mark our assignments, because he CAN'T; he doesn't know how to program. In any language. He's supposed to be teaching the more advanced Java class, and yet the Visual Basic teacher is FAR better than him.

Heh, I love the Australian educational system. =P
Sep 24 2004, 11:12 pm
In response to DarkView
DarkView wrote:
Heh, I love the Australian educational system. =P

Don't we all...

The problem with I.T. in schools (especially government schools) is that any programmers worth their salt will be working in the industry on $50-$100 an hour, as opposed to teaching on $20 per hour (plus unpaid overtime). The only IT teachers are the ones that were either too crap to get employment in the industry (like my Java teacher), or were actually trained to teach in a different subject, like the old Head of I.T. at my last school; she was a sports teacher, and was only barely computer-literate.

On the other hand, we got a much better Head of I.T. 6 months before I left that school (not out of choice; that was Year 10, and the school didn't go past Year 10). He was an excellent teacher, and actually knew his stuff; he just preferred teaching than to working in the industry. So good I.T. teachers do actually exist, but they're a rare breed. =)

Anyway... let's not drag Tom's thread too off-topic. =P
Sep 25 2004, 5:19 am
In response to Crispy
It *would* be nice to have DM installed on computers at school, i'd be the best in the entire school from the word go, and i could mess about with the filters with a DM bypass system.


Anyway, if there were to be choice, school-designated tutorials, I think it should be the "gurus" who make them, so the school's don't end up teaching their kid's some glitchy coding, or to use usr when you should use src.

They'd have to be written in a special way, too- maybe taking Zilals tutorials, and adding new (silly) comments (eg. "turn to page 2 when your teacher says so", "see page 15 of the blue book for more information".)

*edit-*

Infact, Dan and Tom could make a special "Byond school" version, with limits on games to download, and maybe special, more comprehensive built in help systems.
Sep 25 2004, 8:04 am
In response to Crashed
Well, what you could do is make a URL something like this: http://www.byond.school.com. It would lead away from the original BYOND site bringing you to another. This "other" one would not have all of those fan-made/violent games. That way, it would be suitable for the school. It could have tutorials, games suitable for the school (such as educational games), no vulgar language (I have realized that some games have vulgar language on their HUB), ETC.

The educational games for this website should not be fan-made games or anything of that sort. Maybe some sort of strategy game made by the coding gurus or the creators (just to start people off with the games). Then they could have the source codes for it to change it however they want to help them learn how the game was created. Then you would have schools from all over the world creating educational games. This would give BYOND a big boost in players.

P.S. Tell me what you think of this.
Sep 25 2004, 8:11 am
In response to GokuDBZ3128
If anything it would be school.byond.com

In any case, I suspect that schools would prefer printed materials to an online community. They already try hard to block stuff like that from school computers.
Apr 7 2005, 10:18 am
This is one of the first things I'm going to do when I head off to college this fall. The program teaches Python at first for game structure, and so we can create games fairly quick. But I think BYOND would be great for it also.

If that doesn't work, I'm going to get all of the students into that I can.

Prodigal Squirrel
Apr 7 2005, 3:41 pm
In response to Prodigal Squirrel
Well, wouldnt it be easier than to have a new HUB for the teacher to have the omega byond thingy where you could hide certain games from the hub, or turn off and on abilities, like the pager, and playing online games. Maybe that'd work better as well...
Apr 7 2005, 5:00 pm
In response to Jon88
I've tried out C++ before, got used to it. Except the compiler was a little difficult to use. To me c++ is nothing like DM its more wacked out to me. o.o
Sep 8 2005, 12:10 pm
Are you still up for this?
Sep 8 2005, 1:02 pm
In response to DeathAwaitsU
What's funny is that I actually remember this post from when I read it last year. Maybe if Tom is still up for this, then next year if I go to Butler Tech I'll ask around.

Hiead
Sep 10 2005, 7:58 am
In response to DeathAwaitsU
I just now started out in computer course over at my school. If Tom still supports this, I will gladly introduce it.
Sep 10 2005, 4:45 pm
In response to Jamesburrow
Just this week (first week of classes, and before I read this post) I was explaining DM to an instructor (he walked by and noticed I was programming... on paper; I had been away from the computer all week). He seemed very interested, and continued to push for more information, until another instructor informed him he was 20min late for his first class.

Though he was very interested with what I was telling him, I found myself avoiding any mention of video games, or the fact that it only runs in a client.

If you would like me to follow up this discussion, or give him some contact info, I'd be willing to do so. Also, if you'd like to advise me on a certain, um, 'angle' to give to the subject of the client, that would be appreciated :)
Sep 10 2005, 6:15 pm
In response to IainPeregrine
IainPeregrine wrote:
If you would like me to follow up this discussion, or give him some contact info, I'd be willing to do so. Also, if you'd like to advise me on a certain, um, 'angle' to give to the subject of the client, that would be appreciated :)

I am definitely enthusiastic about this effort, and encourage all of you who have posted here (as well as anyone else) to followup with your teachers/profs if you think this would be something of interest to them. I can forward extra advice and materials if this goes anywhere (I've done this without success on a few occassions in the past).

As far as the 'angle' goes, it's simple: BYOND is used, primarily, to make games. But I believe that games are the strongest educational aid for students of this generation, because they make the learning of this subject entertaining. I gather that the majority of developers here use BYOND because it is a fun way to do something interesting, not because they are trying to learn anything practical (in the real-world sense). That is just an additional bonus. As we've seen, many who have been here a while suddenly find that they can understand C and Java and what-not, and if they choose to pursue things further, they may learn that, more importantly, they have design skills and a grasp of the algorithmic nature of languages. I hope one day some of you will be able to look back and recall BYOND as a tool that started or furthered your computational skills, even if you were only here to make games.
Sep 24 2005, 5:03 am
Im at college now, doing advanced AGCE ICT. This course involves all sorts of things including programming. As soon as the programming part of the course starts i'll immediatly show them the site and see if thyre interested
Sep 24 2005, 7:30 am
In response to Dem0nhunterDaz
Maybe you could introduce it to them, so that when the programming part comes they'll already possibly have a background in BYOND.

Hiead
Sep 24 2005, 9:21 am
In response to Dem0nhunterDaz
If you write a letter of introduction for BYOND, I hope that you use better grammar than you used in your post. :-(
Sep 29 2005, 11:29 am
In response to Jon88
Jon88 wrote:
Kunark wrote:
I always thought this would be a great thing to teach in school.

Our school is so paranoid about viruses though that i doubt they'd even consider it.

How could viruses be a problem? If you're not runnning in trusted mode, BYOND asks before it lets the running program do anything possibly stupid/bad. It's better than other languages in that regard.

I think my school blocks Byond.com :P
Sep 29 2005, 11:41 am
In response to Godz
yay my high school is gonna use DM as a starting lang after python(i thnk thay might turn it donw has to pass school board)
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