My favorite part of today’s class was reminiscing about afternoons I spent as an eleven year old watching my family members die of typhoid and hunting buffalo in Oregon Trail. We talked about gamification of education and how to incorporate games into different subjects. We were introduced to the phrase “Vibe Coding” which refers to using Artificial Intelligence to create games or other software out of prompts instead of creating code, a lengthy and arduous process. During this process, specificity was emphasized through a video outlining the idea of “computational thinking.” The video showed a dad following instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich as if he were a computer. The point was that when inputting commands for AI, wording needs to be concise.
We used the website Code with Anna and Elsa from Code.org to practice scratch, a coding format that involves dragging and dropping commands. Scratch is another way to make coding accessible for a broader audience. This specific platform could be used in teaching math.
Other games were presented such as simple Math Blaster or Flappy Bird games that could be created with a variety of different prompts relating to different subject matter. For example one game presented was a tool to encourage learning a First Nations alphabet. We also spent some time discussing and trying out the Bad News Game which is a game designed to provoke critical thinking about fake news. We had some interesting discussion about this game which uses inoculation theory which means making someone do something in order to learn what is bad about it. I learned about a lot of games I hadn’t heard of before and will be sure to check out like: gimkit, dixit, blookit, prodigy and Secret Hitler.
We discussed the environmental impacts of AI again and it brought to mind this meme which I think is hillarious and gives a reason to laugh about serious things happening in the world.
