“Video Games Good for Kids Vision” plus 2 more |
- Video Games Good for Kids Vision
- Kids go from playing video games to making them
- Kids design playground of dreams
| Video Games Good for Kids Vision Posted: 15 Jul 2010 01:41 PM PDT Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Kids go from playing video games to making them Posted: 15 Jul 2010 10:48 PM PDT They laugh and giggle as they make their characters jump from platform to platform, avoid traps and shoot bad guys, but don't mistake what these kids are doing for play time. They're actually working — testing each other's video game designs. Thirty-seven children ages seven to 17 are in a weeklong session at the University of Houston learning to make websites and create and modify video games at a technology camp put on by InternalDrive, a California company that hosts similar summer computer camps around the country. "Instead of just being at home all summer playing video games, the kids are able to create their own video games," said Olympia Thomas, the Houston camp director. "They're putting the skills they already have to use." A weeklong session costs $779 for day students and $1,249 for students spending the night. By learning to use software like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Java, and programming languages such as C++, the kids are picking up skills valuable for all fields of work, Thomas said. "There has to be people who can develop these programs and software," she said. "If you can program, your job options I think are unlimited." Rapid pace of changeCamille Abaya, 8, from Houston, said she has learned how to put tiles, platforms and traps in her 2-D game. She also can has learned to make objects turn invisible. She thinks she might want to create video games when she grows up. "It's kind of entertaining when you can make video games and stuff, and when people think it's fun, it puts a smile on their face," Abaya said. If she does decide to pursue a career as a video game developer, starting at such a young age will have proved fortuitous. Jamie Belinne, assistant dean for business career services at UH, said starting early is important for developers, programmers and designers because technology changes rapidly. "It's so fast right now and if you're not really passionate about driving that change you'll just get left behind by it." As programs used by developers become less expensive and easier to use, children will be introduced to more advanced computer development programs at younger ages, said Marc Nathan, vice president of strategy for ChaiONE.com, a digital agency that focuses on Web and mobile. "The cost of these things, especially with free and open-source software, is coming down to zero, which ultimately means there will be an ability for people that want to learn how to code or how to design - they have no barriers to entry to learn how to do it," Nathan said. Early start can pay offThe demand for the skills taught at InternalDrive's camps is in high demand, Nathan said, and there's a decent living available for anybody who masters them. "If these young kids get a leg up on these kinds of skills, get familiarity with the tools, they understand the design aesthetic, then their ability to get hired is going to be much, much higher," he said. "The more people that understand these tools better and at an earlier age, it's better for not just them individually but for our society." Larry Wiseman, 14, who is in his third weeklong session at InternalDrive's camp, said he's been playing video games since he was 3 years old and started thinking about creating video games for a living after reading video game magazines and seeing advertisements for technology schools. "It's the biggest entertainment industry out there, and I would really like to get into it," the Houston teen said. Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Kids design playground of dreams Posted: 16 Jul 2010 03:06 AM PDT These kids might be the city's youngest engineers. They don't have their degrees yet, but the children at Brentnell Recreation Center's summer camp were turned loose yesterday to design the playground of their dreams, hoping their sketch would be the one built at the center Sept. 10. The Near East Side center's play set was wiped out four years ago when the building was expanded. Since then, children have gone next door to the former Brentnell Elementary School. Park officials say the aging wooden play set there is a safety hazard. "We want our playground back," said center director Joe Morgan. Some of the children's more fanciful crayon-and-marker blueprints included water parks, ziplines and mountains. But 8-year-old Elizabeth Chiarovano's playground was based on a more traditional concept. "There might be a lot of people that want to use the swing," she said while coloring a jungle gym and swing set. Her friend Kameron Kingmore, 7, stood nearby, making her own depiction of the two girls on a swing set next to oversized flowers. Brentnell is one of three centers in the city that applied to get a playground from national nonprofit KaBOOM!, which aims to get play areas within walking distance of every U.S. child. That group is working with Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which chose 10 cities that need a playground and gave $1 million to provide them. Officials chose the center on the Near East Side because many parents rely on the center to look after their children during the day and because there are few playgrounds in the area. "Brentnell serves 100 kids every single day," said KaBOOM! spokesman Mike Vietti. "That's why it was a perfect match." The city will pay $17,500 for the playground, which will be built mostly by volunteers. Officials didn't know the total price of the project but said the city's contribution represents about 15 percent of the overall cost. When the playground is completed, it won't look exactly like the colorful and imaginative renderings drawn by the 50-person think tank at Brentnell yesterday. However, it will incorporate elements that were common among the kids' illustrations, said Jorge Contreras, a KaBOOM! project manager. A group of adults who watched the children at work will look at three manufacturer designs to decide which one fits the bill, Contreras said. The 2,700-square-foot play area will be one more tool to help fight obesity, said Alan McKnight, director of the city's Recreation and Parks department. He said obesity has become a crisis in the United States as children spend more time indoors on the computer or playing video games. "When I was a kid, we were outside all the time," he said. "We need to get kids back outside." Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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