Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Video Game Design Online - Digipen.edu

Has anyone tried this online school (they are brick and mortar as well) https://www.digipen.edu/

DS12 is starting the introduction to video game programming, and the first class went well enough, although getting into is was somewhat disorganized (sent the wrong webex info, and some other goof ups).

Sort of a moot point to be asking but I was surprised I have not seen this listed already on this board.
I will post again as to how it is going, but curious if others' children have done this, and how it went. (any other caveats out there..)
thanks!

Interesting, I know I've heard of them. It presents as a university type program, what is the entry point for a non-standard student? Or did your son apply as an undergraduate?

oh heck no, he is 12, so maybe I posted a link that leads to more of the upper level stuff, digging around now for the summer sessions and 7th grader stuff....

lol, sorry about that. The link above does show the pretty cool student-designed 'perspective' game that my DH noticed / led him to find this place.
Here is the k-12 programming link!

https://projectfun.digipen.edu//

they have
- online courses, which is what my ds12 is doing
- pre-college courses
- summer courses (some of these are on campus)

Hmmmm.... I'm thinking that DD's school may contract with them as a provider for some high school technology electives.

DD hasn't taken the game design course, but one of her besties has-- and had relatively good things to say about it, I might add.

He's done some pretty impressive game design as a result. He's MG/HG and a high school sophomore (well, was when he was doing it, he's now 16 and a senior).

Looks like I have some legwork to see if they run something local. DS7 has been fascinated lately by games where you hack into computers. This morning I mentioned I know people who are professional hackers, he told me he knows what he wants to be when he's older. Thanks, Chris, for the heads up on this.

Second class in the teacher is covering some ground rather quickly. I think she is trying to get past the initial fairly simple 'game' that they have to build and into some of the more creative assignments.

Some of the areas touched on are how things like vectors/vector math are used in moving things around in a game, 'normal' to a line, etc. which is cool stuff.
Looks like there will be need for ds12 to look some of this stuff up if he wants to get deeper on those subjects (going beyond an understanding of how/why to set things up in the programming interface).

But it is a programming class and not a math class so that is not hugely disappointing. Just being introduced to these ideas and how 'math is ever going to be used' when he is an adult is pretty refreshing.

Also, the training director did contact me regarding some of the miscommunication we had during registration, etc.

I was going through some old posts trying to find something else when I came across this...not sure why I never updated this to say:
the class ended up being extremely disorganized, and I think for quite a while my ds was off the whole idea of any programming, which was really aggravating. I think he is warming up again to the idea, and has remained of course a steadfast video game fan (older games!).
Anyway, the issue was that the instructor and online system were stating different due dates, and even then changing those as well mid-assignment. Ds would get assignments, start working on them and find out later the dates were all changed (and we parents saw the dates change too, it was not just him).
Anyway, he did well and completed the course but not without a couple of very long weekends -- a good lesson in life, to be sure. Sometimes things are not fair and there isn't much you can do about it, but if you can just hunker down and work hard and get out the other side it's still a 'win', despite being unfair.

Anyway, maybe there is improvement there since he took the course, but 'buyer beware' on this one. If you get the assignment list/dates maybe print out a copy before the dates all start to change.

Again, the material covered was just about ideal for a beginning programmer who wants to move quickly into seeing results and making actual games.

I like on this page:
http://news.digipen.edu/industry/qa-walter-bright-inventor-d-language/?c=r#.VPXCRmePKdI

"I can't play chess without wanting to write a program to do it for me." When I was younger a lot of my friends were into Sudoku, but I decided to write a program to solve the puzzles instead.

I will say that I learned to program long before I took my 1st programming class. Maybe due to my background, I tend to believe programming languages are better self taught. Of course, I think almost everything is better when self taught. (Of course, hiring managers do not tend to see things this way. ) Also, it is good to do a lot of self study to ensure one is doing things in an efficient way as I do not encourage reinventing programming.

Interesting! I also am a software engineer/programmer from way back; mostly all self-taught. Yes I usually enjoy it more that way, you can learn exactly what you need when you need it. I was lucky to get a job where I was allowed to learn as I went. I have had a few courses in programming and scripting, and they varied so much in quality, it is no wonder some folks just 'give up' or end up hating what they thought would be fun.

I actually took a UNIX scripting course with two work mates and my MANAGER even signed up. I am just recollecting how much trouble the mgr had keeping up with the material - best course I ever took, I just loved it.