Computer coding could soon be coming to a school near you.
The Duval County School Board will vote next month on whether to change Andrew Jackson High into a technology magnet, which would offer computer coding and gaming among other career options. And Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said last month he plans to introduce computer coding next year into elementary school curriculum.
Duval so far has taught coding through video game design at Kirby-Smith Middle School, a science, technology, engineering, arts and math magnet.
There James Vail, a former natural science educator, teaches several coding languages as students build video games. It's an elective nearly every student takes, he said, and some take multiple classes, using several languages.
In a given semester he may have 240 students in six classes, or an average of 40 students per class.
On a recent Thursday, his eighth-graders were finishing newly created two-player video games, using their imaginations, knowledge of coding and a few prods from Vail.
Luke Underwood, who Vail said is one of the more advanced students, used a commercial grade programming language to create a game featuring a spaceman walking up inclines while dodging deadly dots from a green fish. Earlier he created an "Old MacDonald HAD a Farm" game, where tanks shoot at cows and elephants fleeing a barn.
His classmate Oscar Vargas used a different advanced language to touch up a Capture the Flag game. Both students say they want to master 3-D modeling and animation.
Vail told Vargas: "This is commercial-level stuff. If you get good at this, there's a job for you."
Recently Florida legislators endorsed bills to let schools count coding as a foreign language, but the measure passed in the Senate and died in the House.
Across the country, schools are being encouraged to add computer science classes, including coding. It's needed if graduates will be ready for tomorrow's careers, some experts say.
"Many of the people who have shaped our digital world started out by coding games for fun," wrote Jon Woodcock, author of "Coding Games in Scratch," a coding language textbook. He cited the founders of Microsoft and Apple as examples.
"Coding doesn't have to become a career, but it's an amazing skill and can unlock exciting doors to your future."
Most of Vail's students start with simpler languages and build up, using Scratch, Alice, Twine and Microsoft Kodu. Programming has gotten much easier in recent years than when Vail first started teaching it, he said; back then it could take a semester for students to figure out just how to make a cube move a little.
Now depending on how many courses they take, students could make games in several different languages, Vail said, adding that it's important that students learn to analyze games and the programming languages, to see what programming concepts are common to all of them and which apply to everything.
Some assignments involve students creating 3-D, animated mini-videos, while in others they create extensive plots for players and characters. One assignment prompted students to plot out what happens when players are given a series of choices, often with comical results.
A student last semester asked a hypothetical player what they would do if they found themselves in a car full of 30 clowns — jump out or go for a ride?
The student created scenarios for each choice and more scenarios for each subsequent choice. At one point, the player lands at a circus and must choose between performing on a tightrope or riding a "baby horse."
"There's definitely an artistic component to this, too," Vail said. "There are some amazing ones — and some less amazing."
The students create game story ideas, then they "storyboard" them, drawing up scenes, before creating a game based on those plans.
It's not all fun and games. Students get serious assignments and homework, Vail said.
The next eighth-grade assignment, for instance, requires students to create a realistic game involving humans, water and an environmental issue, he says. It could entail anything from the effects of pollution on water, to the results of an oil spill, to the deaths of sea turtle babies deflected from safe waters by artificial lights.
Students will do their own research, he said, much like when they write a paper or make presentation. Then they'll create a video game with characters, goals and challenges. They'll set up causes and effects — "if-then" scenarios — and their games must tell a story.
They'll get about two weeks, he said.
The students didn't complain. They mostly worked alone or in groups on games.
Typically Vail walks behind them with a clipboard, scoring their efforts daily. They also submit their work online.
Thursday a few got momentarily distracted on the Internet. Yes, that happens even in video game class, Vail admitted.
Most students started out learning Scratch, an easy language that is mostly made up of ready-made blocks of computer code, or commands.
Game designers make characters and objects move and perform functions by creating "scripts," which are instructions to the computer. Each block of text has one instruction but when strung together, they make a script.
Several students say they're learning about other subjects, not just video games, in Vail's class.
Vicky Joseph said she uses her "if-then" scenario writing skills in her Language Arts essays where she must make and back up her arguments.
Joe Kennerson, who created a racing game between a cyclist and a flying fish, added: "I learned how to be more creative and how to build my ideas."
Students are practicing their math, too, creating objects and movement in two dimensions or more, plotting locations on an X and Y graph, and calculating angles.
There's even a 3-D printer students use to create models of characters or build bridges or items they can place in their games.
"That math stuff they thought they're never going to use? They're horrified that they have to use it," Vail joked.
"This class incorporates all the disciplines," said June Marshall, principal.
For parents who want to learn about coding, or even how to code, Vail recommends the free website hourofcode.org.
Denise Amos: (904) 359-4083
