The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
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Author: Matthew Farber, Ed.D.
Gamifying SEL with the Mood Meter
Social and emotional learning is a set of teachable competencies or skills considered fundamental to school and life success. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines SEL as the process of how children “acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show ...
Brokering Youth Interests, Opportunities, And Relationships
Learning happens in both formal settings like school, and informal spaces such as museums, libraries, afterschool clubs, and online affinity spaces. At museums and libraries, youth can engage in following passions on a wide range of interest-driven topics, from makerspaces to retro-videogaming. In afterschool clubs, youth may learn 3D printing, computer coding, digital photography, or debate skill...
Character Building with Esports Programs
In 2017, more people watched the League of Legends Championship than Game 7 of the World Series and the final game of the NBA Finals that year. This statistic was shared by ESPN, who—for the first time this past September—featured esports player, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins on the cover of its ESPN The Magazine. But what exactly is esports? Is it just kids just shooting at each other in online video gam...
GGJNext: A New Global Game Jam for Youth
This July 2018, all around the world, kids aged 12-17 years old gather together to make games. Known as GGJNext, it is a new game jam event specifically for youth. What Exactly is a Game Jam? In a game jam, designers are given a topic or theme and then build a game. Sometimes known as fast prototyping, groups work collaboratively to create sometimes barely viable games. The point isn’t to deliver ...
Moveable Game Jams
This Breakfast Club blog post is a follow-up to Afterschool Game Jams! which I wrote last August 2016. In it, I described what game jams are, including the “Moveable Game Jam” initiative. Much has happened since then, and I am excited to share it all with the BOOST community! What Are Game Jams, Anyway? Game jams typically take place over a weekend, and involve a theme, or specific con...
Game Jams for Out-of-School Time
Game jams are like a game about making a game. Participants meet in out-of-school spaces to create a game in either one day or over a weekend. Often, game jams center on a theme. For example, in spring 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) organized a climate-themed game jams about water. The topic of water was part of a White House call to action regarding building a su...
Inside the “Magic Circle” of Game-Based Learning
Children—and adults, too—enjoy playing games. Doing so is not just fun; playing games is intrinsically engaging. Game play is satisfying work. The fact that games can be used to teach is considered a trend in education; yet, its utility as a teaching tool has been around for well over a millennia! King Tut was entombed with the board game Senet, a game about the afterlife (Senet means passing). Ge...
Join Our Twitter Chat on Game-Based Learning with #BOOSTChat
How Do I Participate? 1. Follow @TEAMBOOST and the hashtag #BOOSTChat on Twitter on Wednesday, February 18 at 6PM PST/9PM EST. 2. Questions will be ordered Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5. To answer Q1, begin your tweet with A1. For Q2, A2 and so on. 3. Include #BOOSTChat to all of your tweets during the Twitter Chat, so others can see what you’re tweeting. 4. Bring questions and/or provide insight! Contest: P...