Students in Ian Parberry's
Spring 2011 section of
Game
Programming 2 and 3D Game Programming
at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of North Texas
are going to work with art students enrolled in one of Max Kazemzadeh's art classes at
Gallaudet University in the nation's capital.
Gallaudet University describes itself as the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard of hearing students.
The two groups of students met for the first time in class on Monday, February 7, 2011 via
Skype.
After the art students introduced themselves,
the UNT students took turns at the webcam at the front of the class
introducing themselves and their game plans
to the art students while the rest of the programming class watched and listened
to the conversation on the class projector. Max Kazemzadeh stood by at his end to
translate to and from sign language.
The students plan to communicate
inside and outside of class
using technologies such as Skype,
text messaging, email, and a Subversion version
control system running on a server in UNT's Laboratory for
Recreational Computing.
Gallaudet University is a member of the
LARC
Art Alliance,
which aims to team together art students from around the world with programmers from
UNT's game programming classes.
Formed in 1993, LARC has
a long
history of teaming with art programs.
Video clips from the games developed in past classes are
available online. LARC alumni have gone on to become professional
game developers.
Ian and Max are continuing a collaboration that began
2003-2008 while Max
taught in UNT's College of Visual Arts and Design.
They coauthored two papers, "Experience with an Industry-Driven
Capstone Course on Game Programming" in SIGCSE 2005 and
"The Art and Science of Game Programming"
in SIGCSE 2006 (the
prestigious annual ACM SIGCSE
Symposium on Computer Science Education).
In addition to their class collaboration,
the pair crafted a digital media art installation
"Max is a Pushover" exhibited in 2008
at the University of North Texas Artspace in Fort Worth, Texas.
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A webcam was put on the monitor of the classroom computer.
The monitor in this picture is at UNT, while the students depicted on it are at Gallaudet.
Images via Skype.
(Click on the images for a larger version.)
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The display is shared on the projector so that the whole class can see.
The projection screen in this picture is at UNT, while the image depicted on it is of Gallaudet students.
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Groups of programming students took turns coming up to the front of the class to
introduce themselves to the art students.
The student at left in whis picture is at UNT, while the ones on the screen are at Gallaudet.
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Another group of programming students meets the art students.
The students at left in this picture are at UNT, while the ones on the screen are at Gallaudet.
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