By Kevin Pham

Staff Writer

“My interest in teaching coding started with an argument I had with the developers of the [program] I use in my statistics class,” stated AP Statistics teacher Geoff Barraclough.

This week and the following week, Gabrielino High School is participating in a schedule experiment that allots time for students to take classes that are not usually included in the curriculum.

  Barraclough is teaching one of those classes and wants to focus the course on coding video games.

  “A game doesn’t need to be complex to be interesting,” Barraclough explained. “what makes a video game exciting is that you are engaged with the characters.”

  His course will revolve around a program called Hopscotch. Barraclough aims to teach students about the fundamentals of concocting simple programs that will get them interested in the game making process.

  “It was fun to program things for my statistics class but what if I taught people how to make games as well,” Barraclough said.

  From simple commands such as getting a character to speak when approached or making it seem like a character is moving by manipulating the video game background, Barraclough hopes to break down the creation process to make these programs seem less daunting for students.

  From what started out as a simple argument evolved into an exciting new class.