Teens are overwhelmed, partly because they don’t yet have the skills to manage the unprecedented amount of stuff that enters their brains each day.  – from LifeHacker.com

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

“You can do anything, but not everything.”

― David Allen, (GTD) Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World

SUMMARY

• I organized my GTD. It looks boring and clunky, but I’ll try it out for a few months.

PRACTICE ROOM (TUTORIALS)

• Set a timer
  • Spend up to 15 minutes in this ‘room’ on either ONE of the scripting languages below, Javascript (PlayCanvas) or C# (Unity)  (NOT BOTH)

Unity – C#

• • https://www.sololearn.com/Course/CSharp/
  • Variables
  • reassessing myself in case I missed something

CLASSROOM (THEORY & ANALYSIS)

You are going to learn to develop your own version of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) process in this ‘room.’

• Set a timer
• Spend 45 minutes in this ‘room’
  • Spend 20 minutes watching The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: David Allen 
  • Spend 10 minutes watching Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen – Animated Book Summary And Review
  • Spend 5 minutes reading Help Teens De-Stress With These ‘Getting Things Done’ Hacks
  • Spend 10 minutes writing a small paragraph reflection

1. make a list of items for each week(class) on Trello, every Monday
2. decide whether if things are actionable right now, if not- make detailed processes
3. write down every event that is happening outside class
4. put the individual tasks on the ‘done column’, with respect to which day it was completed on
5. add to the lists when new things are added to assignments

write down ideas when I’m trying to sleep, or having random discussions with friends

• DELETE ALL OF MR. LE DUC’s INSTRUCTIONS, AFTER YOU ARE DONE

LAB (THEORY PRACTICED)

• Set a timer
• Spend 15 minutes in this ‘room’
• Rewatch David explain ‘Maps’ from 19:57 to 21:16 of the video

Examine Two GTD Maps: Basic and Detailed

1. Detailed map by guccio@文房具社 icensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
2. Basic map from BiggerPlate.com embedded below

GTD-based Trusted System

• Examine and pick a trusted system from the 4 options listed below to ‘capture’ your work
  • A trusted system is your method for managing your tasks in a way that you consistently get things done

1. 1. Trello.com with a – GTD Template
      • We use Trello in this class to manage group projects
        • You will create a Trello account a few weeks from now regardless
        • You might want to start now
      • We start using Trello in the second semester
      • Watch Mr. Le Duc Creating a Trello Account and Add GTD Template Tutorial (3:45)
      • 
      • You can get the free Trello app at the Apple Store or Google Play
      • 
   2. Your phone
   3. Paper and pen or pencil
   4. Examine LifeHacker.com’s GTD Resources
      • Try a To-Do List That Lives in Your Tabs 
      • (https://trello.com/b/luobjyvX/life)

OUTSIDE (PRODUCTIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• Go for a 15-minute walk, if it is safe to do so  and follow the advice from David Allen
  • Bring a notepad
  • Walk and relax and allow your mind to wander
  • If you land on something that needs your attention, write it down
  • Continue throughout your walk

STUDIO (CREATING MAPS)

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 15 minutes
• Then watch David Allen summarize the steps
  • “Very simple folks! …
    1. Just WRITE STUFF DOWN
    2. Decide the ACTIONS and OUTCOMES embedded in them
    3. Get yourself a MAP OF ALL THAT so you can step back and take a look at it.
    4. And then, basically, you USE THE MAP TO DECIDE, “OK, here’s the course that we’re going to go on.”
    5. You then LAUNCH the ‘ship’ on a trusted course in the short term, as well as on the long horizon that you’re moving on.
    6. And then, on a regular basis, you need to REASSESS, “OK, we need to take in NEW DATA, CLEANUP, RECALIBRATE, and REFOCUS for the next leg of the journey.”
  • It’s that simple…”
• ‘Capture’ all the ACTION ITEMS you can in your GTD Trusted System

CONTROL ROOM (PRODUCTION)

• Set a timer
• Spend 10 minutes in this ‘room’
• Share your system with the class in the Schoology Week 10 Discussion Board
  • Take a picture or screenshot and post on our Schoology page
• Prepare to briefly share how your system helps you…
  1. Capture Action Items
  2. Process them
  3. and Organize them
• DELETE THIS WHOLE SECTION, AFTER YOU ARE DONE

WHAT I LEARNED and PROBLEMS I SOLVED

• I learned how to organize a GTD to fit my needs, and how to modify it to fit my workflow.
• I’m on the way to solving the issue of procrastination that plagued me for weeks as I had no one, physically, to share and talk about classwork to.

“Day 092/366 – To Do List” by Great Beyond is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Your toughest work is defining what your work is! –  Peter Drucker

SUMMARY

• Write your weekly summary here, last, at the end of the week…
  • I think it was decently productive. I still need to learn to suck it up and just do my homework, instead of procrastinating. I learned that eating a light snack or showering helps with it by changing my mood, as I’m not an outdoorsy person, and getting dressed to go outside takes a long time.

PRACTICE ROOM (TUTORIALS)

In this ‘room’ you are going to try Getting Things Done (GTD).

STEP 1: MAKE A LIST

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 5 minutes
• Write a list, here in this section of your blog,
  • All the things you need to complete for school
  • All classes, all assignments
  • interview with Fevzi- check if he’s still busy with his classes
  • complete the interview questions assignment
    • societal norms between the Turks and Kurds, cultural experiences from his childhood memory, his thoughts on the government and whether if he actually has any say in it, his parents, traditional food and holiday he likes, his thought of the ‘Turkish’ music
  • weekly debate
  • read the new chapter
  • test on this Saturday
  • check on the history assignment due this wed for any comments from students
  • leduc’s class, remember to wake up on time…… (I’m sorry)
  • complete this assignment I’m writing on right now
  • midterm self-assessment polsci
  • corps of discovery questions
  • body paragraph 3
    • presidency- trump’s reaction to the rona- economic disparity, look at list of executive actions, government payments-businessowners? the people?

• DELETE ALL OF MR. LE DUC’s INSTRUCTIONS, AFTER YOU ARE DONE

STEP 2: NOTICE WHAT YOU NOTICED

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 5 minutes
• Political science>history>intercultural communication (week)
• Blog stuff (weekend)

STEP 3: SET A TIMER

1. Set a timer for your first task
   1. Decide how long you think it will take before you start
2. Start working
3. Repeat this process for 45 minutes for as many tasks as you can complete, then take a 15-minute break
   • Get up and get a drink of water
   • Get up and go for a walk
   • Every 20 minute blink your eyes 20 times while looking at least 20 feet away
     • This is good for your eyes

Start steps 1 through 3 again, repeat for your school day

OUTSIDE (PRODUCTIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 20 minutes in this ‘room’
• Watch the first 30 seconds of this Oct. 2020 interview with David Allen

• Reflect on GTD and getting to the top of the colorful list above for a minute
  • How can the GTD process help you tame the crazy-busy dragon of modern life?

• Then, go for a 15-minute walk, if it is safe to do so
• Write a few sentence reflection
• “I wish I had the stamina to walk forever if it meant I could avoid writing papers.”

OPTIONAL EXERCISE – Literally, read the article and go for another walk 🙂

“I coach C-suite executives and rising stars from the earliest startups to Fortune 100 companies. My passion is to help ambitious leaders achieve their full human potential.”  – Read more about Katia…

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 15 minutes reading…
  • FastCompany Magazine article about Katia Verresen’s techniques and GTD, https://www.fastcompany.com/3026827/the-brain-hacks-top-founders-use-to-get-the-job-done
• Then, go for another 15-minute walk, if it is safe to do so
• (also went to hang out with a friend at his house, noon to-8pm. assignments still completed after that.) “The stars look pretty, I guess this counts as refilling emotional energy for the week.”

WHAT I LEARNED and PROBLEMS I SOLVED

• Write only a few sentences of WHAT YOU LEARNED
  • I learned how to be more effective in spending my time. taking breaks once in a while is much more important than I initially expected.
• In one or two sentences, describe a PROBLEM YOU SOLVED
  • Delegating my time to family and friends is important as well, so I made Saturday to be the day I spend with people, and leaving Sunday to complete any assignments I couldn’t in the weekday+blog stuff.

SUMMARY

• Write your weekly summary here, last, at the end of the week…
  • Only one to two sentences

PRACTICE ROOM (TUTORIALS)

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ1b66Z1KFKjP_tBSIxgvAU-qpfCfmeAe
• A comprehensive playlist of over 200 videos, created by the channel Jimmy Vegas. Videos include design, coding, and development.

CLASSROOM (THEORY & ANALYSIS)

• Watch Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product – Scope Small, Start Right – Extra Credits
• having MVP is not only beneficial to the designer, but also to playtesters as well.

Game Genres from the Simplest and Most Difficult to Create

1. 1. Racing Game
   2. Top-Down Shooter
   3. 2d Platformer
   4. Color Matching Puzzle Game
   5. 2D Puzzle Platformer
   6. 3D Platformer
   7. FPS
   8. JRPG
   9. Fighting Game
   10. Action Adventure
   11. Western RPG
   12. RTS

LAB (THEORY PRACTICED)

• Watch Playing Like a Designer – I: Examine Your Experiences – Extra Credits
• Watch Playing Like a Designer – II: How to Analyze Game Design – Extra Credits
• Biases affect semantic noise and influence how individuals look at a product.

OUTSIDE (CREATIVITY & THE BRAIN)

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 15 minutes outside, if you can safely
• Go for a walk. Think about your life as a narrative for today.  A story of today. You as the protagonist. What/who is your nemesis? Are you trying to win/accomplish something? What? Write notes here about what you thought… and experiment with your blog.  Maybe change the theme? Have fun!
• It was very pretty outside, trees were flapping up and down and it looked like it was shimmering. I saw two small dogs and people who were flushed as the dogs were trying to sniff me.

STUDIO (SONGWRITING)

• Set a timer
• Spend up to 30 minutes in this ‘room’
• Create 5 project ideas
• Enter at least five core game (i.e. product) ideas to be considered for your own game development later in the year
• These do not need to be very detailed ideas, just a few sentences to capture the main game concept
  • Write a detailed description of the game idea
  • Identify the game genre (detailed above in this post) for inspiration
  • Review  Robin’s 5 Original Ideas for inspiration
• “Cooking Mama, but with robots”
  • Simulation- the main character is a robot who cooks ‘food’ for other robots… but it’s made up of mechanical parts.
    • small minigames?
    • hunting mechanic?
    • revolved around finding new recipes?
    • steampunk!
• “Metroidvania but puzzle and also two characters you play at the same time”
  • puzzle/metroidvania- two characters who are in a completely different world, but subtly influence each other and helps one another achieve a goal. the goal ends up bringing the two worlds together.
    • classic lever puzzles?
    • how do they communicate?
    • the story will definitely be hard to figure out
    • what kind of environment (map/art design)?
    • a space-related theme will help the game since modern physics can be manipulated to help progress the storyline
• “Papers Please but ‘rona”
  • simulation- a very topical game about being a doctor in a hospital, treating the patients
    • a social commentary on how the value of human lives breaks down in an emergency, despite the social norm that values human life to be extremely important.
      • came from how my Turkish friend regarded possible deaths during terrorist attacks to be “tragic, but not that sad”, as he was normalized through the constant threat from Turkey-Armenian relations.
    • 3rd world country setting to bring out the above point?
    • a game about decisions, based on morality
      • could also tell about not valuing someone else more than another because they have something better?
• “Chess but 4 people”
  • strategy board game
    • clockwise, only 1/3 of the real pieces
    • I just want to see if the theory is possible and if there are any fundamental flaws in the layout
• “DDLC but reverse hacking (and not a dating simulator)”
  • puzzle/breaking 4th wall- a basic puzzle game in the style of the “World’s Hardest Game”, but has a command prompt where the player can actively manipulate the files and objects
    • how would I put subtle hints into the game? handbook/search engine of a sort?

WEEKLY ACTIVITY EVALUATION

• Spend 3 minutes on this activity
• Give feedback on this week’s class Content and Process
  • Fill in the Weekly Activity Evaluation
• The data you submit helps you demonstrate 21st Century Employability Skills
• DELETE ALL OF MR. LE DUC’s INSTRUCTIONS, AFTER YOU ARE DONE

What is Workflow?

Work•flow /ˈwərkflō/

“The sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.” – lexico.com

What is a quality workflow?  How do we develop it?  Below are elements of the production cycle that most creative people move through as they create something.  First, we must identify the stages of project production. What is each stage and what are the quality checks for each stage.  Read on and find out!

Stages of Creation Development

Below is the workflow I was taught in my 19-20 Game Design class, along with the things I also implemented or changed to benefit the team and the individual teammates I worked with, while I took both roles of the product manager and the scrum master. This doesn’t mean its foolproof to work on every group, and it should be changed to fit your needs specifically.

Inspiration

How do we find ideas to develop?

• Tool: journal, notebooks, file
• Process: write a note/memo for every lightbulb. make a file on the PC that stores interesting images and stories save and look back on for inspiration. Revisit them when stuck for inspiration.
• How to measure quality: Once in a while take a read on the journal/ contents to see if the ideas are still good. Revisit it frequently and if it still feels bland after reading it multiple times, cross it out but don’t erase it entirely.
• Who measures quality: Teammates and yourself (people who care about it, and will maybe make something out of the idea)

Intention

How do we clarify our specific goal(s) for a project?

• Tool: organizing idea by the column of Intention, Why, How
• Process: write down and share with teammates (some people have shared without asking), so people would be a little familiar with each other. We can’t predict what other people intend to do (Premack & Woodruff, 1978). (I personally don’t think people should be ashamed of something personal in order for progress to happen, but I doubt everyone else thinks the same way, so the sharing process should be drawn out by someone, not forced.)
• How to measure quality: if it has any degree of personal reason and/or how they think they should go about the intention in detail, it should be good.
• Who measures quality: individuals themselves foremost, but teammates can definitely know if it’s depthless writing.

Pre-production

How can we brainwrite, brainstorm, storyboard, and plan our ideas at this phase?

• Tools: papers and pencil(Trello or Google Docs), ideas journal
• Process: the whole group huddles around a table(or an online conference call, in the time of COVID) with some decent ideas from their journal picked out. One person(the most organized- this should be the project manager) take note of all ideas. Individuals pitch the idea to their teammates, and the team discusses how it can be explored and what the limitations would be, and collectively agree on what idea(s, it can combine two or more into something totally new) to take on for the session.
• How to measure quality: team agreement would correlate with the strength of the idea, and how foolproof it is.
• Who measures quality: the team- if the teammates don’t enjoy the idea, it will not result in the creation of a quality product.

Production

How do we communicate with each other and execute our plan for this phase? This is where we actually make the project.

• Tools: Trello, Hacknplan, Dundocs (websites that offer sharable, cloud-saving organization methods)
• Process: system of organizing by category. backburner/in progress/need help/done, other categories such as ‘videos, guides/documentation/code database’ can be used for easily transporting them between teammates.
• How to measure quality: consistent upkeep by the teammates as the game is being developed, and constantly referring to the team’s main means of organization.
• Who measures quality: The project manager should be in charge of keeping the boards organized, but the teammates shouldn’t ignore it because someone else is handling it.

Post-production

How do we communicate with each other and execute our final stages of the project for this phase? This is where we publish the project.

• Tools: communication idea already planned out above
• Process: On top of what has been described above, teammates should know that any critical errors can break the whole project. It’s good to remind them to let the group know if something serious happens or ask for help if something might not be done in time. I, as an artist for the teams I’ve been on, generally found myself to be done with the tasks I’m most applicable to earlier than the other teammates. During half of my post-production time, I was on standby to be a helping hand to others in case something happened. This is probably a good idea for other teams as well, as it helps people already finished wasting time (likely art or sound). Also, save constantly!
• How to measure quality: from time to time, assess the work currently finished compared to the deadline date. If the whole team is productive and making steady progress, it should be good, especially as we’re not limited to the 1hr/day, 5day/week due to COVID, and the nature of online learning.
• Who measures quality: scrum master should be the one recording work done, and also motivating their teammates.

Presentation/Performance

How do we share our project with our learning community, advisory members, and the world?

• Tools: while I have no experience with it, itch.io was recommended last year for competitions.
• Process: other students or advisory members play the game on the individual itch.io links and write down impressions and comments. Students report on the process (recorded gameplay) via an online meeting and discuss the game with their classmates and advisory members.
• How to measure quality: comments from classmates and advisory members should give an insight into how well the presentation itself and the game played out. Recording the presentation and listening to it after it ended will provide a ‘third-person’ judgment of the mistakes and will improve the individual’s presentation process.
• Who measures quality: Other people can help by providing feedback for the presentation, but actual development won’t happen unless the individual is fully prepared with multiple practices.

Feedback

How do we conduct a feedback session at the end of the project development cycle?

• Tool: Blog, discussion with teammates
• Process: besides the Edublogs (which I think is well-flushed out), I found that talking with the team about the previous few weeks in terms of team and individual performance boosted positivity and confidence, while also increasing self-awareness and made people realize some errors they made while working.
• How to measure quality: quality of the discussions should be constructive, but not too overall ‘nice’.
• Who measures quality: the teammates. if individuals like the feedback they received, they’ll work on improving the qualities pinpointed by others.

Born: November 24, 1888. Maryville, Missouri, U.S.

Personal Success Definition

I define success as having any skill to be beneficial to the community they’re in while being intraspective to themselves and their world. I believe success is not being famous and rich, but rather having a positive influence on others.

State why are they successful, with your definition?

Skills for Success

What skills did they need to master to become successful?

Dale Carnegie was a bright businessman and an author, writing many successful books like “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”. Through his proficiency in salesmanship and public speaking, he viewed the psychology of work and oratory skills from an analytic angle. He frequently enjoyed debates, being a member of debate clubs during his high school and college career.

How They Used These Skills

Explain how did they use these skills to achieve success?

After being offered money by college students to teach them public speaking, he founded the Dale Carnegie Institute to serve more students who were interested in his work. They were taught how to interview, be persuasive, and forge a positive relationship in business.

Challenges Overcome

Dale Carnegie had to overcome many dead-end jobs before becoming successful. He first wanted to be an actor, but after landing the job as part of a traveling production, he absolutely hated it. He also enlisted in the US Army, being stuck there until his discharge. Later he was able to teach what he really enjoyed, leadership.

Significant Work

People are being trained in Dale Carnegie’s works.

Resources

Include three resources in your entry, unless it is someone you know, then you can be the information source.

SUMMARY

Role

Code/Character Design

Intention (SMART Goal)

T- By March 18th, Wednesday of the Post-Production week

R- As a part of the game production team

A- I will have completed learning about animation techniques and color palettes (refer to Training Sources below)

M- To create an enjoyable game aesthetic with a detailed/fitting character style (for cartoon sci-fi genre) in mind, much like Hideo Kojima’s design philosophy (refer to Leaders in the Field below). I’ll also create a simple walking animation.

S- For the 1st session of the 3 sessions set for the Game Design Competition.

PRE-PRODUCTION – INQUIRY

Leader(s) in the Field / Exemplary Work(s)

Training Sources

00:00 Determines the animation to be played. Controlled by script parameters.

00:15 Project view->create->animation controller

00:52 [Parameter] button on the bottom lefthand corner of the Animator Window

01:01 booleans, floats, ints, or triggers

01:32 drag animation clip on the Animation Window

02:09 Empty state – doesn’t do anything. They don’t mask other animation being played on other layers.

03:02 first state will be the default state, colored orange

03:44 Speed property- indicates how fast the animation is playing compared to normal playback. Speed=1 means normal speed.

03:54 Motion property- particular animation clip for the state

04:00 Foot IK – Foot Inverse Kinematics, checking this will reduce or eliminate foot slipping

04:14 Mirror- flips the animation left to right

04:44 Transition- between states, right-click on a state, select Make Transition. This will give you a transition arrow, attached to the cursor. Click on another state to complete this.

05:10 Solo and Mute. Mute disables the transition, Solo mutes all the states not marked as a solo.

05:41 Atomic property- the transition is not interruptible.

05:53 Graph- shows how the animation is handled during transition

0:36 start rigging. create a model before doing so, though.

armature – object that contains all your bones.

In Front– allows you to see your bones, start with the Hip Bone/Controller

1:12 Bone extrusion

2:34 arm, chest bone

3:13 leg bone

4:56 Extra hand component

controller bone constraints

5:36 master control bone

5:50 Every bone needs to be parented to another bone

Project Timeline

1. 1. Use training sources to learn about the methods behind the session requirements
   2. Write down notes, highlight important key elements in the video I’ll need for later
   3. Compose it all together, summarize ideas and information (links with timestamps)
   4. Agree on the goals of the game and aesthetics, mechanics, genre, and functions with the group.
   5. Start practicing and learn it by working during class, possibly at home and during Saturday School.
   6. Decide what character design fits the genre and aesthetics decided.
   7. Decide on what needs to be worked on (Trello+burndown chart) and work on it.
   8. Focus on the required skills for the session, making sure there is evidence for each individual skill.
      1. 1. 1. Add sections to GDD in Dundoc.
            2. Create all objects that will move during gameplay
            3. Make obvious idle/moving/game over states for the player object
            4. List objects, their attributes, and their relations to the other objects for players, bots, etc
            5. Determine if the game is an open or close system and which of the three systems best fit the game
            6. Implement trigger-based animation
      2. Create the animation chart in the Animation Window
      3. Create idle, moving, game over animations using the Unity skeletal animation
   9. Finalize the first version models or sprites for the game; see what you can do to improve it. Make sure it fits well into the game.
   10. Check to make sure evidence for skills are visible. Then start making models better or gameplay better. (Smooth out animation transitions and movements)
   11. Make sure to continuously collaborate with team members to see what needs to done and completed.

PRODUCTION – ACTION

The (FILM, SOUND, or GAME Creation)

Skills Commentary

POST-PRODUCTION – REFLECTION

21st Century Skills

Ways of Thinking (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving)

Ways of Working (Communication & Collaboration)

Tools for Working (Info & Media Literacy)

Ways of Living in the World (Life & Career)

Reactions to the Final Version

Self-Evaluation of Final Version

What I Learned and Problems I Solved

Grammar and Spelling

Editor