California Educator

June/July 2019

Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1130365

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T H E I D E A F O R the next Fortnite could come from Scott Myers' c l a s s r o o m a t L a t h r o p H i g h School, about 65 miles from the heart of Silicon Valley. The course is giving students skills and experiences that you would expect to see in game development giants like Epic Games or Electronic Arts, and at least one prestigious programming college has taken note of these creative and uniquely skilled kids. Myers, a member of the Manteca Edu- cators Association (MEA), teaches about 120 students a day in the fine art of com- puter programming, video game design, 3-D modeling and other tech skills. In addition to the class for students from his own high school, he teaches a class for students from other district high schools an d a c ourse for BE.Te ch , a di stri ct - operated charter school. "It's all stuff I never thought I'd do in high school," says senior Alexander Stock. "Mr. Myers is cool. It feels like he's a stu- dent with us sometimes." My e r s' v i d e o g a m e d e si g n c l a ss i s based on curriculum he pioneered and had approved in 2014 by the California Department of Education as a college preparatory elective. e idea grew out of Video game design teacher Scott Myers and his students are custom-building an Alien vs. Predator- themed wheelchair. MS Magic The in the Scott Myers' tech classes give students code to success Story and photos by Julian Peeples Students in Myers' class use industry-standard tools and materials in areas from coding to 3-D modeling. 16 cta.org Spotlight

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