Globaloria: Innovating Computing and STEM Learning with Game Design

Mastery of computational and coding literacy is critical for college and career success. STEM-related fields will soon account for nearly 8 million unfilled U.S. jobs, yet only nine states list computer science as a requirement for a high school diploma and less than 4 percent of U.S. schools offer computer science and coding in their curricula.

"I want to make kids expert-learners," says Dr. Idit Harel, CEO and founder of Globaloria "to get them to be creative, imaginative, and digitally fluent, 21st-century global citizens and successful workers. They must learn to work in teams in online spaces and to pursue new ideas through multicultural collaboration if they are going to succeed and lead in the global innovation economy."

Dr. Idit Harel is a renowned Israeli-American entrepreneur, award-winning author and creative innovator in educational technology. She is a graduate of Tel Aviv University, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the MIT Media Lab, the founder of MaMaMedia and the World Wide Workshop, and currently the CEO and creator of Globaloria, an innovative blended learning platform with courses for teaching computer science, game design and coding to 4th-12th graders in a fun and engaging way with full support for teachers.

"All kids know how to play games rather well," she says, "but they are not literate in it until they know how to both read it and write it. Playing games is the lure. Inventing, researching, designing, and prototyping are their new science. Coding is their new writing."

In Globaloria, students get game designer education and training and design games on any curricular or big idea topic, which allows them to master computing and STEM skills and gain a deeper understand of the content that is the focus of their game.

"Globaloria is not just free library of online tutorials," says Dr. Harel. "It's designed to be the complete interactive textbook and workbook for the new curricular needs. We teach students industry-standard programming languages and engineering practices through a set of six project-driven structured courses."

Students learn to design, code and publish their own educational video games on curricular topics using Globaloria's digital textbook, online project development space and expert support community. Globaloria students work with professional coding languages like JavaScript and HTML and game design tools like Unity and Flash. The Globaloria high school computer science curriculum is aligned to state and national standards, and is designed as an interdisciplinary learning experience, so teachers can use it as a stand-alone course, or as a project-based learning experience in any class. Comprehensive professional development and year-long expert support allow any teacher, including those with no technology or computing background, to integrate Globaloria into their classes successfully.

For further details about Globaloria and how it works, visit Globaloria.com.