#348 – AVID Creator Planet™ Launches on Roblox, with Adam Anderson

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What is your experience with game-based learning?
• What do you know about the AVID Creator Planet game experience?
• How does the game support educational outcomes?
• What are the benefits of leveraging a game-based learning experience?
• How might you take advantage of AVID Creator Planet with your students?
• How can you access AVID Creator Planet?

• AVID Creator Planet (curricular resources available on AVID Open Access)
• AVID Creator Planet (developed by AVID in collaboration with Super League on Roblox)
• Educational Experiences Available on Roblox (Roblox)
• AVID (official website)
• Super League (official website)

#348 AVID Creator Planet Launches on Roblox, with Adam Anderson

AVID Open Access
34 min

Keywords

game, roblox, avid, building, educational, education, learning, platform, students, engaging, create, world, fun, collaboration, league, teachers, grew, educators, adam, planet

Transcript

Adam Anderson  0:00  

Avid Creator Planet is an educational adventure game that’s in this futuristic utopia called Equinova. So, instead of reading about these engineering principles, students are running around and building for themselves. They’re in a three-dimensional space engaging with those principles.

Paul Beckermann  0:22  

The topic of today’s podcast is AVID Creator Planet Launches on Roblox, with Adam Anderson from Super League. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes that we can raise the bar for education. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark  0:42  

Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann  0:53  

I’m Paul Beckerman. 

Winston Benjamin  0:55  

And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann  0:58  

And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music  1:03  

Education is our passport to the future.

Paul Beckermann  1:08  

Our quote for today is from the website of Super League, the company who helped build AVID Creator Planet. They say, “We specialize in building immersive environments that captivate, engage, and leave a lasting impression.” All right, this is a good way to kick off our episode about AVID Creator Planet and the collaboration with Super League. Quote from them. Rena, what do you think?

Rena Clark  1:32  

I’m stoked about this being released. We’re going to learn so much more about it. But I just think they’re not just making a game. So we’re going to talk more about that. They’re really creating a place where students can really be immersed in the learning, and they’re going to enjoy it. It’s going to be rigorous, it’s going to be tied to standards. It’s fun, it’s engaging, it touches on multiple senses. So we’ll talk more about what it means to be immersed and when we’re engaging in all those different ways, we’re making more neuro-connections. It’s more memorable. We’re gonna remember what we’re doing in more ways. So I’m excited to talk about it.

Paul Beckermann  2:11  

There you go. Winston?

Winston Benjamin  2:12  

I think about like trying to build sessions for my students in classes where I don’t really have a lot of knowledge, and having someone who is an expert in something is really important, because they can really start helping you develop the approaches on how to bring in some interesting new pathways for students, really try to make it easier for them to engage and be learners and captivate them. So I think it’s really important that it’s not always try to reinvent the wheel. So, if you got somebody who’s really good at building those online spaces where students really learn, why not utilize it to help build those spaces where the students are really going to be on for their future? I really like the fact that that’s what the action step is and where we’re going.

Paul Beckermann  2:54  

And you know what, Winston? We have one of those people with us today. We have Adam Anderson, Producer at Super League. Hey, welcome Adam. 

Adam Anderson  3:01  

Hello, hello. I’m so happy to be here. It’s an honor to be part of this crew, and I am really excited to talk all about this amazing planet we’ve created. So great to be here. 

Paul Beckermann  3:14  

Cool, cool. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself first, your background, your current role?

Adam Anderson  3:19  

For sure. My current role, I’m at Super League. I’m a producer. Basically, what that entails is I get to work with the game designers who kind of architect and design the abstract of the game, and then I work with the engineers and the artists to build the 3D assets, and make all the components tie together in game mechanic format. So I’m kind of the quarterback, I guess you could say, of the team. I have to make a lot of calls and audibles and try to inspire the team, and kind of be the nucleus of the team, in a sense, to make sure that everything is operating smoothly. I also run production schedules and timelines and budgets, so it’s not all fun and games. There is some actual work going on while we’re making these worlds. But I got my start in gaming in the early 2010s working for National Geographic. They have a video game called Animal Jam that creates biomes of different parts of the world and educates kids all over the world about biomes in kind of a 3D-world format. So that was really my introduction into gaming and introduction into kind of educational style games. And ever since then, I’ve had a strong passion for gaming and education and how to make that marriage between those two happen because it’s kind of like putting broccoli on a cupcake. People say you can’t have those two things. And I always look at it like a challenge. Like, I think we can fit asparagus into this pastel. Let’s see how we do it. That’s the challenge of gaming and education, but it’s a fun challenge to work with.

Rena Clark  5:21  

I love that. And then you create something, something new. So we’re really excited about this game. So, if you can just tell us about the game we’ve developed with AVID. What is it? What’s the game experience like? What’s going on? 

Adam Anderson  5:35  

For sure. So AVID’s Creator Planet is an educational adventure game. It’s designed for grades eight through twelve, primarily, and it’s basically set in this futuristic utopia called Equinova. And on this planet, there are these creatures called Lotls, and they’re kind of based around Axolotls, which are those little, cute amphibian creatures. But these Axolotls have found themselves on an arid wasteland, and they need our help to bring life and lush plants to this world and create a biome so these Lotls can can survive this harsh planet. So we’ve invited students and teachers to come into this planet and help these Lotls by terraforming the world and building structures for these models to make it habitable. You know, this game was designed to be both fun and used in the classroom, so we’ve worked extensively with AVID and teachers and students in these Think-Alouds to test and play the game and make sure it’s not only fun, but it is hitting these educational standards and really talking to kind of the backbone of what AVID’s mission is and how to make this environment fun and educational for students and teachers.

Winston Benjamin  7:08  

I appreciate that because sometimes it’s hard to get people excited about games, because there’s so many on the market, there’s so many other things pulling you everywhere. But as a developer, what excites you about this game? And why should players who play on Roblox, as well as educators across the country, be excited, as well? You know, let’s sell this. Sell it to me. Why should I be excited?

Adam Anderson  7:35  

Awesome. Yeah. Well, why I would be excited about this game is it hits these pillars of learning. One of them is it teaches players, teachers, and students how to kind of manage resources. It also teaches them how to solve challenges and improve their outcomes. Now, I know that sounds boring and probably wasn’t the best way to start the sizzle of the steak, but how we do that is by using this beautiful, lush world and created an environment that we’ve made. So you’re doing these core educational principles in a very 3D, beautiful colorful world with really cute creatures, and you get to drive around in rovers. You get to launch rovers off ramps. You get to build gigantic towers that can crumble under the weight of comets that are hitting you. So, while you are scratching that itch of truly educational learning components, you’re doing it while flying around rovers and saving incredibly cute creatures. So, I think that really hits those two kind of dichotomies of education and fun gaming. So, I’m trying to sell to teachers and gamers right now, so I hope that did the trick a little bit.

Winston Benjamin  9:05  

I mean, as a person who’s both, I’m kind of interested, I’m kind of interested.

Paul Beckermann  9:11  

So you got learning, and you got thrilling, and you got cute. Three things right there.

Adam Anderson  9:16  

That was the first thing I thought of with this game. I was like, first things first, we need a cute character. That was the first thing. I’m like, what’s gonna really bring it. I’m a big believer in characters. You have to have a strong character. That’s kind of the heart and soul of the game. So, we built the whole world around this Lotl. And I think that kind of entices people to want to engage with this planet, to help these little creatures. And that’s where you sneak the learning in. So, first things, first. Cute creatures. And then the rest is pretty easy. 

Paul Beckermann  10:01  

So, why did Super League want to dive into this educational world, building games on Roblox? Why go that direction?

Adam Anderson  10:10  

Well, here’s the interesting thing about Roblox. You know, it is such a multi-dimensional software. A lot of people look at it like it’s a social platform. A lot of people look at it like it’s a gaming platform. Lots of people look at it like a building tool. And you know what? It’s all of those things and more. It’s a hyper-dimensional space where there’s a lot of activity going on. So I think naturally it fit for Super League to work in this arena because Roblox is an educational platform. The majority of our brilliant engineers and brilliant artists that we work with are in their mid-20s. They’re young. They grew up on the platform. They grew up on the platform, coding the unique language on the platform, Lua. They grew up engaging with the tools in the platform for rigging and animating 3D models. They’ve modeled their own models within the platform. So, Roblox, in and of itself, is such an educational platform that it only made sense for us to kind of attach ourselves to the Roblox Education Fund, because there’s just so much room for growth there. And I’m happy about that because, like I said, education is a passion of mine. My mom was an educator. She worked for the Department of Education in D.C. for 20 years. I grew up next to the Smithsonian Museum. So for me, I grew up in kind of an education-rich environment with my mom instilling a lot of those principles in me. And I grew up as a gamer. So, for me, I’m really happy about that. I don’t know exactly why Super League found ourselves in such a wonderful, unique position, but I’m glad that we are building educational games, and I will hopefully be a part of many more of these opportunities to come. Same with Super League.

Rena Clark  12:22  

So we’re talking about opportunities and unique situations. I’m really curious. How was this whole project initiated between AVID and Super League? How did this come about?

Adam Anderson  12:32  

Super League has a strong history of creating educational games. Heather Healy, before I came into Super League, she took part and helped, basically, build from the ground up a game called Curiosity Museum. So we’re no stranger to this type of desire to bring multi-dimensional games that aren’t just games to the platform. I think because of Heather Healy’s leadership in searching and looking for partners that were interested in bringing education to the platform, that gave us kind of a heads up and a foot in the door to some of these projects that are being made available. So I think just Super League, in general, has kind of been on the forefront in leading expeditions regarding these types of projects. We were just a little bit earlier into the game than some, and that gave us a little bit of a head start on a lot of these types of projects.

Paul Beckermann  13:46  

So how did you connect with AVID?

Adam Anderson  13:50  

I believe Roblox knew some of our work. We’ve made lots of different types of projects, a lot of music experiences on Roblox, a lot of just regular games on Roblox. And I think that Roblox was connecting with AVID through their education fund, and we were pretty sure that they referred AVID to us. And so, through that relationship, we were very lucky enough to meet AVID and it’s a wonderful organization.

Winston Benjamin  14:31  

It’s good to always understand how things get started, because, again, this is such a non-traditional connection, right? Most people don’t think of education and gaming as a place that they could overlap and work together. And so this question that I have is to help our educators demystify the process of gaming development and how that could actually potentially be something we can utilize and help students support and look at as a future engagement practice, possibly future careers. So the question is, what does the gaming development process look like? How did it work with this game? What are some of the things that you had to do in order to develop this game? And just in general, what’s the relationship between the game developers and educational partnerships? How did they work together to build a game, right? Does that make sense in the question?

Adam Anderson  15:31  

It does. It’s a great question, and I’m gonna do my best to try to distill an answer out of that. But basically, we met with AVID and we knew that they had some principal standards of learning that they wanted to hit. First, we had to just meet with them and discuss kind of their standards of learning. Some of those standards, on a high level, are like empowering learners, collaborating on teams, engineering and design. Those are kind of some top tier kind of classes that they were like these are some general goals we’re looking for. So we take those and then we try to come up with some creative ideas around them. So engineering. How could we hit upon some engineering principles in this game? So we look at other games. We look at games like Minecraft. We’ll do a lot of research on other games that are popular, and try to kind of adapt our world and our ideas based on those key principles that AVID is wanting to have in their world. So a lot of it, I would break it down into two stratums. I’d say there’s the creative, and then there’s like the engineering. For the creative, we came up with a lot of ideas. First idea we thought of was, you’re in an underwater world, right? You’re in this like coral reef type area. But then once we started to realize, well, engineering is such a core component they’re wanting to implement, we can’t be underwater because that is a totally different type of physics when you’re underwater, and engineering principles are kind of wonky underwater. So we’re like, okay, we can’t be underwater anymore, because we need to satisfy the engineering component that they’re aiming to get. So through this deduction process and sifting through all these creative scenarios and theories and ideas, you kind of stumble upon these certain themes that you end up whittling down. So eventually, through this whole process of learning about the standards of learning, learning about these key metrics they wanted, we stumbled upon being in outer space, having materials that you’re building bridges and you’re building towers and building ramps was gonna really create this natural environment for players, students, and teachers to have, like a fun playground where they’re learning and building and accomplishing goals. So, you’re really doing a lot of philosophizing and a lot of creative brainstorming in those early phases, and you’re making little fun prototype worlds. We started off with a little fun world where we’re launching cars over ramps and trying to hit bowling pins down. You know, just doing a lot of crazy, fun experimental theories to find out where you land, that hits those educational standards. Does that make sense? 

Rena Clark  18:58  

Absolutely. 

Winston Benjamin  18:59  

No, that does. That absolutely does. 

Paul Beckermann  19:03  

And then then you have to turn to your engineers and say, here’s the idea. Now, build it.

Adam Anderson  19:06  

Oh my goodness, that’s so funny. Yeah, you do. And they have to, yeah. They have to sift through all of your messy drafts and your wild designs and understand there’s a whole technical language that you have to prepare for them to kind of understand these visions and these architectural worlds that you’re whipping up. So it’s a complex process. It can get very in the weeds with technical design. So, yeah, it’s definitely an orchestra between, an orchestration between designers who are coming up with these abstract principles, the artists who model the pretty worlds, and then the engineers who do like that meta design in the engineering backbone of the game. So that’s how it all happens. And then you have testers come in to start really tasting the sauce. And then you have teachers come in and tell you why it’s not educational and how you need to make it better. Having the AVID teachers come in elevated our product so so much. When we saw the AVID teachers and students come in to our games, it showed us so many fail points that we had, and it helped us elevate the game to be truly educational. And our partners at Roblox, they helped come in and instill a lot of really important educational psychologies that our team never would have been able to truly understand. So together with AVID and Roblox, this product has such a unique installation of true educational backbones, I feel. So, I’m so happy with the product that we have curated in partnership with AVID and I think it’s a very unique, amazing product.

Rena Clark  21:16  

I have a wondering because so much of what you’re talking about is collaboration. Collaboration between the team, between the different departments, between the different people that are involved in making the game. I’m curious how collaboration is within the game. Is there opportunities for collaboration in the game? 

Adam Anderson  21:34  

Oh my goodness, there’s so much collaboration going on. There’s two strong points of collaboration that happen. Players can play solo, but they can also play on teams. So players can compete against each other to launch more rovers over a canyon, or players can compete on teams to build a higher structure for the for the Lotls. So you can have teams. You can have up to thirty-two players and four teams of eight. So classrooms can all hop in. Teachers and students can assign to certain teams, and then together, they can all compete to see who can achieve goals better than each team. And we also have created a unique ping system where players can ping each other to help communicate. Hey, come help me build a pillar here. Hey, come help me build a beam that connects these two pillars. So within our platform, too, we have a unique messaging system where players can ping each other and communicate if they’re not even in the same classroom. So yes, collaboration was a huge piece of this game, and we’ve tried our best to make sure that we’ve given tools and a platform where students, teachers, and players and players can collaborate effectively.

Paul Beckermann  23:04  

That’s cool. So as you’ve been doing all this, I mean, your team has done lots of learning and growing throughout the process to develop this new game. Do you see developments in the game creation world that are happening? Like, where is everything headed in in gaming and educational gaming? What do you see in the future?

Adam Anderson  23:26  

We grew up, well, I grew up reading textbooks, seeing a picture of coral reef with a description of coral reef. How I look at where we’re going is boiling that textbook into a 3D world and bringing the third dimension of reading into education. So, when I think of how I used to read about sharks and read about nature. I’m like, why don’t we just pull the textbook into 3D. Why aren’t we walking in nature as an avatar? Why aren’t I collecting acorns and cataloging them in a 3D world that are truly one-to-one educational representations of those things? So, I’m really excited about the future of educational design because we can take all this wonderful knowledge, traditional knowledge we have, and drop it into 3D. Make it 3D. Add that Z dimension to learning. And that’s what Roblox is so well built for. So instead of learning about engineering and learning about how tall glass can be before it shatters, or how far cement can be placed on a width scale before it breaks, we’ve put that into AVID Creator Planet. So instead of reading about these certain engineering principles, students are running around and building for themselves and subconsciously learning about these traditional principles that they would have had to read about 20 years ago. Now, they’re in a three-dimensional space engaging with those principles. So I think that’s one very exciting juxtaposition that I grew up on learning, where we’re seeing where we’re learning can be and is nowadays. 

Rena Clark  25:41  

Yeah. Okay, so excited, and I hope my kids aren’t listening too closely, because they’re gonna have so many reasons to let them play a lot more Roblox, which is great. But how do we access this? How do all of the educators listening, our listeners, how do they access AVID Creator Planet?

Adam Anderson  26:04  

First things first. Create a Roblox account.

Rena Clark  26:08  

Okay.

Adam Anderson  26:16  

AVID will be providing the link through their channels. Roblox will be providing the link on their educational platform, and we will also be messaging it out on our social platforms, and then the world will take it from there and spread the wonderful message of AVID Creator Planet to hopefully, every student in the world. 

Paul Beckermann  26:47  

We will be sure to link it on the write-up for this podcast episode as well. So folks, go to AvidOpenAccess.org and find this episode. There’ll be a link there, as well.

Winston Benjamin  27:00  

So as we continue to move and we just dropped a little tool in the toolkit, I’m gonna ask us right now. So what’s the question? What’s in your toolkit? 

Transition Music  27:09  

Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Winston Benjamin  27:20  

Rena? Paul? What’s in your toolkit right now?

Rena Clark  27:24  

For me, and we didn’t talk about this, but it’s just been on my mind. I’m thinking about the opportunity, not just for students to learn the standards and things, but the opportunity for engaging in positive digital citizenship. I think about the opportunity for a teacher to create a space where they’re engaging in online community. We get to have those conversations of what that’s like to engage in online community and we’re collaboratively in those spaces, and then enact that and have a positive learning experience. So, in addition to all the other great things, I just think, wow, here’s a real, true, authentic opportunity for engaging in positive digital citizenship. 

Winston Benjamin  28:07  

I love that. Paul?

Paul Beckermann  28:12  

All right. This is cheating, but go check out AVID Creator Planet. Go to Roblox. Set up your account. Go find AVID Creator Planet and check out these little Lotls that are running around. See if you can help them out.

Winston Benjamin  28:27  

That’s not cheating, Paul. That’s a real good tool. For me, I think the conversation Adam was having about how the gaming system development works really reminds me of the need for a feedback process. Like, how are you giving students feedback on their work? How are they really getting the opportunity to do the learning process of like, engineering, trying a thing, maybe not doing the best they can, giving an opportunity to really edit, and then move forward to become better at the practice. So, I think that even in the idea of how to develop this game, you really learn a couple of key aspects of how to improve teaching, or even STEM and engineering design. So Adam, I’m going to ask you, if you got a tool that you could drop in? An educational tool, video game tool, whatever kind of tool, or even a thinking tool–what kind of concepts you might want people to think about as they finish listening to our podcast.

Adam Anderson  29:22  

You know, I would strongly suggest that you create a Roblox account for yourself, hop in, and play three or four games. The games that are on Roblox are so, so complex and psychological, the kids growing up now are so hyper intelligent. This game will give you, this software will give you insight into these levels that they’re operating on, these really unique and complex mechanics and fun experiences that they’re making. I think just playing Roblox can help older generations make bridges and connections to the younger generations. So I would highly suggest everybody make a Roblox account, hop in, play a few games. And yeah, I think that’ll help bring a little bit of cohesion and community to older and younger generations. If we can understand their world better, I think the world can be a better place.

Rena Clark  30:33  

Well, that takes us to our next segment, our one thing.

Transition Music  30:37  

It’s time for that one thing. One thing. One thing. It’s time for that one thing. That one thing.

Rena Clark  30:50  

So what is that one thing, either that you’re really taking away or still left on your brain? What do y’all think?

Winston Benjamin  31:00  

I’ll jump in. I’m really thinking about how do we get teachers to see that Roblox isn’t a distraction, right? How do we help people transition that into this is actually a good platform, because I know, thinking about my own niece, she’s always wanted to be on Roblox, but now thinking about it, how do I prevent myself from being the hindrance to their learning?

Paul Beckermann  31:34  

Mine’s kind of like that, too. I’m really hanging on what Adam just shared, that bridge between generations. I think that’s a really valuable suggestion. Get out, if you’ve never, if you’re not a gamer, if you’ve never really been in these environments, go to Roblox. Try it out. Get a feel for what’s going on in those worlds, because then you can start to speak the language that these kids are speaking. And I totally agree with Adam. The sophisticated thought processes that have to go into succeeding in these games, there’s some incredible thinking going on there.

Rena Clark  32:10  

You’re building a bridge to build a bridge in the game. Come on, we got bridges. 

Paul Beckermann  32:16  

I see what you did there, Rena. That’s good.

Rena Clark  32:21  

I’m still thinking, processing, where collaboration we talk about those different skills, but just how the collaboration transgresses across platforms. The different careers, the different experiences, every component that we’ve talked about and it’s providing more opportunities for authentic collaboration. I love that.

Paul Beckermann  32:44  

All right, Adam, you get a one thing, as well. What do you want to leave us with?

Adam Anderson  32:49  

Before the podcast started, we were talking about music and touching the note about bridging generations. All I’m going to say is I feel like Roblox is the Elvis Presley in the ’50s. So, don’t be the old parent who thinks Elvis is bad. Put on the Roblox vinyl and jam out with it. Listen. Put on the Roblox vinyl and jam out. Have fun. So that’s what I will leave everybody with.

Paul Beckermann  33:25  

I love it. We’d be jamming to Roblox and some Super League and the AVID Creator Planet. Go check it out!

Rena Clark  33:34  

Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin  33:37  

We invite you to visit us at AvidOpenAccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann  33:52  

We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark  33:56  

And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin  34:00  

Thank you for all you do. 

Paul Beckermann  34:01  

You make a difference.