Nov 20, 2021 4 min read Education

Tash Transforming The Way Students Learn

When you were in high school, did you ever feel that your career was limited due to your grades? That the marks that you received from your exams suddenly determines what you're capable of? After reflecting on how the education system works, I believe that they have set up an extremely poor system of representing the true potential of what a student can achieve. If you also think so too, you're not alone.

Tash Jamieson, Founder of Lockpick Games, startup coach and overall a passionate individual who wants to transform how students could reach their full potential (no matter where they started) through creating epic adventure video games. She shares her amazing vision/ambitions that eventually the world would no longer assess an individual based on standardised tests, but through demonstrating that they have the mindset and experience to show their work. This is also something that I am deeply passionate about as a single number, grade or test result does not provide a true representation of an individual and that it definitely should not be the only thing that should be taken into account when determining your career path.

The education has embedded in our minds that making a mistake has consequences (i.e. we lose a mark for every error we make). Mark Rober a former NASA and Apple engineer went on to do a TedTalk about how if we were to change the way we learn and not through being punished for our mistakes that more people are likely to succeed as they would not be scared to attempt solving a problem. In this video, he reveals a study that he did which shows that without having negative consequences, more people are likely to succeed at learning the concept (approximately 16% more). If only this concept could be implemented into the education system, where kids would be encouraged to learn and would not be punished for their mistakes. You can watch the full video below:

How was Lockpick Games founded?

Lockpick games all started when Tash was struggling to get her 10 year old son to study. She thought that getting him a maths and english tutor would help motivate him to study but only to realise that he would spend more time on minecraft than his actual textbooks. So instead of forcing a solution onto her son, she asked him directly, "how would you like to learn?"

I thought this was brilliant. As a consultant it has always been an obvious thing to do, where you should go directly to the user and ask them about their pain points, but this is generally overlooked when it comes to our personal life. As Tash observed her son she was amazed at how he was able to play hours and hours of minecraft and would not get sick of it.

This was her light bulb moment. She thought what if I could combine the "fun aspect" of playing a game and combine it with education. Hence the birth of Marble Mansion, an RPG (Role-Playing Game) that helps students develop the reading, mathematical reasoning and thinking skills necessary to ace the NSW Selective School test.

It's due to release early next year, so if you're interested in getting early access to
new game levels, questions, content and provide direct feedback to shape the game, you can pre-order now at: https://www.lockpick.games/games

Do you have to be technical to be a game developer?

Short answer is NO. In today's society, if there is something that you want to learn, there are abundant resources out there which are completely FREE and can teach you that skill. But how would someone with no technical background get started in game development?

As we advance further in the technological space, a new concept has been appearing known as the "No code or Low Code" development. This is also known as the "drag and drop" methodology and is specifically built for individuals who do not have a technical background. All you really need is to have a logical mindset and A LOT of trial and error.

It's super easy to develop a game, but it takes a lot of time to build a really GOOD game.

As long as you spend the time to understand the fundamental concepts and then keep practicing, you'll eventually become an "experienced" game developer. As I have referred to in my other blogs, it's your mindset and willingness to fail which is going to make you successful. The same thing applies when trying to learn how to code or develop a game, the more you experiment the better you'll get.

So how have others started and what can you learn from it? I've watched multiple videos of how so many people with little to zero knowledge of development become experienced developers and created amazing games. I found that the best video was from Game Maker's Toolkit where Mark brown designed a 3 step system on learning how to learn game development. He explains it much better than I do so you can watch the video below:

I genuinely believe that we can change the way students learn and provide the infrastructure to support them. If you're interested in getting involved or just joining my journey in teaching individuals things that you don't get taught at school, then please feel free to subscribe to the blog or send me a message through the contact page.