Need Help With Teaching Resources for a High School Class!

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Hello all!

I am a High School IT Teacher, and I would love to introduce Unity into my classroom. Last year, I began to redesign the computer programming curriculum. I decided to base the new curriculum around game design, and it has proven to be a big success. Last year I taught beginning programming utilizing C# and XNA. This year, I would like to incorporate Unity into my Advanced Programming and Game design class. Thus, I need your help in putting together a resource I can use that contains lessons, projects, tutorials, etc…

I have a moderate knowledge of C# programming, but I am a beginner in all other aspects of game design. I am currently learning Unity through some of the tutorials on this website. This may give you some background about myself in order to help me in my current situation.

I lay myself at your feet. I have perused through the resources folders and tutorials, and some of them are really relevant, but I do not want my students watching Youtube videos all day (also, Youtube is blocked at our school district haha).

Is there some text tutorials/projects that you would recommend? How about a book (for beginners) that can be used as a supplement to projects and/or tutorials?

Do you recommend a certain teaching structure that would benefit my students? This is only my second year of teaching, and I want to make sure that my students are constantly engaged, and that the class is fun yet rewarding for them.

Anything that may be relevant to me would be great. I am just starting this journey, but I would like to have something put together that I could use by the time school starts in late August.

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In my college class we used this book for the class:

Beginning 3D Game Development with Unity: All-in-one, multi-platform game development (Paperback)
Sue Blackman
But all code is in JavaScript.

Take a look here for a very nicely written list of unity books: Unity Book Roundup – GameFromScratch.com

There aren’t many books using 4.x with a project yet.
If you want to step back to 3.x, this book has gotten very good reviews
Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials (Paperback)
Will Goldstone

One of the books is basically what teachers like yourself are using to get people familiar with Unity, plus you get all the code and assets.

Hope that helps

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That is a great help!

Do you know of any other free resources or projects that I may be able to use? Especially if they are not video based!

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zgumby85 I am just the guy you are looking for! I am the faculty sponsor of the Unity 3D club at my high school, and we have won a Congressional App STEM Competition and a state-wide competition for best new software at the high school level with Unity 3D. Check out my students work on my website at: www.evwllc.co and click the Student showcase link. We also came up with a project folder with all the scripts you need to get you started here is the download link: http://www.evwllc.co/EdUnitySDK. Contact me on my website at: www.evwllc.co.

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If these students already know how to program (you say Advanced Programming) then I suggest my book Unity in Action. It’s designed for people who already know how to program but are new to Unity; a lot of other Unity books start by teaching stuff like what a variable is, but I assume the reader knows that.

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Please contact your local rep and let them know the issue:

If they don’t get back to you in a reasonable time, give me a PM and I’ll see what we can do.

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Hi there,
I am a school teacher also and I have just finished writing a curriculum for my school that I work at, and it is a game design course. I have been searching for someone to talk to, preferably a teacher in secondary ed that does the same thing. So, I saw these postings online about teachers using the Unity software. I really am looking for a way to do the same thing the gentleman above started out, and that’s starting an actual lesson. I have an idea how to begin, but, I am not using a text. I had our school buy into the Unity Curricular Framework, and that was wonderful. Now, as I look at the information for each Unit it has, where does one begin?? I was hoping to talk to a teacher that knows what it means to communicate with high school students, as opposed to people in the field. If you can help me out, I’d appreciate any advice for directing the start of teaching Unity. I am relatively new to Unity, however, I am an educator and an artist who has industry experience.

I hope to hear from you soon,
Joe

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Hi there from south Germany,

we used to teach programming C# basics with Unity 3D for two years now. Here are some projects of our pupils (16-19 years old). We would really like to share our experiences with other teachers using Unity. Feel free to contact me here via E-Mail.

Also hoping to hear from you other teachers out there soon
Oliver

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I know your wrote this post a couple of years ago so I hope you will still see my response. I have been teaching game design to high school students for a couple of years now. We were using GameMaker as the creation platform but this year we switched to Unity. I know very little programming so I feel a bit intimidated as I learn this platform and I’m running to stay ahead of my students. I’d love to hear how your curriculum is going and would enjoy having someone to bounce ideas off of.