Monday, August 31st

Class Hours: 10:05 – 2:40
Mr. Cronin

Notes

Happy Monday!
Since this is another short week we are going to continue on with calling this 4 day week Week 1. All our work will be organized as week_01 folder.
Today (and tomorrow) are RED days at CTE. Look at your schedules, do you have an A 7/8 class on your schedule? If so:
- When we hit our afternoon break you are done in GAWD for the day.
- Shut down / clean your station / take your drink / head to your 7/8 class / you are dismissed from that class, and we will see you tomorrow.
Today we are going to start reading “A Gentlemen in Moscow” for a short session of each day. All you have to do during this time is follow along as I read it, when I read the word Moscow you will see the word Moscow. This has been proven to really help with word decoding and vocabulary building. For 20 minutes you can drop all other thoughts and just focus on the story. Honestly kids end up loving these read along’s.
We have a couple students that haven’t fully filled out their start of school paperwork – family has to do it online. I can’t put in for field trips for the class even if a single student is missing their forms – so please get your family to get them done today – hopefully done this weekend?

Student Leadership (Student Council) at CTE

(Note from the Advisor)

Good morning all – Student Leadership is having its first meeting THIS WEDNESDAY (the 2nd) during lunch (11:35) in M117. Students should get their lunch and bring it with them.

We would like any representatives who participated last year to come back again! We would like to have at least one (maybe 2?) representatives from EACH program join our group.

You are welcome to show this short video about SLC, who we are and what we do, to your students if they are wondering! (listen for the “epic on resumes part”)

Thank you and we look forward to meeting this year’s crew on Wednesday!
~Sara, Nellie & JP~

So I need to know today if we have students that are interested? Come see me.

10:05 Attendance and Article

10:10 Syllabus / What we are going to cover this year

Game Animation Web Development Syllabus for 2026-27

CIP: 10.0304

Matt Cronin – Instructor

Emmy Charron – Guidance Counselor

Sheila Patterson – Special Populations

Academic Credits:

English (1)
Art (1)
Practical Arts (.5)
Computer Literacy (.5)
Elective Credits (3)

Industry Credentials Available:

Web Designer Certification through the Web Professionals Global Organization:
- Apprentice level
- Associate level

Vermont CTE Critical Proficiencies

CTE Digital and Visual Arts Proficiency Summary December 2024

Dual Enrollment Credits Available

Semester 1 – ART 1420 – Digital Animation (3 credits)
Semester 1 – ART 1011 – Drawing 1 (3 credits)
Semester 2 – CIS 1151 – Website Development (3 credits)

Prerequisites

Students interested in being creative with technology.

Course Duration

Year long

Course Description:

Game Animation Web Development sits at the intersection of creativity and technology. Preparing students for over the horizon careers, while working on the 21st century employability skills needed as you arrive in the real world. Through hands-on learning, learn how to create video games, internet applications, 3D animations, video editing, graphic design, and create traditional art!

Semester 1

3D Modeling / Texturing
Animation
Game Design
Video Editing as it supports our focuses
Graphic Design as it supports our focuses

Semester 2

Web Development
Content Management Systems
Front End Web Work:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
Back End Web Work:
- PHP / Databases
Video Editing as it supports our focuses
Graphic Design as it supports our focuses

Classroom Procedures:

No uniforms / GAWD sweatshirts to build community provided, optional to wear.
Cell phones / Start watches / etc – per the new Vermont policy personal electronic devices are prohibited at CTE

Employability Evaluations:

Students are assessed formally at the end of Q1 using the CTE T&E Rubric. This lets GAWD students and family, as well as CTE faculty, know where the student sits in their employability skills. It also is a reference point used for an invitation to return to CTE next academic year. Students are told well in advance what needs to improve on to be invited back to our school, with enough lead time to make the changes.

Students have weekly T&E grades in GAWD that deal with not only behavior, but also the ability to hit daily / weekly micro deadlines, as well the practices of being a good student and employee. On task, good communication, following instructions, etc. I meet with students each week in our “Midweek Morning Meetings” where we both praise the positive, and shine light on the negative which need to be addressed. I feel these weekly meetings, allowing for continuous course corrections, are extremely valuable and prevent issues from festering, while also acknowledging and encouraging positive behaviour. These are 25% of the total grade.

3 Weekly Projects

GAWD Projects – Specific to what we are learning this week.
Design Homework’s – Practicing traditional art
- Q1 – Getting comfortable with tools and muscle memory
- Q2 – Perspective
- Q3 – Still Life’s
- Q4 – Portraits
Agency – The favorite project of students. Self directed project where you use our tools and curriculum to build anything that demonstrates your building skillset. Movies, games, models, drawings, paintings, knitting, sculpture, photography, mods, etc.

Work is done Monday through Friday, and then due first day of the following week (which will be on Monday 99% of the time). I always give you the weekend to perfect any projects before they are submitted on Monday.

This week we will have 2 projects (as we are still getting into the swing of things and a short week) and not have an Agency. The projects we create this week are going to be due on Tuesday, September 8th – as we have a 4 day weekend coming up for Labor Day.

College Courses in GAWD

You are doing the work anyways, why not earn the college credits?

Game Days / Pre Vacation Celebrations

We always to to use the day before vacation to do something different.

Industry Recognized Credentials / Certifications

3rd Party Exam in June that will look at your Web focused Skillset and decide if you are worthy of certification. I don’t make the test, I don’t grade the test.
Something to use to for college admissions process, or for resume for entry level job.

File Organization / Specific names / Moving away from the Junk Drawer

Lets get our file and folder names consistent.
camelCasing – this is the structure that we are going to use in class for all our file names. For example:
- file.jpg
- myFile.jpg
- myReallyCoolFile.jpg

Blender Review

Appending our human
Edit mode?

10:50 Morning Break

11:00 Intro from Shelly our CWE Coordinator

Shelly is going to work to get you some real world job shadows and career work experiences.

11:10 Notecard Sketches

Throughout the week we will have short 10-minute Notecard Sketch Sprints. Students will be selected randomly and choose a topic, and we will all create something in 10 minutes, and throw it up on the board. This will give us frequent chances to practice sketching in in a low stakes environment, have a laugh, and work on letting go and getting our work up in front of the world.

11:20 Sketchbooks and Design Homework’s

Name on the front.
Fill it up and you get another one. Create create create!

11:25 DH1: Castle Concept Art

Our first Design Homework of the year is going to be Concept Art for a Castle.

Concept art is artwork created before the final version of a game, movie, animation, or character is built. Its purpose is to explore ideas and establish what something should look and feel like.

Take the first page of your sketchbook and fill with Castle related designs that could show up in your actual Castle that you will create in Blender – we start this after lunch. You could draw a complete Castle, you could draw portions of different elements, you could draw a combination, etc.

Try to use ALL the tools you have in your Art Cup, look above how there are some delicate areas (Think the 2H Pencil) and there are some darker shaded areas (Think 9B and Blending Stump), and everything in between.

This is one of our first graded assignments, and will be due the Tuesday we get back from our long weekend.

Make sure you have your sketchbook in the room on Tuesday September 8th!

11:55 Lunch

No food in the room / eat in the Cafe.
You are welcome to return to the room when you have finished eating and work / hang out.

12:25 Attendance and Article

12:30 GAWD Project: Castle

This week in Blender we are going to create a Castle. Start by saving your new Blender project into your week_01 folder as castle.blend. Then we can just hit ctrl+s as we move throughout the day and week.

The type of Castle you create is up to you – we all have some visions in our minds eye – and hopefully the concept art that you created this morning is going to help drive your design.

Let the Concept Art that we started before lunch inform what you create digitally. Concept Art is the brainstorming session for the digital creative process.

This project is going to be worked on in class this week, and due on the first day we return from our weekend, Tuesday, September 8th, just like our Castle DH1.

For now just work and save!

12:50 A Gentleman in Moscow

Imagine being sentenced to spend your life inside a luxury hotel. In A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Count Alexander Rostov faces exactly that. Trapped in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel after the Russian Revolution, he builds unexpected friendships and watches history unfold outside. The novel asks an important question: Can you still build a meaningful life when your freedom is taken away?

A class read-along gives us a chance to slow down, disconnect from screens, and get lost in a great book together. As we read, you’ll naturally build your vocabulary, strengthen your reading skills, and experience a story.

1:10 Afternoon Break

1:25 Speed Design

Speed Designs are 10 minute sprints in GAWD where we practice. It could be any medium – 3D, 2D, video, programming, etc.

1:40 Afternoon Practice & Production

During these afternoon production windows you can choose to work on any project GAWD related. You have two projects this week that you can work on during these Practice & Production windows:

DH1: Castle Concept Art
GAWD Project: Castle

Regardless of what you choose to work on, by 2:15 you have to have something in dailies named lastNameMonday.jpg.

2:15 Dailies

2:20 “19 Minutes”

Every day in GAWD will end with “19 Minutes” of silent reading. Closing down our day with silent reading provides many benefits:

Improve Literacy Skills / Reading Stamina
Create space for a small reading meditation where we can disconnect from the world and get lost in a story
Unplug

At the end I will 3 students and ask for a 1 sentence explanation of what happened.