I spent most of Saturday attending a very inspirational working session at Washington State University - Vancouver. The working group is the Northwest Distributed Computer Science Department (NW-DSCD) that is actively building out curriculum modules and strategies in support of the NSF CPATH (acro?) program. My involvement is aimed at collaborating with this group in their K-12 outreach efforts. The core goal of this working group is to introduce curriculum modules that support computational thinking for multi-disciplinary studies.

This is aligned with my recent thinking about how to bring computer science (back?) into the high school classroom - a vocational approach (i.e., one targeted exclusively at those students that have already decided that studying computer science or related information technology) is destined to be a niche and outlier strategy. There is a place for AP-style computer classes that go deep into programming and that focus on programming for programming sake, but I'm convinced there's an opportunity to weave elements of computer science, computational theory, algorithms, etc. with other core courses. Obvious examples include discrete mathematics (e.g., graph theory, recursive algorithms), probability and statistics, and physics. Less obvious examples are digital media (art, music production) and English (linguistics).

This summer TechStart is expanding its summer teacher professional development program (SuperQuest) by partnering with a national initiative called CS4HS (Computer Science For High School Teachers). We are bringing a variety of academic and industry professionals together to introduce opportunities for computer science integration for non-CS teachers and motivate current CS teachers. There will be workshops on CS Unplugged, Programming with Alice, Integrating Science and Technology with Vernier Instruments. There will be academic research presentations to excite teachers about the potential "gee whiz" side of CS, and there will be a panel focused on gender equity issues in CS.

I'm also aggressively seeking funding to support curriculum development for a high school discrete mathematics class that incorporates some basic programming and computing. The idea is to design a math class (that meets the soon-to-be-finalized Oregon state discrete math standards) with plug-in modules that includes some CS Unplugged (perhaps a cryptography or minimal spanning tree model) and some introductory programming to explore or reinforce curriculum elements. Jacob and I are currently reviewing what looks to be a very solid discrete math / Python book called Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python that could be a robust foundation for this course.

Starting last summer I began exploring ways to get back into teaching. Other than corporate training it has been over 15 years since I last taught a formal class (a low-level computer science class at Wright State University) and I miss it. At a TechStart fundraiser I had a conversation with Dick Knight, current interim Dean of Engineering at Portland State and fellow TechStart board member, about becoming an adjunct instructor and he made all the right introductions into their CS and OMSE programs. Given the choice I would teach something very professionally oriented - software engineering and process, senior capstone projects, etc. However, I suspect I'm not alone in the adjunct space where choice wasn't really an option - you take what you can get, and what you get is probably what the full-time faculty is either not interested in or not available to teach. For me this means teaching a discrete structures class for engineers (non-CS majors), which I gladly agreed to for many reasons. It is a stretch for me to reconnect and reinforce some concepts I hadn't fully explored in 20 years, and it is extremely relevant to some curriculum work I'm doing for Oregon and TechStart.

Anyway, feel free to entertain yourself with some of my lecture notes or homework problems. Fortunately Dr. Jim Hein left a great wealth of material for me to use for this class.

This is very late in coming, but I just got my hands on a highlight movie made by one of the parents from Jacob's team. Enjoy!

Jacob 2008 Football Highlights from Chris Brooks on Vimeo.

I'm three plays into the wonderful introductory 18xx game Steam Over Holland and I'm confident in saying that while it stands up perfectly for beginner players when played with three, it probably needs some adjustments when played with five. All of you 18xx sharks out there: don't jump to conclusions unless you've actually played a learning game of SoH with 5 players!

When new players come to 18xx I think they want to experience all aspects of the game (managing their stock portfolio as well as operating a company) so it is only natural to see all 5 players in a 5 player game start a company. There's enough cash in the game to do so, and it is relatively easy to keep the companies capitalized early on. While companies start with little capital, they can sell a single share to the common pool each operating round without dropping their stock price (as long as there is less than 50% of the shares outstanding in the pool).

The problem comes during the mid-game train rush - even a decent player can get caught off guard as the 3 and 4 trains get gobbled up. On a forced train purchase, it can be difficult to come up with the necessary cash because it is likely impossible to sell any shares to the common pool. In my first game one player nearly went bankrupt (and was essentially out of the game), and in my second game two players nearly did.

I'm sure there's a happy path in there somewhere when playing with five, but it just shouldn't be that hard. Players should feel some tension in how they compete with the other players, but they shouldn't feel threatened to get kicked out of the game. And a beginning player shouldn't be forced to play their first game just investing in other companies - operating a company and laying track is part of the experience.

I'm happy to report that the 3 player game last week ended in a much happier place. While I won the game fairly handily, George and Doug were in it until the end and where not in serious jeopardy of seeing a company fold. I think this is because players can confidently start a company each and push more cash into those companies. The train rush through the 3s and 4s is also easier to navigate.

My guess is that the problem could be fixed with a bit more cash for each player in the 5 player game. Or perhaps a few extra "3" or "4" trains. I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to try as I probably wouldn't even play the game with 5 players again, instead opting for 18AL or some other similar "trusted" first 18xx game for that number of players.

I was able to return to GameStorm this year after sadly missing the 2008 event (read my past reports: 2003, 2004 Day 1, 2004 Day 2, 2004 Day 3, 2004 - Uberplay demos, 2005 Days 1-2, 2005 Day 3, 2007 Day 1, 2007 Day 2, 2007 Day 3, 2007 Kniziathon). GameStorm grows every year, and I met more folks from outside of Oregon than ever.

A host of volunteers (some of them wearing kilts) make GameStorm a success and my gratitude goes out to all of them.

Jacob and I drove back from the Oregon coast on Wednesday and went into work together Thursday. Our arrival was perfectly timed as Ken and Brandon beat us by about 5 minutes. We had a great time pulling games from the library, including some old classics like Through the Desert.

We also played Lost Cities: the Boardgame for the first time. Nice game! I think I'll like it more if I play with the variant allowing upward- and downward- card sequencing.

One of the games I ran that weekend was Brass, one of my top 10 all-time games. It was also my first chance to play a game with Mike Frantz, someone I met virtually about 5 years ago. Well played Mike (he won)!

Some kudos go out to KC Humphrey - he did a workman's job running the Game Lab. The events for game designers and prototyping were non-stop throughout the weekend, largely due to KC's organization and promotion. This photo shows one of KC's rare opportunities to showcase his own prototype (Jacob loved it).

Friday afternoon I had the privilege of sitting through 3 game designer interview/workshop sessions where a few of us "industry experts" (why was I invited?) gave feedback on prototypes, marketing pitches, and presentation.

Friday night I ran the 2 player gaming tournament. We had a great turnout this year with 16 players playing over four rounds. Games played: 24/7, Solo Dice, Lost Cities, Balloon Cup, and Drive.

Rachel taught a few of us how to play the new, beautiful game Giants. The teaching was superb but I'm not sure how much I like the game. No denying it is creative and beautifully produced. I'd like to try it again.

Wes Makin requested a game of Antike, still a classic in my book. Jacob, Mike Frantz, and Ken Crangle joined me in a well paced, tight game.

Jacob recently read the GRR Martin series A Song of Ice and Fire and was eager to play (again, 5 years later) A Game of Thrones. Having been a long time since I last played, I was happy to find a willing teacher and player and our numbers soon grew to six - so we played the Clash of Kings expansion. Jacob played Lannister and took off for an early lead only to be pounded back by everyone capable. Ken and I were lurking and close on his tails, but Greg Williams swooped down from the north and stole a victory. Very enjoyable.

Sunday morning means 18xx, and I managed to get three games running concurrently. Matt broke out his new copy of Steam Over Holland and we taught the game together with three newbies. I'll write more about this game soon (I played again on Tuesday night with three players), but I'll repeat my assertion that the game is brutal with 5 players - cash is too tight for a newbie game where folks just want to run their own company and see how the mechanics work. Still, this is a great game for teaching the core mechanics of 18xx and I had fun helping nearly bankrupt Matt.

That's it for this year's report - thanks to the GameStorm staff (especially Beverly and Aaron) and we'll see you next year.

I've Twittered a bit recently about the productivity coaching I've been giving to Matthew and a few folks asked me to expand on how I've introduced Getting Things Done (GTD) to the boys.

When to Start

I introduced GTD to both boys when they were 12. Jacob and Matthew are involved in a wide range of activities, some that require leadership and project planning, and in both cases the introduction was in reaction to overload or missed commitments. In Jacob's case he dropped the ball on some scouting-related work he had committed to, while in Matthew's case he was forgetting chores, stalling work on longer-term school projects, and generally feeling under the gun.

The timing felt right for both boys because (1) they had the maturity to understand the value of a systematic approach to managing personal work and commitments, and (2) they were feeling stress and a bit of disappointment in their ability to stay on top of their work. Simply put, they had each stumbled and were open to fresh ideas to help manage their work.

Initial Teaching and Coaching

My approach was very different with each boy. Jacob is a voracious reader and it only required a 30 minute intro to the basic concepts of GTD, followed by an assignment to read the first few chapters of David Allen's book. I also walked him through my personal workflow and shared some checklists and diagrams that I've used over the years.

While Matthew loves to read, in his case it was unreasonable to expect him to pick up the book and self-teach. Instead, I we sat down together on a Saturday morning for an hour and I walked him through the basics and coached him through a mind-sweep after he gathered all of his stray papers, inbox items, and work-in-progress for scouts and school. We also completed a few easy actions he had lingering so that he could get the quick satisfaction of crossing items off his list. Matthew joined me on a drive to/from Salem (about 50 minutes each way) and we listened to several episodes of the Merlin Mann / David Allen productivity podcast series. This worked well for him and he was talking the lingo in short order after hearing these (e.g., "it is just as easy to get back on the wagon as it is to fall off").

The Pragmatics - What System / Tools to Use?

I shared a few options with Jacob for managing his GTD life - some online tools, the PigPod PDA, and plain old 3x5 cards with a binder clip. He opted for low-tech 3x5 cards for starters and used this system for the first year. It worked well for him and he got into the habit of carrying the cards to scout planning meetings, school, and using them during his weekly review.

Sometime last year Jacob moved over to Remember the Milk and that's what he uses today. He keeps a laptop with him most of the time so this works reasonably well (the laptop died and he's getting an HP netbook later this week), but I'm a bit concerned about his off-line capture process. I think there's still room for paper in his workflow so we'll be discussing this soon.

I knew simplicity would be in order for Matthew so I proposed a paper-based system for him. We settled on a small-ish spiral bound notebook. The structure is simple - he uses the front of the binder for actions, and works from the back with his list of projects.

This gives him a one-stop shop for capture and weekly review. Contexts aren't that important for Matthew - nearly all of his work can/should be accomplished at home and I've shied away from focusing on that aspect of GTD with him. I encouraged him to use a review process similar to the Autofocus System.

Julie and I also setup some basic workspace functionality for the boys. In our living room we put in a single Billy bookcase, an inexpensive hanging file folder from Staples, and a physical inbox for each boy.

Ongoing Support and Coaching

Many GTD gurus will claim that the weekly review is the linchpin for success, and I agree. This is also the area where the boys need the most ongoing support and coaching. Jacob and Matthew both reserve Sunday afternoons for their review, and I have to put a reminder to myself to remind them to do their review.

My advice here is to not let your kids go on auto-pilot - like many parenting activities, persistence and pestering can pay dividends and help build strong habits. This also goes for the day-to-day reminders on GTD basics. I can often be overhead saying "did you capture that somewhere?" or "so what's the next action on that project?" to the boys. Sure, they get annoyed from time to time with my nagging, but I'm not sure you can call yourself a good parent if your kids don't achieve some level annoyance with you.

I'm obsessed with Fields of Fire, and I've only played 1/5 of a full scenario. When I say obsessed, I mean I keep thinking about how much I want to play this game. Finding the time to play it is another matter...

Adding to the obsession was the past week re-watching the Band of Brothers series with the family. That was my fourth or fifth time through the series and it never gets old. Did you know that The Pacific is due out later this year?

After two failed starts trying to learn the game on my own, I coaxed Doug into a visit to teach a few of us how to play. Mike and Jesse joined me to learn the game with two concurrent solitaire sessions. Doug did a great detailed write-up on the teaching session, and you should also check out his 3-part series in ramping up with the game:

• Components
• Preparation
• Sequence of Play

Allow me to walk you through some photos and some of the basics of the game. The initial setup or a scenario is randomized primarily through the map configuration, which consists of a 2D array of terrain cards. In the initial WWII scenario you have three platoons (along with company-level assets) charged with taking primary and secondary objectives. You choose the objectives based on the scenario guidelines.

The game sequence is complex, and made no easier due to the much maligned ruleset for the game. Read Doug's overviews if you want to go deeper, but I'll provide a brief abstract here:

• This is a command-point driven game, where the most effective use of commands are those handed down from on high. This is generally randomized through card draw.
• Units and lower-ranking leaders can often act of their own initiative.
• Lines of communication are key to make effective use of your command structure.
• Firing just happens, and effects result from the presence of fire.

I didn't get far enough into the game to really grok smoke signals, pyrotechnics, and casualty collection. I did get far enough into it to see the elegance and creativity in this game. Kudos to the designer, and shame on the developer (and designer) for the poor rules - get this fixed! This is too good a game to be left on the shelf.

Thanks so much to Doug for helping a few of us get over the initial learning curve. I hope to bring this out to Salishan over spring break and get a few scenarios into it, maybe with Jacob's help.

The boys are working hard preparing for a talent show at school later this spring. I convinced them to allow me to record an early take before they became proficient with the song (Enter Sandman). This is the result.

Enter Sandman - Original Take from Chris Brooks on Vimeo.

JD, Jacob and I played 18AL yesterday morning and had a fantastic time of it. This is my 3rd play in about 3 months and we seem to have managed the game well and got all of the rules right. I sketched out an additional player aid that I'll post to the 'geek soon as we found it useful to track company income, par values, and to have a phase summary that includes the train limits (a rule we messed up in Salishan in December).

This was one of the first games I've played where I did something borderline nasty in the game, but I think quite within the spirit of 18xx games. In the second to last operating round of the game (we knew the end was approaching quickly as the bank was nearly cleaned out), I bought the only train (a 6) from a company where I was president but owned the same number of shares (4) as JD. Jacob had priority deal and I knew I would take the next stock action after him. I then dumped my four shares to the open market in the stock round, making JD the president and forcing him to hold onto his shares. This meant that the company was guaranteed to not operate in the final operating round, thereby devaluing his shares even more.

The finish was very tight, with Jacob playing a solid game operating only one company throughout (the L&N). Final scores: Chris - $5309, Jacob - $5101, JD - $4918.

Time to catch up on some recent gaming. As you may have read in Mike's blog, we had a very wacky game of 1850 a few weeks ago. Not knowing the exact number of players that would be playing, we opted for a (likely) five-player game of 1850, an 18xx game set in the midwest. Matt had a trip cancelled so joined us as well, bringing the total to six. An ideal number for an 18xx game? I think not...

Continuing my tradition of being unable to play a game of any reasonable complexity properly by the rules, we messed up the certificate limit rules in this game. While Mike will claim that this was the primary reason for the game being wacky, I think it was a contributor but not the key. The key to me was the large number of players and the need to cooperate on initial capital investments to get the game rolling. My recollection is that for the first few turns we were stalled because of lack of money in the companies, not because people hit their share limits. We were only off by one on the cert limit rule, though in a few cases it definitely hindered the start of companies or caused some dumping to occur that may not have otherwise. Lesson for me: stick to 3 or 4 player 18xx games.

I hosted our group gaming session last week and we brought out the Wallace classic Volldampf. The game holds up well even in light of successors like Age of Steam and Steel Driver, though the randomness of goods generation is a turnoff for some. JD played very insightfully for a first play - he didn't get suckered into the turn order bid and focused on leaching off of other's routes. The game was fairly close throughout but JD managed to get and maintain a sizeable enough lead to give him the win.

The Days of Wonder announcement about their new game Smallworld, a re-envisioning of Phillipe Keyaerts' Vinci encouraged me to get this out with the boys over the weekend. This is a Risk-style conquer and control-the-world style game with a very light combat system with specialized civilizations. Because each civilization begins with a fixed pool of assets (pawns for conquering), the lifecycle of a civilization is constrained and one of the key player decisions that recurs throughout the game is when to go into decline and start a new civ.

Jacob got off to an early lead but stalled out as he approached the 100 point mark, with Matthew gradually catching up to him. I had a good mid-game (including a civ that allowed me to decline at the end of my turn rather than beginning) and Jacob and Matthew probably weren't aggressive enough at attacking the leader. Always more fun to attack the brother, right? Great game, played in under 2 hours.