Grafton High School students in the Coding, App, and Game Design pathway have been working with
innovative technology against a national standard in business and industry. For the last several years,
while the nation faces great unemployment rates, there have been millions of jobs in technology
unfulfilled. In fact, the Education Alliance predicts that by 2018 there will be 25,000 new jobs in
technology in the state of West Virginia.
West Virginia Department of Education recently rewrote/updated their standards for this Career and
Technology Education pathway. A team consisted of WVDE representatives, Trixie Devine from Grafton
High School, other CTE teachers and students, university education and computer science doctorates,
industry professionals, and a teacher from Austin, TX the leading school in the game design field.
Together, they remodeled the program and set high goals and skill set standards to create what is now a
nationally competitive, high level, state-wide curriculum for Coding, App, and Game Design.
Demand for these skills has never been higher, and students are preparing for this future at Grafton
High School. Students enroll in Digital Imaging, Web Page Publishing, and Coding, App, and Game
Design 1 and 2 to complete the Coding, App, and Game Design pathway. During this time, students earn
industry credentials, gain technological experience in industry rated software and programming, and
become innovators and contributors to society. The student work is published online in various arcades,
as well as the Google Play Store.
Skills that are gained in this curriculum include programming in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and Java;
3D modeling and 3D printing; Adobe Creative Suite Software such as Photoshop, Flash, InDesign; Game
and App Development engines used in industry such as Blender, Unity, and Unreal; photo and video
editing, obtaining creative commons licensing for their works, publishing and exporting, and even
programming with robotics comes into play as these students learn and develop their skills. Many
industry certification are available for students in these programming and software areas.
Grafton High School takes it a step farther, and with the League of Learners club (founded by Trixie
Devine), the students take the skills they learn in their courses and apply them to real-life scenarios and
experiences, as well as using the skills for community services. Students in League of Learners develop
trainings in digital literacy and digital citizenship skills for faculty at the school, the student body, parents
and even the community.
Recent graduates of this program have gone on to receive internships and job positions in related fields
locally, and go on to pursue technological fields in colleges and universities.
At this point, Grafton High School teacher Trixie Devine and student representatives have been asked to
contribute to the presentations at the national Game Developers Conference Education Summit in San
Francisco, CA on February 27-28, 2017. If selected from the pool of proposed presenters, Ms. Devine
and students will have the opportunity to collaborate with colleges and industry professionals such as
Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, Google, and many more. However, travel and lodging for the trip will cost
approximately $800 per person, and community support would be greatly appreciated as we look
onward to this experience.