The vision behind the Teacher Summit in the Games for Change Asia-Pacific Festival is to develop teachers’ capacity in the use of games as a tool to engage students and meet the outcomes of the curriculum. Hosted by ACMI in Melbourne, this year’s summit assembled teachers, academics, game practitioners, and thought-leaders to inspire and energise best-practice teaching and learning in games.

The ACTF education team presented a session titled ‘Videogame Adaptations’, which featured clips from First Nations adventure series Thalu and animated series The Deep. Teachers considered how the elements of screen stories – structure, narrative and character design – can be used as a springboard for game design and analysis. Pitched for primary school students, the comparison between games and screen stories was presented as a framework for students to plan, create and share action-packed stories with intention.

Following the session, a Melbourne-based primary teacher gave us this valuable feedback: “Thank you so much for a great talk which was not only very entertaining, but also thought-provoking through the lenses of a teacher, First Nations storytelling and also through TV and Media Literacy!”

Find Thalu and The Deep in the ACTF Shop for education use now.

Browse the ACMI video game lesson plans for ideas on using video games in the classroom.

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