Learning through fun and games: Video Game Maker and Lego Collision Cars classes teach 1st- to 6th-graders basics of technology and engineering

GCC Workforce Development and Community Education business and career coordinator Jennifer Mihalcoe works with a rising first-grader in Germanna's Video Game Maker class.. For information on registering for this class and Lego engineering classes at the Daniel Center, including Collison Cars, click on the link below.



By RHONDA SIMMONS | Culpeper Star-Exponent
Published: June 23, 2012

Combining video games and/or Legos with the learning process seems like a genius idea, right?

That’s exactly what Jennifer Mihalcoe, business and career coordinator for Germanna Community College’s Workforce and Community Education, believes.

Mihalcoe said a new 12-hour Video Game Maker class — offered at Germanna’s Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper this summer — is intended to use children’s fascination with video games to help stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

“Children need not be strong math students to enjoy and benefit from this class,” she added.

Mihalcoe and co-worker Ben Sherman, a business and career coordinator for Germanna Workforce, also agree that using Legos to teach basic engineering can achieve the same goal.

“Both video games and Legos,” they say, “can be used to start students on paths to careers that pay well and boost our local and national economies.”

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