This week I’m at this incredible EdTech conference called ISTELive 22. It’s new territories for the magazine but I hope you enjoy what’s happening in the beautiful and engaging world of education. News can talk about teacher shortages all they want, but here at this conference there’s plenty of educators, thought leaders and builders of the next generation in technology making sure young people can learn in new ways. The company we are talking about today is one like I mentioned. Construct 3 is breaking down doors and opening up pathways that were never possible when this millennial went to school. What a cool way to embrace the school environment.
You can follow Ashley and Tom Gullen on Twitter
@TomGullen and @AshleyGullen
ABOUT CONSTRUCT 3
Developed in 2011 by brothers Ashley and Tom Gullen, Construct is a state-of-the-art game engine that easily and effectively allows anyone to develop their own games without needing to know how to code - “PowerPoint for games”. Construct 3 is the third and latest and most robust iteration of this innovative software that has quickly been embraced by teachers and schools across the U.S. It is fully web-based and can run on any browser-enabled device including Macs, Windows PCs, LINUX and even Chromebooks, which is the standard in most U.S. schools.
Construct 3 is currently in more than 400 middle and high schools across the country and is having a major impact directly with students who increasingly love to develop their own online and mobile games. To learn more, visit https://www.construct.net/en.
Thomas Gullen Founder of Construct 3 (Image: Construct3)
Who are you and what do you do?
Hello! My name is Tom, and I'm the co-founder of Construct 3. Construct 3 is a game engine that runs in the browser, allowing anyone to make their own video games using our block based system. Uniquely, it also allows students to transition from blocks to full blown Javascript - we've found this is a great solution for schools looking to transition students from block based to coding in a more natural way.
How did you come up with this idea?
Me and my brother started Construct from our bedrooms over 10 years ago. We originally aimed the engine at the indie game developer market and found that schools and other educational institutes started reaching out to us asking if we had educational packages as they thought it would be perfect for classroom use! Today, education represents a large part of our business and we're thrilled to be in an area that is positively impacting students' lives and helping them level up.
Because our engine was originally aimed at the indie game market Construct 3 is a powerful tool used professionally, it's not just limited to the classroom which can be hugely motivating for students as supposed to being stuck inside pure education software that has limited use outside of learning.
What impact has this software made in the Educational environment?
A lot! We've sold licenses to Nasa who we believe are using it to teach coding (and hopefully not launching rockets!) We've started attending educational conferences around the world and it's a thrill to have people come up to us and tell us they are already using Construct 3 and love it! Feedback we get from teachers is that students find it really engaging and fun to use and that it's intuitive and easy for teachers to pick up as well, especially as a natural progressor from Scratch.
We believe we're used in a couple of thousands schools in USA, and many more across the world. It's a great feeling to know we're having such a wide impact.
What challenges have you faced with developing this software and how did you overcome them?
It's a hard balance to strike between time and user demands - like all sophisticated software you have to be careful how you distribute your time amongst interesting fun features you'd like to work on and features and requests your users are requesting from different perspectives (education, indie game developers and businesses).
What is one thing you love about the company or software?
Construct 3 has a unique advantage in that it runs in the browser - allowing for it to be used on Chromebooks, mobile devices and even Raspberry Pi's. Initially when we announced Construct 3 would be browser based we met some scepticism in that a lot of users have bad experiences with browser based software. These same people have emailed us back telling us they are now sold on it and we've executed it so well they forget they are using such powerful software from the browser! We're really proud as to how we've executed Construct - even though it runs in the browser the end user experience is much like traditional software.
What's next for the software and company?
We've recently launched our second product in beta, which is an animation based software product allowing users to create animations and export them to various video formats. We're excited for this as it fills the void left by Adobe's Flash and we're expecting good uptake in schools across the world!
Fun question
If you could only use one tech device for the rest of your life what would it be?
My immediate thoughts go to my car or microwave but I'm not sure they count as tech - I'd be a little lost if I couldn't drive or stick the odd cup of noodles in the microwave! I'm struggling to think of anything other than my desktop computer - I do love my work and playing games!
