Hi everyone!
Hey, @MALAMAYA! 
I appreciate you sharing your experiences from learning and educating in The Sandbox. Lots of gems shared! I’m amazed at what you’ve been able to accomplish. 
I also understand that it can be a struggle to get things to grow even when you cultivate the environment with so much heart. It requires a lot of patience.
I think my only disagreement with your input is that in person isn’t the only effective way, but other methods require some extra detailed planning and accountability measures to ensure things you’d normally oversee in person are being done remotely, like being prepared with the software installed and an account created before joining an online class, for example. Remember those VoxEdit Community Challenges I operated back during bootcamps? Lots of pre-planning to decide what the right limitations should be to target skill development without letting participants lean on their strengths too much to win the prizes. Sometimes people found a way to get around the rules, but most of the time people found it refreshing to do something that made them think differently and try new things. It was a blast designing those weird challenges, and it was filling a need for more guided holistic VE education when documentation wasn’t pretty minimal and not easy to find.
Below I’m going to add some thoughts that hopefully can help anyone readding this understand my vision of edu for TSB (I no longer work there, btw).
I heard many pitches for educational programs for TSB, and I strived to use the resources available to improve what TSB offered directly, but the preference for a long time was to prioritize guiding external initiatives. Even after shifting to prioritize core content improvements, TSB’s structure made it challenging at times to develop edu initiatives I determined were needed, but there are some “wins” I’m proud of, like:
- delivering production knowledge from internal experts (Expert Workshops, documentation overhaul for content expansions and updates, etc)
- the always open “First Time Tutorial Square” experiences that teach basics about TSB, from controls to earning and claiming NFTs/SAND
- educational livestreams/videos/templates to boost skill growth during game jams
- a self-paced video series to learn the fundamental functions of GM (and hands-on practice with common logic schemas)
- the OG bootcamp El and many others took part in before I joined TSB team internally
- the Advanced Builders Bootcamp launched in-person in multiple locations globally
- other internal things I contributed like cross-team collaborations and workflows to deliver more accurate and up to date information to players and creators
A lot of these things were ideas/prototypes I catalyzed or were part of goals I had, but the resources, delivery, and timing were sometimes not what I’d prefer or I wasn’t as directly involved as I thought would make sense given my role. Still, a lot of value came from these things even if I couldn’t maximize value everywhere.
I like that this proposal includes self-paced learning. That’s why I designed and directed the “Begin Game Maker” series. It’s scalable, even in its format, which made it easy to localize. It introduced all the main systems and concepts of GM while creating “scaffolds” to gradually layer new information so as not to overwhelm (though sometimes it’s hard to avoid that). It put basic beginner needs first (learning controls in order of complexity while learning very basic tools/concepts). I had a similar series planned for VE (sadly unfinished, but some of the rough framework is in the VE docs). In that flow, I start with the Block Editor’s simpler UI and basic tool and camera controls, then expand into modes with the Modeler. Almost every edu pitch I heard for TSB put the Modeler first and Block Editor second or even last after the Animator because it was deemed less important for production, but it is fantastic for teaching core skills (and blocks are an easy way to make a game much more unique and have negligible “technical cost” in terms of game performance). 
- Put yourself in your audience’s shoes first (whether you’re designing for in-person, online, self-paced learning, game-based learning, or a combination). Carefully consider even the most basic needs. If you don’t, they’ll be focused on something else they’re stuck on while you’re teaching them a concept you think is the right starting point. Don’t infodump a whole system’s content knowledge if it’s better to touch on it and see how it relates to another system to make basic sense of a concept, for example. Scaffold.
Self-paced is the most scalable, but motivation is needed. This can be done through game design in cases of game-based self-paced learning, or it can be done through social connections that encourage practice and knowledge-sharing (livestreams, discussions, video comments, etc). A lot of what I did at Participate (before working at TSB) was driving participation in practice and knowledge sharing within that community for TSB. Livestreams are a great natural option, but it needs to be meaningful, valuable, and consistent (when the Begin GM series launched, we didn’t have resources prioritized to drive that as I determined was needed).
- Livestreams are a great tool for all skill levels – if they’re well lableled for users – but they need planning, depth, and brevity for maximum participation and content structuring (playlists) for always available learning content that can deepen understanding that’s mainly been delivered in “gists” from marketing and other “scratch the surface” content.
One thing I proposed after noticing a pattern of largely the same people participating in contests was to offer a new type of contest/challenge to guide intermediate creators through the production process in a 5-6 week “game jam” where you share your work every week (for other participants to review/play/provide feedback), with livestreams to engage in each others’ projects in progress and model the creating/learning process to novice creators/players. Participants would be highly engaged, supporting each others’ growth, and choosing winners for the greatest growth, best UI, most immersive, best flow, etc after multiple sprints of active game/asset production. Again, priorities weren’t there to deliver this initiative. The usual contest formats were preferred, and one reason I think they didn’t like it is because sharing your game weekly means others could “steal” your ideas. My point was, well, that’s a learning opportunity. If someone is inspired by your idea and does it better, they deserve credit and you get a valuable learning moment from that. When creators hold all of their cards close to them all the time, the community misses opportunities to observe, ask questions, share knowledge in the most relevant moment, experiment communally with variations of ideas to thoroughly explore options, and acknowledge others methods, creativity, and skills more meaningfully. This different kind of learning contest is the kind of stuff my educator friends who had similar roles at Microsoft and Epic did with Minecraft and Fortnite back in the early days when we were all still teaching in classrooms. Teaching is not just about delivering and assessing, it’s strongly about building community to make the cognitive stuff “click.” This facilitates networking so organically.
- Think outside the box. Question what you think you know about how contests/challenges/learning should work. Test new ideas and get a lot of feedback from participants to see what’s fun, what’s confusing, and what could make it more valuable. Most of all, think about how it can bring people together.
Capstone projects are great. However, almost every pitch and every suggestion internally was to finish with or frame it all around a game jam. While these do drive people to push themselves to finish by a deadline and motivate them with cool concepts, unless a game jam is really well structured the participants are not going to have many overlaps in what they’re learning during them (meaning your educational goals could be filled with gaps/holes in the end across your learner group). Add structure: give them a highly specific mechanic, art element, etc. to implement in their game somewhere and follow up to have all learners observe the variations and share feedback. Talk about what makes the submissions great in depth and what could make them better. Have a post analysis and discussion to brainstorm potential mashups of submitted games.
- Go wild with idea sharing. Don’t just end on the submission and the rewards/credit. The time saved with scalable solutions like introducing basic concepts in self-paced learning formats opens up resources like time to invest in this meaningful stuff that deepens learning.
And I’ll finish with this… While it sounds fun to engage with IPs and brands, I think TSB has a lot of that. It’s challenging to get eyes on “indie” creations. This is why I think it’s important to focus on your own ideas and what makes them unique. Sure, you can do some market analysis on what games people play a lot of on Roblox or other platforms, but what really matters is if you can mold something special with the engine you’re using. Special doesn’t always mean complicated. Some of the simplest games have been community favorites driving heavy replay, community discussions, and new ideas. Have fun and be your awesome, creative selves.
Love and miss the community vibes of the earlier days, and hope things can be reinvigorated like El also hopes for. 
Students of Sisters of Mary on a fieldtrip around BGC with YGG team and the Rufino family, who masterplanned the modern city: SMS Fieldtrip
Thank you 
. 
was wondering when you’d see this! Hehe thank you for sharing your thoughts about the proposal!
Even Roblox recently opened up a licensing platform to connect rights holders with creators. It’s a great bridge to build where a chasm has been communicated by the community (by those who didn’t know someone to get their foot in the door at a studio or start their own and work with brands/IPs). This SIP could model a way for greater accessibility to more visible content while building great connections, and I would hope that it would have a ripple affect into how TSB operates with its partners for something like what Roblox is offering now (if that hasn’t already been communicated by leadership – I’m out of the loop now).
