Substitute guide · Thursday, October 8, 2026 · 50 minutes per class
Thanks for covering today. You don’t need any background in video games or AI. This page walks through the class in order, and the orange boxes are lines you can read out loud.
Open the room screen ↗ put this on the class TVWhere everything is. Go to jeffneet.com/school, choose Fall 2026, and find the row Week 7 · Oct 8. It has five links: this substitute guide, a printable copy of it, the handout (print one per student), the class copy (the two Round 1 pictures, six of each), and the room screen. Every other week’s handouts and room screens are on the same page.
The room screen is a slideshow in a web browser. Open it on a laptop connected to the class TV. Press the → key for the next slide and ← to go back. The clock at the top counts down: press −1 or +1 until it shows the minutes actually left in class, then press Start. Every section of this page is labelled with those same minutes.
Times are minutes left in class, not minutes since it started. If class starts late, set the clock to what is left and read this table from it.
| Minutes left | What happens | Your part | Runs for |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | ⭐ Chromebooks out, everyone signed in, first instruction sent to the AI | Hand out Chromebooks as students walk in. Point at the sign-in word. | about 5 min |
| 50 | Round 1 – describe a picture in three-word sentences | Read the rules, time it, count on the board | 10 min |
| 40 | ⭐ Round 2 – the mark you can’t erase | Make squiggles, read a one-minute description, ask two questions | 15 min |
| 25 | Studio – students work on their own games | Walk around and chat with students about their games. No software help needed. | 20 min |
| 5 | ⭐ Spec Check | Read five lines. Students check their own work. | 5 min |
Try to wrap up the activity around 25 left, so students get their own work time. The times are a guide, and a few minutes either way is fine. If you run short, please keep the Spec Check at the end. It is quick, and students count on it.
Students spend the semester building a video game with a free program called GDevelop, which has an artificial-intelligence helper built into it. The real subject is learning to work with an AI while keeping your own judgment, including noticing when it is confidently wrong.
Class opens with students signing in on Chromebooks and giving the AI its first job. It can take the AI many minutes to finish one job, so they start it first and let it work while the class does something else.
After that, the first half of today is on paper and the whiteboard. It is an exercise about how hard it is to describe something to someone who cannot see it. Students usually work out the point themselves, so there is nothing to lecture. You hand out pictures, keep the word limit, count on the whiteboard, and draw a few squiggles.
About the students: they have been told all semester that being wrong out loud is useful. If a student gets something wrong in front of everyone, a simple “thank you” fits right in.
Students sign in to GDevelop with a helper page, jeffneet.com/7pa. It asks for a sign-in word, and each class has its own.
Once you have clicked the setup link, a small box appears at the top of the room screen, beside the clock. It shows jeffneet.com/7pa and the word for the class in the room right now. It changes by itself five minutes before each class starts, so there is nothing to type or remember. Click the box to see all four classes and their words, or to pick a class yourself if the wrong one is showing.
The setup link has not been clicked on this laptop, in this browser. Click it again. It is safe to click more than once. Between classes the box reads “no class now”, which is normal.
| Block | Time | Class |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9:35 – 10:25 | Grades 6–12, class A |
| 2 | 10:55 – 11:45 | Grades 6–12, class B |
| 3 | 12:30 – 1:20 | Grades 3–5 |
| 4 | 1:25 – 2:15 | Grades 6–12, class C |
Every class does the same lesson. Where grades 3–5 do something differently, this page says so.
The pictures: they must be made of several simple parts – a house with two windows and a tree, a robot made of boxes, a boat with two sails and a sun. A picture that can be named in one word doesn’t work: “draw a cat” takes three words and there is nothing left to measure. If you need to, draw two arrangements of simple shapes yourself and copy them.
“Nobody gets all of this – that’s what we’re measuring.”
Everyone misses parts of it. Saying this first keeps that from feeling embarrassing.
“What did you drop?”
“Drop” lands better than “miss,” which can sound like a grade.
“You can’t permanently ruin your game. Open History, next to Save, and go back to a version that worked.”
It is true. GDevelop keeps older versions of every game, and students have heard the phrase before.
It is tempting to say that an AI “forgets things in long messages, the same way you just did.” It sounds right, but it isn’t how these tools work, so that one is best left for Mr. Neet. If a student raises it: “Good question. Ask Mr. Neet.”
⭐ This is what has worked best. The AI in GDevelop can take many minutes to finish one job. If students start it now, it works in the background during the paper activity, and their game is ready when they come back to it. If they wait until work time, some will spend all of it watching one job finish.
“Grab a Chromebook and sign in right away. Go to jeffneet.com/7pa. The word is at the top of the screen.”
“Open your game and send the AI your first instruction for today. Then push the Chromebook to the side, lid open, and leave it working.”
Students know how to do all of this. Your part is getting it started quickly. Start Round 1 once most of the class has sent an instruction. Anyone still signing in can finish while you read the rules.
If a student doesn’t know what to ask the AI for, their folder has their notes from last time: “What were you in the middle of? Ask for that.”
Setup. Students pair up with the person next to them and sit back to back, or stand a folder up between them as a wall. One student in each pair gets a picture, face down. The other draws in the box on their sheet. Everyone plays at once, rather than one pair at the front.
“If you have the picture, you’re the describer. You may only speak in three-word sentences. One sentence, then stop, and wait for your partner to draw and say ‘ok.’
If you’re drawing, you may not ask questions. You can only draw and say ‘ok.’ Describer, no peeking at the drawing. Both of you, keep a tally of how many sentences you used.”
“Nobody gets this perfect. We’re measuring how many sentences it takes, not whether the drawing is good. Turn your picture over. Go.”
Wrap up around 42 left, or when most pairs have finished.
Ask each pair for their sentence count and write the numbers in the counting strip. You will get a spread – four pairs took eleven sentences, one took thirty, one never finished. The spread is the interesting part.
“What did you say first?”
It is almost always the big layout before the details – “House in middle. Tree on right.”
“The ones who finished fast didn’t talk faster. They said the important thing first.”
Allow five-word sentences instead of three. Three words is genuinely hard at that age and the frustration teaches nothing. If counting distracts them, drop the tally and ask “was that a lot of talking or a little?” instead.
⭐ Students tend to enjoy this one most.
Setup. Ask for three or four volunteers to come to the whiteboard, one per section. The rest of the class watches. Before anyone hears anything, you make one random, meaningless mark in each volunteer’s section – a squiggle, a zigzag, a blob.
Two volunteers get exactly the same mark. The others get different ones. That contrast is what makes it work, so keep it to yourself for now.
Put the two same-mark students at opposite ends of the board, so they cannot see each other’s work.
The marks must mean nothing. A circle turns into a sun, and then it is no longer random. Squiggles, crossing lines, blobs.
“That mark is yours. You can’t erase it, you can’t ignore it, and it has to end up as part of your finished drawing. You’ll all hear the same description, once. Draw what you hear.”
Then read the description below out loud, once. It takes about a minute at a relaxed talking pace.
“Okay, so there’s a house, and the roof is a triangle, a tall pointy one, and there’s a chimney on the roof, a skinny rectangle, over on the right side of the roof, no smoke. The house itself is a big box, wider than it is tall, and it takes up most of the left side of the page. There are two windows, both square, and each one has a cross in it, like four little panes, and they sit next to each other up near the roof. And the door is on the left side, a tall rectangle with a little round knob. There’s a path, kind of wiggly, going from the door down off the bottom of the page. Then there’s a tree on the right, with a round, bumpy, cloud-shaped top and a straight trunk, and the trunk is about as tall as the door. There’s grass along the bottom, just a line with a few spikes. Oh, and there’s a bird, just a little v, up in the sky between the house and the tree.”
It is meant to ramble. Please don’t tidy it up, pause to let them catch up, or say any part twice. Missing some of it is the point, and it is the same for every class.
You set the pace. Loud enough for the back row, and a little slower for grades 3–5. If students ask you to repeat something: “You only get it once. Draw what you caught.”
Then give them two more minutes to finish drawing.
“You all got the same words. Why are these all different?”
Let them answer. The mark is the answer, and they will find it.
“You two had the same words and the same mark. Did you make the same drawing?”
They will not have. Give the room a moment to look.
“That mark is called a seed. Same words plus the same seed gives a computer the same picture, every single time. Change the seed and you get a different picture from the exact same words – and nobody decided what changed.”
“But we had the same mark and we still drew different things.” They are right, and they have found the good question. No need to answer it. Hand it back:
“So what did you bring to it that a computer doesn’t have?”
You don’t need an answer for it. The discussion is the point.
Instead of volunteers at the board, everyone draws at their desk. Before you read the description, go round and draw one squiggle on each student’s paper. Give two students who sit far apart the same squiggle. Say “the extra squiggle” instead of seed, and skip the seed slide. Only say the word seed if a student asks what it is called. The moment of “we all had the same words!” needs no explaining at this age, and they find it very funny.
Around 25 left, wrap up, even if the discussion is still going. Thank the volunteers. Nobody needs to erase their drawing until the next class arrives.
“Before you touch anything, open your folder and read your notes from last time. What were you in the middle of? What are you doing first today?”
Then say nothing while they read. Grades 3–5 say their answer to a neighbour.
Then walk around and ask students what they are working on. They like showing their games, and your interest helps more than technical answers would. Nobody expects you to fix anything in the program.
“Save often. Click the 💾 icon.” It is at the top left of GDevelop. A dot on the icon means there is unsaved work. Say it once when work time starts and again about halfway through. If you see a dot on a student’s screen as you walk around, point at it.
Most students signed in at the start of class. This is for anyone who arrives late or gets signed out.
Students go to jeffneet.com/7pa on their Chromebook, type the sign-in word from the top of the room screen, tap the tile with their own color and animal, and copy their email and password into GDevelop. They have done this every week. You never need to type or know a password.
“Go to jeffneet.com/7pa. The word is at the top of the screen.”
If a student still can’t get in after a couple of tries, there is no need to fix it. They can work beside a neighbor or plan on paper, and you can write their name in the note for Mr. Neet.
All three are inside GDevelop, so there is nothing to look up and nothing for you to fix.
| The situation | What to say |
|---|---|
| Stuck on how to do something in the program | “Ask your AI.” The Ask AI button is at the top right of the GDevelop window. They can ask it how to do anything in the program. |
| Asks about something bigger, like sound or multiplayer | “Look in the Learn tab.” Click the Home icon at the top left. The bar on the left has a Create tab, where their games are, and a Learn tab, with videos and lessons for everything the program can do. This is the place for students who are ahead. |
| Broke something and is upset | “You can’t permanently ruin it. Open History.” The History drop-down is next to the Save button, and it shows older versions of their game. To carry on from an old version, they load it from History and then click Save. A message on the screen asks them to confirm. |
“Don’t tell me it works. Show me. Press Preview.”
It is the class motto, and students will recognize it. It means: don’t believe the AI said it worked – run the game and look. (Grades 3–5 know the short version: “Don’t tell me. Show me.”)
Each student has a one-page sheet in their folder called My Game Contract. It lists the promises they made about their game for the semester – each promise is a spec. Students check it themselves, so there is nothing for you to grade.
1. “Take out your My Game Contract. Read your specs to yourself.”
2. “In pencil, mark each one – check for solid, squiggle for shaky, X for broken.”
3. “Anything shaky or broken goes to the top of your list for next time.”
4. “Everything solid? You may pick one more. Circle it in pen and write today’s date.”
5. “Cut list: what did you decide today that you’re not doing?”
“Did anybody get a bad answer from the AI today? Write it in your Failure Log.”
Students keep a running list of times the AI was wrong, and they use it all semester.
There is a box on each spec for Mr. Neet’s initials, which he adds only when a student shows him the spec working. Those boxes stay empty today.
The Chromebooks are shared, so the next class must not open someone else’s game. Read the four steps out loud, slowly. They are on the room screen too, on the slide after the Spec Check.
Save (top left) → Home button (right next to Save) → their user name (top right) → Logout (bottom left)
“Save first. Then log out: Home button, your name at the top right, Logout at the bottom left. Then close the Chromebook and put it back.”
“Folders back on the cart. No class next week – it’s Fall Break. Mr. Neet is back on October 22.”
Between classes: collect the pictures and turn them face down again, wipe the whiteboard and redraw the counting strip and four sections, check the folders are back on the cart and every Chromebook is logged out, set the room screen back to its first slide, and the clock to 50.
A quick reference, in case one comes up.
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| GDevelop | The program they build their games in. It runs in a web browser. |
| The AI · the assistant | The AI helper built into GDevelop. The only AI these students use in class – a school rule. |
| Prompt | What you type to tell an AI what you want. |
| Preview | The button that runs their game so they can see whether it works. |
| Sprite | A picture in a game – the player, a coin, a tree. |
| Event | A rule the student wrote: if this happens, do that. |
| Variable | A named box holding a number or a word. Score, lives, time. |
| History | The drop-down next to Save. It lists older versions of the game, so a student can go back to one that worked. |
| Spec | A promise the student made about their game for the semester. Either met or “not yet” – no partial credit, no points off. |
| My Game Contract | The one-page sheet in their folder listing every spec. Pen for promises, pencil for how it is going. |
| Failure Log | Their running list of times the AI got something wrong. |
| Cut list | The list of things they have decided not to build. |
| Scope | How big the game is. “Scope small, finish strong” is a class motto. |
| Seed | Today’s word. The random starting point that makes the same request produce different results. |
| Hallucination | When an AI states something made up, confidently, without knowing it is wrong. |
Yes, and it takes twenty-five minutes. Then it’s your own game for the rest of class.
Not during the activity. Your work time is coming right after.
No. Nothing today is graded. Students are evaluated on their own logs, lists, and a final written reflection – not on whether their game is good.
No, and none can be assigned. This is an elective. Anyone who wants to keep working at home is welcome to; nobody is required to.
Doesn’t matter, cheerfully. The drawing is a measurement, not art. Stick figures and boxes are exactly right.
Not today. The limit is what makes it interesting. (Grades 3–5: five words is already the adjustment.)
Because we’re finding out how much has to be said when the other person can’t ask. If a student notices that asking would help – that is exactly the right observation. Tell them so.
Because a computer can’t ignore its starting point either. That’s the whole experiment.
The honest answer, which the class has already been taught: it predicts what words are likely to come next, based on enormous amounts of text it has seen. It does not look things up, and it does not know whether it is right. Students can usually explain this better than an adult can – ask them to.
School rule, and Mr. Neet agrees with it. Students use only the AI built into GDevelop. Other tools are shown by Mr. Neet, who operates them while students watch.
⭐ No. No personal information – name, address, school, family, or anyone else’s. This is the one rule with no exceptions.
“I don’t know – ask Mr. Neet” is a fine answer. The class is careful about claims on how these tools work, so there is no need to guess.
If you have a minute, a few words on any of these would help him plan the next class.
Thank you for covering today. It is appreciated.