Work in progress - Introducing information technology through game design

There is general agreement that the need for computing professionals in the near term will continue to increase, while enrollment in computer science degree programs is decreasing. Many middle school and high school students want to know how to construct their own computer games. The enabling technologies that support game design include many fundamental areas of information technology. The authors offered two summer game camps to attract pre-college students to study computer science at the collegiate level. Middle school and high school aged participants used a game development environment to create original multimedia computer games. Participants experienced the complete game development life cycle. Participants completed an established attitude scale was administered before and after camp attendance to assess the impact of camp activities on student attitudes toward computing and their plans to take future information technology courses. Initial data analyses indicate significant positive student attitude changes toward the study of computing technology.