Notes from the Games in Education Symposium in Schenectady

As the second speaker in the opening panel, Alex Games talked about 21st century literacy, where the masses no longer rely on having a producer of knowledge who hands down to them the things that they should believe, but now people are driven to figure things out for themselves thanks to computers’ holding the key to almost everything in their lives as well as the ease of information access technology has provided. He also discussed the pattern language and design grammar of games, how it is universal, and alluded to his goal with Gamestar Mechanic, which the attendees were able to further explore in a hands-on workshop.
Peggy Sheehy (metaversedltd.com) presented educators with concrete examples of how to get away from the “sage on the stage” mentality and how to get kids more directly engaged with Linden Lab’s Second Life. She described how Linden Lab provided a secure location for students and background checks for educators, and how the virtual world allowed students to escape social pressures and talk more openly to each other in discussion as well as to talk more to teachers.
This transitioned smoothly into the second talk, entitled ‘Playing Pretend’, and Peggy Sheehy continued was accompanied by Shawna Rosenzweig with Global Kids, Inc. This talk provided more concrete examples for the attendees – Peggy related how some students were brought on to the island and oriented first to help the larger class group become adjusted, and as one of her many class examples, how their science courses build researched inventions in 3D and how they got NASA to donate spaceship models. She discovered teachers would have meetings on the island at night, and that students who were home sick would log in from home because their English class had to give reports that day, and how it was all coordinated with a calendar that students could use to check upcoming assignments as well as ones they might have missed.
Global Kids, Inc., has worked with high school age students in different countries on projects such as I Dig Tanzania, where the participants dug virtual fossils, learned which tools to use on a fossil dig, how to handle the fossils to stabilize them, and later reconstructed the dinosaurs they had discovered. They worked with the Chicago Field Museum as well as professional paleontologists and students in Tanzania, also learning about the culture and geography across the globe. Other projects facilitated by Global Kids included a Darfur awareness project, where ten students from multiple different countries designed an Olympic torch relay meant to highlight the connection between China and Darfur, and “Consent”, where the player takes on the role of an African American male in prison who then has to face the decision of whether or not to go through testing.
After a quick break for lunch, came the Keynote talk, ‘The Right Circumstances for Games in Education’, by Bill MacKenty (www.mackenty.org). He focused on how the right circumstances (game, students, parents, teacher, leaders, support) must be in place for games in education to work, as well as compared and contrasted the merits and roles of edutainment, off the shelf, and serious games. He also placed emphasis on the educators’ responsibilities and skill sets in the task of setting up educational games in their classrooms – classroom discipline, good instructional design, and to ask “what do I want to teach, and how can I get it in game?” rather than “I have a game, how do I teach it?”
As another quick break, the first round of giveaways – games sampled in the hands-on exhibit – were gifted to attendees, and then it was off to workshop sessions with Game Maker and GameStar Mechanic.