IGDA Education SIG Curriculum Workshop

IGDA Education SIG Curriculum Workshop - Tuesday, March 6, 2007

IGDA Education SIG Curriculum Workshop

Quick LInk to Key Sessions:

Curriculum Framework Roundtables

Curricular Models

Design Workshop

International Case Blasts

R & D Industry Panel

Teaching Methods

Early Bird Discount

Register prior to January 31, 2007 to receive the biggest discount. IGDA Members receive an additional $50 discount.

Links

IGDA Education SIG

Game Developer's Conference

Please bring your laptop/wi-fi card, as this will be a hands on interactive workshop.

Tuesday - March 6th

(Work-in-progress. Final schedule subject to change.)

10:00 AM	R&D Industry Panel Moderator: Katherine Isbister - RPI Panelist: Ian Bogost - Persuasive Games, Jim Dargie- Electronic Arts Jeremy Gordon - Secret Level, John Hopson - Microsoft's Games User Research Group, Doug Whatley - BreakAway Games Find out what leaders and innovators in the game industry have to say about the role of research. Questions we'll pose to the panel include: How they find the time to do research (if they do at all)? What pressing research questions they have and why? What they wish academics were studying that would help them in their work? What are some success stories (and caveats) about incorporating a research agenda into commercial work?
11:15 AM	International Case Blasts Dan Hodgson - University of Northumbria Everybody teaches with a different style, using different methods. Good educators learn from their colleagues' successes and failures. In this session a cast of educators from around the world present their own innovative, interesting and possibly idiosyncratic methods of teaching game design and development in handy snack-sized 5 minute case blasts.
12:30 PM	Working Lunch Roundtables Magy Seif El-Nasr - Penn State In working lunch II, participants will discuss various ways to design a program using the current curriculum framework. Discussion will be focused on typical university constraints within disciplines. For example, a participant can assume the role of a leader trying to implement the framework in his university. Each group will report findings on the IGDA blog. Each group will take this problem and come up with solutions given the specific constraints in the universities/colleges represented by group members in the breakout table. Each group should discuss: Discipline structure: how to offer courses within disciplines and across disciplines Bridging the gap between disciplines Problems for one discipline to talk to another, resistance from different sides Should game programs be in different disciplines or form their own interdisciplinary unit, if so how? How do you see the courses in the framework distributed across disciplines or within what form of interdisciplinary structure do you see them fit best?
2:00 PM	Curricular Models Kurt Squire - UW-Madison Video game studies -- once an anomaly, are now an increasingly accepted field of study and the number of game studies, game design, and game criticism programs proliferate. What are the best practices for studying games? What effective pedagogical models are emerging? How do teachers balance the needs for understanding the technical aspects of the medium with the demands of scholarship? In this session, participants will both better understand the landscape of game studies as well as take away specific strategies for developing game-based curricula. Joel Gonzales will then organize attendees to break out into groups to brainstorm on specific curricular models. Darren Torpey, Beth Aileen Dillon Groups will report back ideas from their brainstorms at the end of the session.
4:15 PM	Town Hall Meeting Susan Gold - EdSIG Chairperson The SIG Chair and the SIG leadership will open the floor up to discus issues that face our community. The SIG would like to increase the understanding and respect for your roles as instructors and scholars within our community. Discussion of future initiatives, governance, vision and growth of the SIG.
6:00 PM	End