Games+Learning+Society 10 Conference: Full Schedule

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8:00am

Check-in, Registration, Breakfast

Tuesday June 10, 2014 8:00am - 8:30am
Registration Desk

Delicious Food! Games in Libraries GLS Doctoral Consortium GLS Playful Learning Summit GLS Pre-Conference Events

8:30am

Joint Keynote with NSF CyberLearning Summit and GLS Playful Learning Summit

Introductions by the GLS Playful Learning Co-Chairs, Remi Holden and Rex Beaber.

Opening comments by Kurt Kiefer, Assistant State Superintendent at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Connected Play: Mischievous Cheating for Serious Gaming
Yasmin Kafai & Deborah Fields
The fascination with online environments is coming full circle. What began as a preoccupation with the exotic worlds of kids’ online play in games and virtual worlds can now feed back into our design and research of more ‘everyday’ educational environments, especially as we consider the potential for connected play: online and offline, in-game and out-of-game, formal and informal, between kids, teachers, designers, and researchers. Looking at lessons learned in over a decade of researching kids’ online play, in this talk we consider provocative lessons from cheating, a practice popular in gaming but generally condemned in education. Cheating can be constructive for learning, provoke discussion of critical ethical issues, and raise awareness of the need for rich and not just big or deep data. Looking behind and across the scenes of a virtual world, this talk provides a teasing peek at mischievous learning for serious play.

Conclusion by Jeremy Roschelle.

Speakers

Deborah Fields

Independent Research Consultant & Temporary Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University

Dr. Deborah A. Fields is a Temporary Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences at Utah State University and an independent research consultant. Deborah researches children’s connective learning and identity engagement through designing with digital technologies... Read More →

yasmin kafai

Chair, Teaching Learning & Leadership Division, Universityt of Pennsylvania

Yasmin Kafai is Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a researcher, designer, and developer of online communities and tools (ecrafting.org, stitchtfest.org, and scratch.mit.edu) to promote computational participation, crafting, and creativity across K-16. Book publications include Connected Code, Connected Play, The Computer Clubhouse, Textile Messages, and Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat. Kafai earned a doctorate from Harvard University while working wit... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 8:30am - 9:45am
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Games in Libraries GLS Doctoral Consortium GLS Playful Learning Summit GLS Pre-Conference Events Keynote

8:30am

All Day Track: ARIS Summit [pre-registered attendees only]

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Facilitated by David Gagnon.

Local Games Lab: ABQ
Chris Holden (University of New Mexico)

Jewish Time Jump: New York
Owen Gottlieb (ConverJent)

Explorez
Bernadette Perry (University of Victoria, BC)

Play the Past
Jennifer Sly (Minnesota Historical Society)

Paris Occupé
Terri Nelson (Cal State University, San Bernardino)

ARIT: An experiment in augmented reality interactive theory
Laini Kavaloski, Jon McKenzie (University of Wisconsin - Madison)

Game A Day at the Botanical Garden
Póti Quartiero Gavillon, Cleci Maraschin, Carlos Baum, Renata Kroeff, Raquel Salcedo Gomes (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)

Horror on the Ridges
Seann Dikkers, Rebecca Fischer (Ohio University, Gamingmatter Labs)

School Scene Investigators: The Case of the Mystery Powder
Denise Bressler (Lehigh University)

Boy Scouts Merit Badge Game Design
Susan and Erik Lynch (Boy Scouts of America)

Speakers

Denise Bressler

Education Researcher, Stevens Institute of Technology

Denise is passionate about the potential for learning with mobile technologies. Formerly, Denise worked as an Exhibit Developer and Project Manager at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, NJ. She developed the mobile learning initiative called Science Now, Science Everywhere. Recently... Read More →

Seann Dikkers

Associate Professor, Bethel University

Rebecca Fischer

David Gagnon

Field Day Lab Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Poti Gavillon

Owen Gottlieb

Faculty, RIT MAGIC Center

Owen Gottlieb, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Interactive Games and Media at RIT. He is the the founder and lead researcher at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the RIT Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction, and Creativity (MAGIC) magic.rit.edu/rcp Jewish... Read More →

Chris Holden

Associate Professor, University of New Mexico

Christopher Holden is an Associate Professor at the Honors College of the University of New Mexico. His PhD is in number theory, but his current research focuses on place based game design for learning. He has been doing this since 2006, originally using MIT’s Outdoor AR Engine... Read More →

Laini Kavaloski

Susan Lynch

Terri Nelson

Professor, Cal State, San Bernardino

I've been using gaming for foreign language teaching since before it was "cool" so it's exciting to find like-minded colleagues . My first big project, an email murder mystery, received an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Online Course Award from the Paul Allen Virtual Education... Read More →

Bernadette Perry

INTD PhD student , Department of Computer Science & Department of French, University of Victoria

My research focuses on the gamification of second-language acquisition (specifically FL2) through quest-based learning and augmented reality.

Jennifer Sly

Manager of Business Intelligence, Minnesota Historical Society

Jennifer Sly leads the new Digital Learning and Assessment group at the Minnesota Historical Society. Other projects she has led are the Play the Past and “Reinventing the Field Trip for the 21st Century” projects. For the past 15 years, Jennifer has worked at the intersection... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 8:30am - 4:30pm
Red Gym: On Wisconsin A/B room

All Day Track GLS Playful Learning Summit

10:00am

AM1: Unity Goes to School: Playing with Aesthetics and Mechanics in a High School Gaming Course

Unity Goes to School: Playing with Aesthetics and Mechanics in a High School Gaming Course
Danielle Herro, Patrick Stinnett

With extensive research supporting gaming and game-like environments as opportunities for high-quality, connected learning - via visual literacies, design, logic, reasoning, complex problem solving, systems thinking, and collaboration - it seems logical to offer game design experiences in school. This workshop will provide an overview of a game design course offered to 9-12th grade students focused on the mechanics and aesthetics of designing games. The session will begin with a course overview including how Unity is situated within the curriculum along with two other game design platforms. Student work samples, communication procedures, technical and curricular support, and necessary resources will also be shared. The bulk of the session will center on participating a “mini-design” lesson simulating the scaffolded project students experience using Unity. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer.

Speakers

Danielle Herro

Associate Professor of Digital Media and Learning, Clemson University

I study game-based curricula and learning in K-12 classrooms, teach courses on the potential of games, social media and emerging technologies to promote learning, and most recently have begun large-scale initiatives to move STEAM practices into schools.

Patrick Stinnett

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Class of '24

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

AM2: Critical World Building for Creative Writing, Literature and History Courses

Critical World Building for Creative Writing, Literature and History Courses
Trent Hergenrader

Students often need help understanding how competing social, economic, and political forces influence people’s ideas and affect their decision-making. In the process of critical world building, students collaboratively build a world where they must quantify these aspects and write the world’s metanarrative, including its demographic data and social metrics such as gender equality, race relations, and wealth distribution. Participants in this workshop will complete a condensed version of a related classroom project based on principles of role-playing games (RPGs). Hands-on activities will involve using a wiki to collaboratively create a world and then populating a catalog with items, locations, and characters that exist in that world which is similar to fan-produced wikis for popular videogame series like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer.

Speakers

Trent Hergenrader

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

My primary area of research is using games and gaming in English courses, and more specifically using role-playing games to teach fiction writing. I am an Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Old Madison (West)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

AM3: Learning from Digital Game Design: Developing Digital Literacies for the Creative Classroom

Learning from Digital Game Design: Developing Digital Literacies for the Creative Classroom
Ryan Patton, Luke Meeken

This workshop will highlight strategies and resources for teachers to teach game making to students, encouraging the development of both visual and code-based digital art making skills. Participants will learn how make 2-D video games using GameMaker Lite, a free game creation engine, drawing connections between traditional media artworks and video games through the use of critique and art concepts. Teachers will explore game design elements like systems, mechanics, and play-testing, and related computer science concepts like objects, variables, and debugging, as well as how to present these concepts to younger learners. The workshop will also provide assessment tools for digital media learning in the form of game making within classrooms. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer.

Speakers

Luke Meeken

Ryan Patton

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Inn Wisconsin (West)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

AM4: The Ethers Series: Learning Physics as Play and as Game Design

The Ethers Series: Learning Physics as Play and as Game Design
Kevin Miklasz, Maggie Jaris

We invite you to fall into the beautiful world of fluids, fly through space in zero gravity, and allow the laws of physics to become the rules of gameplay. Based upon the first two games in Iridescent’s Ethers game series, this workshop will explore the potential of games to help players develop critical life skills--problem solving, critical thinking, persistence in the face of failure--while also teaching abstract physics concepts. Workshop participants will experience through gameplay how intuitive understanding of complex concepts can emerge through gameplay. Participants are asked to bring their own laptop or mobile device, and download Ethers games (free) at Iridescentlearning.org or in the app store prior to the session.

Speakers

Maggie Jaris

Kevin Miklasz

Director of Digital Learning, Iridescent

The science research interests of Kevin Miklasz are using physics and engineering to understand why organisms look the way they do. His PhD dissertation is on how size and shape effect the physics of small algae. He currently works for Iridescent as Director of Digital Learning... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Inn Wisconsin (East)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

AM5: The Power of Context over Content

The Power of Context over Content
Todd Wakeman, AJ Webster

The demands of the 21st Century require a different approach from traditional education. In the current paradigm, content is king. Educators and parents are often concerned with coverage of specific topics and attempt to measure the understanding of algorithms and the recall of facts. Rather than force-feeding everyone the same content, we should be creating contexts in which students have opportunities to think, practice skills, take risks, and explore. This workshop which will be a combination of presentation, play and discussion, will target how and why we need to shift our focus from delivering content to creating contexts. We will offer practical advice on implementing this approach in the face of standards-driven school culture.

Speakers

Tedd Wakeman

Educator/Revolutionary, PlayMaker School/GameDesk

An expert teacher at GameDesk's PlayMaker School, Tedd Wakeman has been working with children in education, recreation, and research for two decades. He worked locally with LAUSD, teaching inner-city youth for 13 years, while concurrently developing STEM curriculum for Nike/Eco Educators... Read More →

AJ Webster

Co-Founder, The Sycamore School

Innovator and educator AJ Webster brings more than a decade of classroom experience to Catalyst Education. He has taught science, Latin, language arts, math, and social science. AJ has his MA in educational policy and leadership. He specializes in game-based learning and embraces... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Old Madison (East)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

AM6: Empowering Student and Teacher Making through Games: Institute of Play in Quest Schools

Empowering Student and Teacher Making through Games: Institute of Play in Quest Schools
Brendon Trombley, Shula Ehrlich

This workshop will provide an overview of games and learning; give concrete examples from our work with teachers and students at New York City public school, Quest to Learn; and cover the key components of game-based learning. Participants will see examples of game-based learning in action, play and modify a game that has been developed with teachers and students at the Quest schools, and engage in playful design activities to understand how games are effective tools for student engagement and for building 21st century skills such as complex problem-solving, empathy, collaboration, and creativity.

Speakers

Shula Ehrlich

Lead Game Designer, Institute of Play

Shula Ehrlich is Lead Game Designer at Institute of Play, a New York based non-profit leveraging the power of play for education. She spends much of her time working with teachers at the Institute-founded public school, Quest to Learn, developing learning games and game-like curricula... Read More →

Brendon Trombley

Game Designer, Institute of Play

Brendon Trombley is a game designer, educator, and adventurer living in New York City. His passions involve games, technology, learning, travel, and food, and he tries to mix and match them whenever possible (be careful when combining food and technology!). | | Brendon is a... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Beefeaters

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

10:00am

DPI CLC Facilitators’ Summit [invitation only]

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction 21st Century Community Learning Centers Facilitator Summit
Facilitated by: Gabriella Anton, Stefan Slater, Kurt Squire

The DPI CLC Facilitators’ Summit is by invitation only. If you are a CLC facilitator who worked with GLS’ pilot after-school CyberSTEM program, please register for the Playful Learning Summit and then contact Gabriella Anton (gabby.anton@gmail.com) and Stefan Slater (topsautomatic@gmail.com) to discuss reimbursement and program details.

Speakers

Gabriella Anton

Stefan Slater

New York, NY, United States, Teachers College Columbia University

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 4:00pm
Red Gym: On Wisconsin C room

All Day Track GLS Playful Learning Summit

10:00am

Games in Libraries Day

The Games in Libraries Day is chaired by Meredith Lowe, Rebekah Willet, and Scott Nicholson.

Join your fellow librarians for the first annual Games in Libraries Day, on Tuesday, June 10th in the newly renovated University of Wisconsin-Madison Memorial Union! Games in Libraries Day is a pre-conference for the Games+Learning+Society conference, the premier conference on gaming and learning. This pre-conference event will show you how using games in your library promotes learning and community building for all types of library users. The keynote, lunch, and happy hour are held in partnership with the Playful Learning Summit, a pre-conference for teachers on gaming in the classroom. Meet game-minded professionals from schools and libraries for this inaugural event!

AGENDA:

8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Check-in, Registration, Breakfast

8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Breakfast and Keynote in the Great Hall

10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. SLIS Student Panel
(Jenny Sessions, Casey Ince, Mary Vogt, Karlyn Hougan.)
The panel will speak about board game programming in public libraries, with a special focus on the programs the SLIS grad students put on as the final project for their Gaming in Libraries class this semester.

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Practitioners Panel
Laurie Bartz, YA Librarian at the Hedberg Public Library in Janesville, WI will speak about Hedberg's Super Smash Bros video game tournaments, and making games with MIT's Scratch.

Dr. Deborah Fields, Assistant Professor at Utah State University, will speak about engaging kids (and adults) in some crafting/making projects that involve circuits and programming.

Laura Damon-Moore, Asst. Director of the Eager Free Public Library in Evansville, WI will speak about Minecraft and Sploder programs for libraries.

12:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Lunch on Tripp Deck, followed by an Expo with Coffee & Dessert in the Main Lounge

1:30 – 4:15 p.m. Game Making Workshop with Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University

4:15 - 4:30 p.m. Evaluation and wrap-up

4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Happy Hour in the Arcade with the Playful Learning Summit

Speakers

Scott Nicholson

Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University

Dr. Scott Nicholson is the director and professor of the Game Design and Development program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. He also runs the BGNlab, which focuses on making games to change the world. His specialty is in live-action games, like... Read More →

Rebekah Willett

Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

I currently teach courses on young adult literature, multicultural literature for children and young adults, pedagogy, informational divides, and online participatory cultures. I have conducted research on children’s media cultures, focusing on issues of gender, play, literacy... Read More →

The Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Univesity of Wisconsin-Madison

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 4:15pm
Council Room

Games in Libraries

10:00am

GLS Doctoral Consortium [by application only]

Co-Chaired by Alecia Magnifico and Benjamin DeVane.

Accepted Participants:
Amanda Ochsner
Andrea Gauthier
Breanne Litts
Dodie Niemeyer
Don Davis
Jason Rosenblum
Jonathan Hollister
Lauren Penney
Roberto Razo
Sabrina Connell

Schedule:
8.30 - 10.00 - Playful Learning keynote and breakfast (Great Hall)
10.00 - 10.15 - DC begins w/ Introductions
10.15 -11.50 - Participant presentations
12.00 -1.00 - Job market panel
1.00 -1.30 - Lunch
1.40 - 3.30 - Working groups
3.45 - 4.45 - Publication panel
4.45 & on - DC joins Happy Hour with Playful Learning (Tripp Commons)

Speakers

Benjamin DeVane

Assistant Professor, University of Iowa

Identity & Learning | Computational Thinking | Design & Aesthetics

Alecia Magnifico

Assistant Professor, University of New Hampshire

Tuesday June 10, 2014 10:00am - 4:30pm
Red Gym (South Mezzanine conference room, straight up all the stairs!)

GLS Doctoral Consortium

12:15pm

Lunch

Tuesday June 10, 2014 12:15pm - 1:45pm
Tripp Deck

Delicious Food! Games in Libraries GLS Doctoral Consortium GLS Playful Learning Summit GLS Pre-Conference Events

12:15pm

Playful Learning Expo, Dessert, and Coffee!

Featuring BrainPOP, The Institute of Play, the Working Examples Project, NOVA Labs, the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, Common Sense Media, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and GameDesk.

(And Paul Olson from the GLS Center will be there, and would love to chat about getting our games into your classroom!)

Tuesday June 10, 2014 12:15pm - 1:45pm
Main Lounge

Delicious Food! Games in Libraries GLS Doctoral Consortium GLS Playful Learning Summit GLS Pre-Conference Events

2:00pm

PM1: Leading Game-based Learning

Leading Game-based Learning

Facilitator: Elizabeth King, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Panelists: Danielle Herro (Clemson University), Janice Mertes (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction), Representatives from the Oregon School District, Ellyn Dickmann (UW-Whitewater), Seann Dikkers (Ohio University) and Playful Learning Advisory Board members

This panel discussion will provide insight and inspiration about how education leaders can best support classroom teachers’ use of games for learning. Moderated by Elizabeth King from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, participants on this panel will share their experiences with and perspectives on supporting the integration of digital media and games in classrooms, throughout school buildings, and across entire school districts. Panelists include classroom teachers, scholars, and administrators and leaders at the K-12, post-secondary, and state level.

Speakers

Ellyn Dickmann

Associate Dean, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

- School/community safety | - Network analysis | - Administrators' roles in supporting faculty innovation | - Shifting campus culture to foster innovation

Seann Dikkers

Associate Professor, Bethel University

Danielle Herro

Associate Professor of Digital Media and Learning, Clemson University

Beth King

Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Janice Mertes

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Class of '24

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM2: Iterative Design Process of Curriculum and Games

Iterative Design Process of Curriculum and Games
John Martin, Ryan Martinez

Designing games, like planning curriculum, is an iterative process – both are systems for learning allowing users/players agency to achieve learning. During this workshop, participants will work in groups to create a theme, design a related game and playtest each other’s games and offer feedback. The workshop will conclude with a discussion and breakdown of the iterative process of design. Because of the level of participation needed from conference goers, we require that those attending the session be ready to get creative, collaborate with their peers, and come away from the workshop with a tangible product ready for play and debate!

Speakers

John Martin

Integrating technology to increase learning in higher education in various roles since 1998, John is currently a Senior Teaching & Learning Consultant at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Academic Technology, where he teaches, and develops socioculturally-rich teaching and... Read More →

rmmartinez

UW-Madison

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Beefeaters

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM3: Are All Digital Learning Games Helpful Instructional Tools? How to Find and Use Games that Engage & Educate

Are All Digital Learning Games Helpful Instructional Tools? How to Find and Use Games that Engage & Educate
Christina Oliver, Anne Richards

The Internet is flooded with game-based learning options, many claiming alignment to college- and career-ready standards. How do you know if the digital content you are accessing is going to help your students improve their skills? Participants in this workshop will become acquainted with English/Language Arts learning games to improve student engagement, target reading and writing instruction, connect students to life outside the classroom, and provide real-time data to inform instruction through embedded assessments. Additionally, this session will provide an overview of the research behind effective learning games, and a framework that educators can use as they encounter the hundreds of games being developed and distributed each year. Participants will be given examples of learning games with proven results and have the opportunity to test games using the framework to hone their own curating skills. This workshop is targeted for middle-level. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop computer.

Speakers

Christina Oliver

Chief Program Officer, Classroom, Inc.

Classroom, Inc. is nonprofit that creates Common Core State Standard-aligned literacy learning games that simulate professional careers for middle school students, supported by coaching and training programs for educators. Our blended learning programs combine online gameplay, reading... Read More →

Anne Richards

Vice President of Product Development, Classroom Inc.

Games, storytelling and the intersection of play and learning

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Inn Wisconsin (West)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM4: Game Development Bootcamp for Educators

Game Development Bootcamp for Educators
Dan Magaha, Robert Hoff

Once the exclusive domain of elite programmers, game development has become increasingly democratized due to the rise of visual development tools. Today, anyone with a game idea can create it, and this workshop will prove it, as we will turn educators into game developers. Using the freely available GameSalad Creator toolkit, we'll explore the basics of mobile game design, creation and publishing, and every participant will build a physics-based puzzle game (reminiscent of a famous mobile game involving enraged avians!). Participants should bring their own Macbook (preferred) or Windows 7 laptop.

Speakers

Robert Hoff

Education Program and Support Lead, GameSalad

Dan Magaha

Director of Operations, GameSalad, Inc

Dan Magaha is the Director of Operations of GameSalad, Inc., a software development studio which has democratized the development of games by empowering non-programmers build and publish their dream games. | | A 15-year veteran of the game development industry, Mr. Magaha has... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Inn Wisconsin (East)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM5: It’s Alive! Building a Playful Unit Plan Around a STEM Game

It’s Alive! Building a Playful Unit Plan Around a STEM Game
Ellen Jameson, Justin Trewartha, Marshall Behringer

Whether you want to build a game into a set of lessons, or create a set of lessons around a game, you have a lot of decisions to make in order for your lessons to live and breathe. In this session designed for upper elementary and secondary teachers, we will join forces and lesson plans to create an über-playful game-based curriculum unit from the ground up! In the process, we’ll collectively, address common considerations in lesson planning for games such as time constraints, gameplay session design, developing activities to extend learning outside of the game, infrastructure and access issues, and evaluation and outcomes. Each of the components we make during this session could become a part of your next game-based unit plan.

Speakers

Marshall Behringer

Madison, WI, USA, Filament Games

Marshall is the Community Development & Outreach Specialist at Filament Games. A former educator, he grows and engages with the community of educators and classrooms that Filament works with on a regular basis. He directs user testing and advocates for teacher and learner needs as... Read More →

Ellen Jameson

Learning Specialist, Filament Games

I am a Learning Specialist at Filament Games, and a Visiting Research Associate at Indiana University's Center for Research on Learning and Technology. My research interests include investigating the use of games to facilitate education and discussion around issues in environmental... Read More →

Justin Trewartha

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Old Madison (East)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM6: Explain Yourself!

Explain Yourself!
Michele Vogt-Schuller

This session will showcase a highly adaptable card game that can be modified to accommodate a wide variety of literary, historical, non-fiction, visual and other texts. Participants will experience both game play and explore different examples of content adaptation. The card game itself is the outcome of a large class project in which various versions of this card game have been created, tested, and revised, in large part by the high school students that will be attending the conference to facilitate the session. The card games provided as examples will feature current television shows including Breaking Bad, selected for its high interest level among teens. In addition to high school student facilitation, the workshop will feature members of the Playful Learning Advisory Board discussing the importance of student game design.

Speakers

Michele Vogt-Schuller

Teacher, Proviso Mathematics and Science Academy

I'm interested in learning theory and constructivist/collaborative education. The game I'm developing encompasses rhetoric, disciplinary literacy, critical thinking and creativity. I'm trying to develop more disruptive elements for the game.

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Old Madison (West)

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

2:00pm

PM7: MinecraftEdu

MinecraftEdu
Joel Levin

Do you play Minecraft? Is there a young person in your life who does? Minecraft is one of the most popular games ever with broad appeal to all age groups, genders, and types of gamers. It also happens to be the most versatile teaching tool since the pencil. Are you trying to understand how this phenomenally popular sandbox game can be used in schools, libraries, museums, and more? Then this session is for you! We'll be playing MinecraftEdu, a custom version that thousands of educators have used to harness the power of Minecraft in their classrooms. Join us in this hands-on workshop where participants will learn as they play together. The game is being used at thousands of school all over the world to teach science, art, language, history, and much, much more. Come see how it all works!

Speakers

Joel Levin

TeacherGaming

Joel was a mild mannered, game loving, computer teacher at a private school in New York City until he began using Minecraft in his classroom. He quickly realized that he had unlocked one of the most versatile and engaging educational tools ever. He began collaborating with Mojang... Read More →

Tuesday June 10, 2014 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Main Lounge

GLS Playful Learning Summit Workshop

4:15pm

PLS Evaluation

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Click the "relevant link" button to tell us what you thought of PLS!

Tuesday June 10, 2014 4:15pm - 4:30pm
THE INTERNET

GLS Playful Learning Summit Online Survey

4:30pm

Happy Hour!

Food, beer, and friends in the Arcade!

Tuesday June 10, 2014 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Tripp Commons

Delicious Food! Games in Libraries GLS Doctoral Consortium GLS Playful Learning Summit GLS Pre-Conference Events

8:00am

Registration opens

Wednesday June 11, 2014 8:00am - 9:00am
Annex Room

Registration

9:00am

Breakfast and Keynote

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Opening comments by the VP of Learning Games Network, Kurt Squire.

Society, Learning and Games
Drew Davidson

This is the 10th anniversary of the Games+Learning+Society Conference. As such, it’s an interesting time to look back to see what we have done, but even more, it’s important to look forward and plan on what we should try to achieve. This keynote will take a look at the challenges and successes of GLS, and how our society has learned about games. Throughout, we’ll explore the promise, problems and potential of having societal impact on a large-scale, which I contend will only happen through successful collaborations that include all the parties invested in the process.

Speakers

Drew Davidson

Director, etc@cmu

Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories across texts, comics, games and other media. He is the Director of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carn... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 9:00am - 10:00am
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Keynote

10:00am

Arcade opens for the day

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:00am - 11:59pm
Tripp Commons

Arcade

10:30am

Keynote Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Drew Davidson!

Speakers

Drew Davidson

Director, etc@cmu

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

10:30am

Obligatory Games: The Impact of Social and Political-Economic Contexts on Games in US Classrooms

Obligatory Games: The Impact of Social and Political-Economic Contexts on Games in US Classrooms
Casey O'Donnell, Louisa Rosenheck, Mark Chen, Peter Stidwill

Games designed and developed to be both "good fun" and educational is no longer novel. Increasingly, games are being developed to meet the needs of both teachers and students. However, the various organizations developing these games find themselves enmeshed in a complex ecology of interests placing a variety of demands on those making these games.

Perhaps most importantly, questions surrounding the relationship between games and the U.S. educational system loom large in the minds of both academics and developers. Does something "required" remain a game? To what extent do games in the classroom have a chance to change the total classroom ecology towards affording the learning conditions we associate with well-designed games – interest-driven learning, exploratory probing, an orientation towards mastery not performance, etc.? To what extent do they become coopted by the surrounding institutionalizations as yet another form of analytics and surveillance of students, teachers, and learning outcomes?

Speakers

Mark Chen

Accidental Hero and Layabout, University of Washington Bothell

Mark Chen (NASAGA board member, PhD Education, University of Washington; BA Fine Art, Reed College) is an independent games scholar and part-time professor of interaction design, qualitative research, and games studies at the University of Washington Bothell. He runs http://esotericgaming.com... Read More →

Casey O'Donnell

Assistant Professor, Michigan State University

My research examines the creative collaborative work of videogame design and development. I examine the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in both professional "AAA" organizations and formal and informal "independent" game development communities. My research has spanned... Read More →

Louisa Rosenheck

Ed Tech Designer and Researcher, MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program

Louisa is a Research Manager in the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program. She manages the design, content, and development of educational games and simulations to be used with middle and high school students. She also oversees the research done on these projects exploring how games... Read More →

Peter Stidwill

Executive Producer, Learning Games Network

I create educational games and digital learning products. I'm Executive Producer at the Learning Games Network, a non-profit spin-off of the MIT Education Arcade and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Games+Learning+Society program. I produced the award-winning ethical-thinking... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Beefeaters

Panel

10:30am

Biology

Discussant: Kemi Jona

Build-a-Tree: Parent-Child Gaming in Museum Settings
Krystal Villanosa, Florian Block, Michael Horn, Chia Shen
Build-a-Tree (BAT) is a puzzle game designed to facilitate learning about evolution in museums. BAT asks players to construct phylogenetic trees (known as cladograms) using tokens depicting organisms and traits. Cladograms are a fundamental representation used by scientists to communicate hypotheses about common ancestry and shared trait inheritance. BAT challenges players with seven increasingly difficult levels. To win BAT, players build on what they learn in early levels to complete more complex trees. Visitors play BAT on a multi-touch display with visual tokens that can be independently and simultaneously manipulated. Players arrange tokens to build trees that accurately depict relationships of plants and animals. BAT is the result of an iterative design process in which numerous prototypes were developed and tested over three years. We have begun testing BAT at a natural history museum with parents and children to better understand how gameplay might influence visitor interpretation of museum objects.

Breeding Dragons for Learning Genetics: Redesigning a Classroom Game for an Informal Virtual World
Yasmin Kafai, Cynthia McIntyre, Trudi Lord, Paul Horwitz, Jennifer Sun, Mark Dinan, Daniel Kunka
Connecting learning and playing in virtual worlds inside and outside of schools has been an ongoing challenge. In this paper, we focus on the challenge by combining and leveraging the best of both worlds: the structured and guided activities found in many school-based virtual worlds with the voluntary and social participation of informal virtual worlds. For that purpose, we examine the redesign of an instructional classroom simulation called Geniverse into a virtual world game called Dragons in which players breed dragons in lairs and labs. We report on our design efforts and a five-month long implementation of Dragons in the massive virtual world of Whyville. Our findings focus on the nature of participation and play of over 1,200 online players and their interest in and understanding of genetics. In the discussion, we review what we have learned about redesigning classroom applications for serious gaming and outline further research steps.

Cellvival! The design and evaluation of a game to teach biology
Andrew Jefferson
Cellvival! is a game that attempts to meaningfully translate high school biology content, particularly evolutionary concepts, into engaging game mechanics. It was created for a research project that piloted the game (in the context of specifically developed accompanying lessons) with high school students at 3 schools and tested students before and after the lessons. These pre-post tests assessed the impact on content knowledge as well as deeper understanding and the ability to apply evolutionary reasoning to novel situations. This pre-post data was also collected from students doing a lab on microeveolution and students receiving teachers’ typical classroom instruction on the subject. The game’s design, learning objectives, and production as well as the research design, findings comparing the outcomes of students across the three types of lessons, and implications of these findings are discussed.

Discussants

Kemi Jona

Professor, Learning Sciences & Computer Science, Northwestern University

Designing for and studying free choice learning environments. New methods and technologies for measuring persistence and engagement. STEM/STEAM. @KemiJona

Speakers

Florian Block

Mark Dinan

Michael Horn

Evanston, Illinois, United States, Northwestern University

I'm an assistant professor at Northwestern University with a joint appointment in Computer Science and the Learning Sciences. I direct of the Tangible Interaction Design and Learning (TIDAL) Lab, and my research focuses on the intersection of human-computer interaction and learning... Read More →

Paul Horwitz

Andrew Jefferson

I'm a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, making and testing an educational video game as my dissertation. My background is in cognitive psychology, and I drew on that as well as theories of game design to design Cellvival! a game to teach high school students evolutionary principles... Read More →

yasmin kafai

Chair, Teaching Learning & Leadership Division, Universityt of Pennsylvania

Daniel Kunka

Trudi Lord

Cynthia McIntyre

Chia Shen

Director&Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University

How can useful data visualization, innovative designs and fluid human-display interaction help us to solve social issues including learning, education and health?

Jen Sun

Numedeon, Inc.

Krystal Villanosa

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

10:30am

The Challenge of Game, Learning, and Assessment Integration

The Challenge of Game, Learning, and Assessment Integration
Kristen DiCerbo, Erin Hoffman, Yue Jia, Geneva Haertel, Malcolm Bauer, Robert Mislevy, Shonte Stephenson, Terry Vendlinski, Michael John, John Murray

The goal of this symposium is to present key aspects of the interplay among games, assessments, and learning based on a large-scale game development project that integrates the digital games, learning, and assessment fields. Using examples from the creation of SimCityEDU as illustration, the following four elements involved in this integration will be discussed:

1.The development of a design framework that addresses the challenge of combining game, learning, and assessment goals (i.e., engagement, growth, and measurement).
2.The use of data tools to uncover unexpected relationships and generate hypotheses about relationships between game play and target knowledge, skills, and attributes.
3.The mechanics of psychometric and statistical modeling required to make inferences from non-traditional assessment data.
4.The studies carried out to ensure the game-based measures assess what they claim to assess.

Speakers

Malcolm Bauer

Kristen DiCerbo

Vice President of Education Research, Pearson

Kristen is the Vice-President of Education Research at Pearson, working to integrate learning science research into digital products. Her personal research program centers around game-based assessment, specifically the collaborative design of games as both learning and assessment... Read More →

Geneva Haertel

Erin Hoffman

Yue Jia

Senior Researcher, ETS

Michael John

EA - Electronic Arts

Robert Mislevy

John Murray

Shonte Stephenson

Terry Vendlinski

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Inn Wisconsin

Symposium

10:30am

Well Played: Magic the Gathering

Well Played: Magic the Gathering
Dan Norton

Magic: The Gathering is not a new game, nor is it indie, or even controversial. It is a paper-based card game (although a digital form exists), that involves the purchase, collecting, arranging, and playing of cards against an opponent or opponent who has done the same. The combination of long-term planning (deck-building), chance (card drawing) and tactical strategy (card playing) gives the game a lot of interesting dimensions from a learning game development perspective. In this Well Played session, I hope to connect my experience with Magic: The Gathering with the design and development of learning games.

Speakers

Dan Norton

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Festival Room

Well Played

10:30am

From gamified to game-inspired: Using games in higher ed settings

From gamified to game-inspired: Using games in higher ed settings
Jeff Holmes, Elisabeth Gee, Sasha Barab, Elizabeth Lawley, Anna Arici, Adam Ingram-Goble

This workshop is intended primarily for educators in higher education settings and addresses issues specific to using games in and around higher ed. The workshop will include a brief theoretical foundation, comparisons of different models of game-inspired and game-infused programs, and time to interact with expert practitioners. The focus of this workshop includes conceptualizing and designing game-based curriculum as well as challenges and opportunities unique to higher ed uses of games in support of good learning.

Speakers

Anna Arici

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Anna is a learning scientist and Director of Quest2Teach, designing and researching 3D immersive learning environments for pre-service and in-service teachers. Anna has been researching and creating curriculum for games-based learning for the past dozen years within QuestAtlantis... Read More →

Sasha Barab

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

My work involves the seamless integration of bounded games (where players can fail safely, receive embedded assessment, and have consequentiality in the confines of a fictional world) and larger, flexible 'meta-game' structures and affinity spaces that foster user-driven extensions... Read More →

Elisabeth Gee

Professor, Arizona State University

I'm the Associate Director of the Center for Games & Impact at ASU, and co-directing the Play2Connect initiative with Dr. Sinem Siyahhan at Cal State-San Marcos. I'm interested in gender and gaming, game-based affinity spaces, and intergenerational play.

Jeffrey Brandon Holmes

Assistant Director, Center for the Art and Science of Teaching - Arizona State University

Jeff Holmes is a Founding Graduate Fellow at the Center for Games and Impact at Arizona State University, a PhD student in Rhetoric and Composition in the Department of English, and a life-long gamer. His research focuses on how games demonstrate good principles of teaching outside... Read More →

Adam Ingram-Goble

Director of Innovations, Arizona State University

Dr. Adam Ingram-Goble, is the Director of Innovations at Arizona State University’s Center for Games and Impact. He received his B.S. in Physics from Haverford College, his M.S. in Computer Science from Portland State University, and his Ph.D. in Learning Sciences with a minor in... Read More →

Elizabeth Lawley

Professor, RIT Interactive Games & Media

Social computing. Location-based games. Dubrovnik. My kids.

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Class of '24

Workshop

10:30am

Simple Designs for Complex Goals

Simple Designs for Complex Goals
Brendon Trombley, Shula Ehrlich

In working with teachers and students at New York City public school Quest to Learn, we have identified some best practices for the design and execution of games and game-based learning in the classroom. One of our most impactful discoveries is the use of simple and flexible structures that are adaptable across subject matters and grade levels. These structures empower teachers and students alike, allowing them to create content and modify the design to fit their needs. Join us as we share examples and invite participants to play and modify one of our most successful game-like structures. By workshop's end you'll be equipped with an adaptable framework you can quickly apply to your own work.

Speakers

Shula Ehrlich

Lead Game Designer, Institute of Play

Brendon Trombley

Game Designer, Institute of Play

Wednesday June 11, 2014 10:30am - 1:00pm
Main Lounge

Deep Dive

11:30am

Snack Time!

Wednesday June 11, 2014 11:30am - 12:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

12:00pm

Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Ira Sockowitz.

Speakers

Ira Sockowitz

Executive Director, Learning Games Network

With over 20 years in the public policy arena, I have become focused on advancing the use of technology to create and enhance learning tools that provide all learners-- irrespective of age, ethnicity or income -- with an opportunity to succeed. I see this as the great equalizing force... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

12:00pm

Let’s Prototype: Women at the Intersection of Learning, Games, and Design

Let’s Prototype: Women at the Intersection of Learning, Games, and Design
Facilitator: Amanda Ochsner
Panelists: Elisabeth Gee, Deborah Fields, Yasmin Kafai, Colleen Macklin, Mary-Margaret Walker

GLS Joins the Conversation
There is a cultural shift taking place in the games industry. Each year at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, there is a topic or theme or two that tends to dominate the conversation. In 2011, that topic was free-to-play social games and you couldn’t walk down a hallway in the conference hall without hearing the word Farmville muttered at least six times. In the spring of 2014, that topic was diversity. Recent years in the past have seen a single session at GDC relating to issues of diversity and gender. That session is a small session and there are often grumblings in the hallway, bemoaning the fact that those people are still talking about that stuff and why don’t they just shut up already? This year, however, GDC hosted an entire track of sessions around these topics—the advocacy track—and it was a big deal. Many of these sessions, such as the panel #1ReasonToBe, about developers’ reasons for persisting in a tough industry culture, and Manveer Heir’s talk Misogyny, Racism, and Homophobia: Where Do Video Games Stand? received standing ovations from audiences. This conversation about opening up the industry so that it is a more welcoming place for all aspiring developers to develop their creativity and grow the impact of games has struck a cord, and it is a conversation that is not just being had by underrepresented minorities or academics—newcomers and leaders alike are stepping up to the table with ideas and actions.

With the roundtables and panels on games and diversity gathering so much momentum at the Game Developers Conference in March, we decided to bring the conversation to the Games Learning Society, having a special panel with experts who innovate at the intersections of learning, games, and design. Our community’s unique blend of educators, game developers, academics, and hybrids of any combination of these is the perfect site for tackling some difficult, but essential issue. For example, are there approaches to teaching game design that are more inclusive or which foster greater diversity of ideas? How can educational institutions design introductory classes that are appealing and welcoming to a broad array of students? Can colleges and universities be more effective in providing mentoring opportunities for young developers? How can what we know about learning inform how we arrange design teams and approach the process of game design?

Join Us for Prototyping Through Networking

In the #1ReasonToBe panel at GDC, Colleen Macklin noted that the games industry has the power to tackle the diversity issues that it faces. “We’re designers,” she says, “we’re talking about systemic issues, and we design systems.” Continuing the theme of design, she argued that we need to fix the system: “Let’s infiltrate the established pattern and change it. Let’s start prototyping and making our field a place where we all want to be” (Wawro, 2014). In this session, the GLS community will start prototyping to design the spaces that we want to learn and work in.

We still start by holding a panel session, moderated by Amanda Ochsner, with Colleen Macklin and other well-known speakers joining us as invited panelists. These women are all leaders in our field, doing smart, innovative work to help build a better future for our field. Immediately following this session, we will host a special networking event for the women of the Games Learning Society community and their allies. Each person in attendance will write out on a notecard a single-sentence statement about what they’re going to do, starting that very day, to prototype a better games and learning community. That could be mentoring a young woman at their institution or workplace, or it could be a new, more inclusive approach to game design that is proven to foster diversity and creativity. When making an introduction with someone, participants will swap notecards and start their conversation with their proposed contribution. Participants will also be encouraged to tweet their statements using our special hashtag: #GLSprototype.

Speakers

Deborah Fields

Independent Research Consultant & Temporary Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University

Elisabeth Gee

Professor, Arizona State University

yasmin kafai

Chair, Teaching Learning & Leadership Division, Universityt of Pennsylvania

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

Colleen Macklin is a game designer, professor in of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design, and founder/co-director of PETLab (Prototyping Education + Technology Lab), a lab that develops games for learning and social engagement. PETLab projects include disaster-preparedness... Read More →

Amanda Ochsner

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California

Mary-Margaret Walker

Mary-Margaret Network, Mary-Margaret Network

I started in game development 25 years ago at Origins Systems and continued on to The 3DO Company. After six years in game development, I became a recruiter. My primary focus is on career development and building companies using soft skills, social media and technology tools where... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Beefeaters

Panel

12:00pm

Mobile History Games: Challenges, Frameworks, and Design Principles

Mobile History Games: Challenges, Frameworks, and Design Principles
Owen Gottlieb, Jim Mathews, Karen Schrier, Jennifer Sly

This panel covers nearly a decade of work in mobile and location-based history games, and reflects on the key questions, learnings, and challenges in this emergent field. Using location-based mobile technologies to explore historic moments can be powerful: designers and educators can access narratives from the past, in the places that they occurred, and can potentially disrupt those narratives to create new approaches to the past and its significance for the present. As we investigate this “history” of mobile history games, we will consider how mobile history gaming has evolved over the past ten years, its failures and successes, and how we might collectively conceive its future. The panel draws on specific mobile history games: Schrier’s Reliving the Revolution (created at M.I.T. in 2004-5), Mathews’ Dow Day and Up River, Gottlieb’s Jewish Time Jump: New York, and Play the Past at the Minnesota Historical Society (Sly).

Speakers

Owen Gottlieb

Faculty, RIT MAGIC Center

Jim Mathews

Field Day Lab, Field Day Lab

Jim Mathews is a teacher, researcher, and designer, exploring the intersection of place, design, and civic engagement.

Karen Schrier

Assistant Professor, Marist College

I teach interactive media and game design, and my expertise is in ethics, learning, and games. I am also the director of the Play Innovation Lab at Marist College. I look forward to meeting everyone!

Jennifer Sly

Manager of Business Intelligence, Minnesota Historical Society

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Inn Wisconsin

Panel

12:00pm

Failure, Identification, & Intentionality

Discussant: Sasha Barab

Making people fail: Failing to learn through games and making
Breanne Litts, Dennis Ramirez
In traditional formal learning environments, students typically have two options: succeed or fail. Though there may be real-world merit to this type high-stakes system, we suggest that there is more to learning than a simple dichotomous outcome. In this paper, we leverage two areas of educational reform, games and making, to demonstrate a need to broaden our definition of failure and reconceptualize it as an integral part of the learning process. Rather than stigmatizing failure as a detrimental endpoint to learning, we discuss how these domains (games and making) expect and design for failure as part of the mastery process. We offer implications for learning and assessment with the hope of sparking a conversation among policymakers, educators, and designers of learning environments.

The Effects of Avatar-based Customization on Player Identification in Extended MMO Gameplay
Selen Turkay, Charles Kinzer
Games allow players to perceive themselves in alternate ways in imagined worlds. Player identification is one of the outcomes of gameplay experiences in these worlds and has been shown to affect enjoyment and reduce self-discrepancy. Avatar-based customization has potential to impact player identification by shaping the relationship between the player and the character. This mixed method study aims to fill the gap in the identification literature by examining the effects of avatar-based customization on players’ identification with their characters in a massively multiplayer online game, Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO). Participants (N = 66) played LotRO either in customization or in no-customization groups for about ten hours in four sessions over two weeks in a controlled lab setting. Data were collected through interviews and surveys. Results showed both time and customization positively impacted players’ identification with their avatars. Self-Determination Theory is used to interpret results.

Project TECHNOLOGIA: A Game-Based Approach to Understanding Situated Intentionality
Stephen Slota, Michael Young
By better understanding the way game mechanics influence student learning and interaction, the educational community may begin to isolate the useful elements of game-based coursework that move beyond so-called ‘content gamification’. However, approaching that goal requires greater attention paid to the deeply situated question: “What is the interaction between player intentionality, an instructionally-relevant game, and student outcomes?” To illuminate future directions for game-based learning theory and practice, the authors utilized mixed methods data collection to analyze the role of individual intentions in a dual text-based alternate reality/roleplaying game, Project TECHNOLOGIA. Preliminary findings suggest that well-guided player action may be the biggest contributor to emergent student intentions for learning in an ARG/RPG environment, and game narrative may be at least as important to the long-term fidelity of a game-based learning program as the game’s other mechanics.

Discussants

Sasha Barab

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Speakers

Charles Kinzer

Breanne Litts

Doctoral Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dennis Ramirez

Technical Director, USC IMGD, Videogame Researcher

Stephen Slota

Co-Founder, The Pericles Group, LLC

Steve (@steveslota) is an instructional design specialist and game design scientist at the University of Connecticut Health Center and a co-founder of The Pericles Group, LLC. He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology: Cognition, Instruction, & Learning Technologies and has worked... Read More →

Selen Turkay

Harvard University

Michael Young

Profesor, University of Connecticut

A situated cognitive view of learning on-the-fly in video game environments, through rich narratives, assessed through card play and understood as social participation, with an ecological psychology flare.

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

12:00pm

Start with the guts, go for the head: A Well-Played paper on The Walking Dead

Start with the guts, go for the head: A Well-Played paper on The Walking Dead
Kenneth Rosenberg

This paper is meant to serve as a close reading of the dialog system in The Walking Dead (2012). Specifically, it explains how the developers grafted principles of good learning onto the ethical dilemmas written into the game’s narrative. By reviewing the literature on games and learning, media enjoyment, and moral judgment, it is shown that the game’s dialog system fosters reflective awareness of moral agency. The mechanics of the dialog system rely on moral intuitions for quick choices, but the branching-path narrative and episodic design encourage reflection and development of moral reasoning skills. This is explicated further in a series of examples. Then, this learning is analyzed in relation to more traditional teaching goals. The paper concludes with suggestions for future games in this vein, as well as applications for society.

Speakers

Kenneth Rosenberg

Associate Instructor, Indiana University

I am interested in games which have mechanics that involve ethical decision-making, when and how players morally engage with narratives, and whether games can be used to teach reflective practice of moral agency.

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Festival Room

Well Played

12:00pm

Building a foundation for impactful work – a design jam

Building a foundation for impactful work – a design jam
Jolene Zwyica, Courtney Francis, Anna Roberts

This workshop isn’t like most conference workshops. You won’t be poking at something we created, prototyping, or creating a hypothetical solution to a random problem. Instead, it’s an opportunity for you to think about and refine your own work.

Do you have a promising idea or a project-in-progress? Are you wondering how to make it a success? This design jam will help you dig into your work - answering the questions that help grow ideas and games that impact. It’s an opportunity to get better at what you do, through strategizing, clarifying ideas, and integrating new perspectives. In this session, you’ll focus on what you are(and are not!) trying to create, as you refine your audience and stakeholders, vision and goals and uncover your project’s unique path to success.

Speakers

Courtney Francis

Outreach Manager, Working Examples

Anna Roberts

Director, Working Examples, Working Examples

Anna Roberts is the Director of Working Examples. Her background in marketing and management strategy was gained over a decade working in design industries and through many years of academic study. She loves design process and the people who bring innovative things life. At Working... Read More →

Jolene Zywica

Community Manager & Researcher, Working Examples

Wednesday June 11, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Class of '24

Workshop

1:00pm

Lunch

Wednesday June 11, 2014 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

1:00pm

Networking Event: Let’s Prototype: Women at the Intersection of Learning, Games, and Design

Join the continuing conversation from the Panel Session over lunch! #GLSprototype

Speakers

Deborah Fields

Independent Research Consultant & Temporary Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University

Elisabeth Gee

Professor, Arizona State University

yasmin kafai

Chair, Teaching Learning & Leadership Division, Universityt of Pennsylvania

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

Amanda Ochsner

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California

Allison Salmon

Mary-Margaret Walker

Mary-Margaret Network, Mary-Margaret Network

Wednesday June 11, 2014 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Networking

2:30pm

Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Brendon Trombley.

Speakers

Brendon Trombley

Game Designer, Institute of Play

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

2:30pm

Ghost Stories from Learning Game Design: Surprises: Good outcomes we weren’t expecting and things we’ll know to worry about next time.

Ghost Stories from Learning Game Design: Surprises: Good outcomes we weren’t expecting and things we’ll know to worry about next time.
Bert Snow, Scot Osterweil, Jason Haas, Peter Stidwill, David Gagnon

Last year we hacked the Fireside Chat format somewhat and gathered a group of practicing learning-game designers to tell “ghost stories” from their experiences, and then asked our audience to join in. In all, close to 20 designers told interesting (and useful stories, which we also collected. We’d like to continue the project this year, taking on the theme of Surprise: looking at unexpected serendipitous discoveries during the design process, and also unforeseen difficult issues that we’ll hopefully learn to look out for. We’ll aim to host a lively discussion of practitioners – telling tall tales, sharing wisdom (and hairy moments) from the work.

Speakers

David Gagnon

Field Day Lab Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jason Haas

Cambridge, MA, United States, Scheller Teacher Education Program

Jason is a Research Assistant and PhD candidate in The Education Arcade and the Center for Mobile Learning in the MIT Media Lab. He is also an Early Career Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Spencer New Civics Education Program.His research focuses on designing... Read More →

Scot Osterweil

Creative Director, MIT Education Arcade

Scot Osterweil is Creative Director of the Education Arcade in the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He has designed award-winning games in both academic and commercial environments, focusing on what is authentically playful in challenging academic subjects. Designs include the... Read More →

Bert Snow

Vice President, Design, Muzzy Lane Software

I lead design at Muzzy Lane, where for the last decade we have been working on design and production of a wide variety of game-based learning projects as well as technology to power them. I'm interested in research that relates to this work, including game-based assessment as well... Read More →

Peter Stidwill

Executive Producer, Learning Games Network

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Inn Wisconsin

Panel

2:30pm

Gameful Approaches to Course Design

Discussant: Seann Dikkers

Multiple Paths, Same Goal: Exploring the Motivational Pathways of Two Distinct Game-Inspired University Course Designs
Stephen Aguilar, Caitlin Holman, Barry Fishman
We explore gameful design in two large university courses: one offered within a social science discipline, and another offered within a school of information. Each course was designed by its instructor to mirror the motivational affordances found in video games, and while the foci of the gameful elements within each course’s grading system were distinct, both systems align with some or all of the three pillars of Self-Determination Theory (SDT): support for autonomy, belonging, and competence. We employ path analysis to understand the direct and mediated relationships among variables that measured students’ perceptions of the grading system’s features, and the adaptive outcomes associated with gameful course designs. Results indicate that both courses have similar path structures defined by positive relationships between grading system features, the perceptions of those features, and the adaptive outcomes. We conclude with design implications for would-be gameful course designers.

Gamification for Online Engagement in Higher Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial
David Leach, Brandon Laur, Tina Bebbington, Jilliane Code, David Broome
A randomized controlled trial was used to test if gamification tools can increase engagement and improve learning outcomes in a blended (online and in-class) second-year university course. Students divided into control and experimental groups accessed separate course management systems (CMS). On the gamified site, students earned badges and points for online activity and showed increases (versus control) in the personalization of online avatars; a doubling of visits to the CMS; and a reduction by 1.3 days in the time before deadline to complete weekly blog assignments. Female students used the gamified site more than males. In a post-class survey, 82% of students believed gamification was an effective motivation tool. However, there was no evidence of improved learning outcomes on graded assignments. This trial provides evidence that gamification can offer incentives for online activity and socializing but, on its own, may have little impact on quantifiable learning outcomes.

“Gradequest strikes Back” – The development of the second iteration of a gameful undergraduate course
Bob De Schutter
The use of game design techniques in a non-gaming context - or ‘gamification’ - offers the promise to make education more motivating and more enjoyable to students. While some best practices for the approach have emerged, the actual application of game design techniques in a class room still remains an experimental and uncertain endeavor for an instructor. This paper reports on the design of the second iterations of an undergraduate course (Ni1 = 17, Ni2 = 20) that incorporates a variety of game design techniques through an online application named ‘Gradequest’. The first iteration of the course was evaluated using a questionnaire, a focus group session and a teacher’s log, which led to a number of significant design changes. The paper discusses the expectations for the evaluation of these changes, as well as how other courses could learn from this design research project.

Discussants

Seann Dikkers

Associate Professor, Bethel University

Speakers

Stephen J. Aguilar

Ph.D. Candidate, ABD & Visiting Scholar, University of Michigan / UC Irvine

I am an ABD in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan, and research the design, efficacy, and motivational implications of learning analytics applications. Specifically, I am interested in how representations of achievement influence students' academic motivation and... Read More →

Tina Bebbington

David Broome

Jillianne Code

Assistant Professor & Co-Director Technology Integration and Evaluation (TIE) Research Lab, University of Victoria

Barry Fishman

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Gameful learning, GradeCraft, motivation, higher education

Caitlin Holman

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Brandon Laur

David Leach

Chair, Department of Writing; Director, Technology & Society Minor, University of Victoria

Interested in gamification, digital publishing & journalism, augmented reality, simulation games, creative nonfiction, hyper-literature and other interactive media. Director of the Interdisciplinary Minor in Technology & Society at the University of Victoria.

Bob De Schutter

Oxford, Ohio, United States, Miami University

I'm a designer, researcher and teacher. My research interests are game design, the older audience of digital games, and the use of games for non-entertainment purposes.

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Beefeaters

Paper Presentations

2:30pm

Innovating Assessment

Discussant: Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Learning Analytics for Educational Game Design: Mapping Methods to Development
V. Elizabeth Owen
Big data in education (c.f. U.S.DoE, 2012) has fostered emergent fields like educational data mining (Baker & Yacef, 2009; Romero & Ventura, 2010) and learning analytics (Siemens & Long, 2011). Simulations and educational videogames are obvious candidates for the application of these analytic methods (Gee, 2003; Steinkuehler, Barab, & Squire, 2012), affording big data situated in meaningful learning contexts (Mislevy, 2011; Shute, 2011; Clark et al., 2012). In design of these educational games, telemetry-based analytics for core design, alpha usertesting, and final-stage adaptive play design plays a key role in optimizing learner experience. This paper maps a framework of learning analytics methods to learning game development phases – from core data structures, to bug killing, to customized, automatic scaffolding design. Leveraging these powerful analytic tools of visualization, association mining, and predictive modeling throughout the design process is key to supporting players in a user-adaptive, engaging play experience optimized for learning.

The Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and the Potential of Digital Game-Based Learning and Assessment
Eric Tucker
Game-based learning and assessment have emerged as promising areas of innovation that could inform and enhance the provision of personalized learning at scale. This paper presents promising practices in the emerging field of technology-enhanced, game-based educational assessment. We examine recent developments in the field and present interviews and case studies to illuminate potential paths along which game-based assessment might evolve. We aim to increase understanding of how game-based assessment could become an integral component of assessment practices and systems, and we encourage the game and assessment industries and advocates to develop game-based assessment products with the potential to enhance meaningful accountability and to inform teaching and learning. We seek to advance games, learning, and assessment as an emerging field and to suggest that game-based assessment may hold relevance for broader conversations about next generation assessments, particularly those aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Game Design and Player Metrics for Player Modeling in Adaptive Educational Games
Justin Patterson, Aroutis Foster, Jichen Zhu
As data-driven information technology develops, the potential of adaptive educational games becomes increasingly evident. However, much about how to design and develop adaptive learning games is largely not well-understood. In this paper, we present our approach for designing game mechanics and player metrics toward player modeling, necessary steps toward adaptive educational games. Through our on-going Avian project, we demonstrate how we design gameplay activities to support learners of different player types and design player metrics to capture their behavior patterns for player modeling. We believe that the approach behind our game design can be applied in other adaptive educational games that uses player modeling. We also discuss our future plans to player modeling and the evaluation of our approach.

Discussants

Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Director, EdGE at TERC

I direct a team of game designers, researchers, and learning scientists who live and work on the edge of science and play.

Speakers

Aroutis Foster

Drexel University

Elizabeth Owen

Director, Learning & Data Science, Age of Learning, Inc.

Elizabeth Owen holds a PhD in Digital Media (School of Education) from UW-Madison, focused on game-based learning analytics. Currently the Director of Learning and Data Science at Age of Learning, she's committed to optimizing adaptive learning systems through applied machine learning... Read More →

Justin Patterson

Co-Founder, Ready Set Whoa

Eric Tucker

Jichen Zhu

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

2:30pm

Creeping Systems: Dota 2 and Learning In an e-Sport

Creeping Systems: Dota 2 and Learning In an e-Sport
Chris Georgen, Sean Duncan

In this "well played" analysis, we look in depth at Valve Software's Dota 2, a premier MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) and e-sport (electronic sport). Focusing on the relationships between the game's interlocking and complex systems, we posit that Dota 2 provides an interesting case of multiplayer game that can foster systems thinking. Additionally, we address how the "e-sport" framing might allow us to better understand how competitive performance plays a role in driving players to the game, and assisting players in improving their performance. We argue that an emphasis on "e-sports and learning" may yield new connections between our understanding of learning and a consideration of games as social, cultural, and economic systems.

Speakers

Sean Duncan

Assistant Professor, Indiana University

Chris Georgen

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Festival Room

Well Played

2:30pm

Playtesting games: Iterating failures to success

Playtesting games: Iterating failures to success
Mark Chen, Ellen Jameson, Marshall Behringer, & Cadre 19

This workshop will provide hands-on experience with game design’s playtesting cycle (cf. Fullerton, 2014). Participant-players will playtest tabletop and digital games in progress, providing valuable feedback to participant-designers while also learning and reflecting on the playtesting process.

To fit in the one-hour format, the workshop will consist of two 30-minute playtesting cycles, each including time for playing (20-25 min) and time for structured feedback (5-10 min). If the workshop is granted more time, each additional 30 minutes allows for one more cycle. Thirty minutes is a rough estimate, however. Some games may be much shorter than 20 minutes, allowing for more players to rotate through their playtests. Likewise, some games may take longer, and we will attempt to accommodate designers who wish to hold one long playtest.

Speakers

Cadre 19

Marshall Behringer

Madison, WI, USA, Filament Games

Mark Chen

Accidental Hero and Layabout, University of Washington Bothell

Ellen Jameson

Learning Specialist, Filament Games

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Class of '24

Workshop

2:30pm

Game Design and Production Workshop

Game Design and Production Workshop
Facilitated by Ben Sawyer.

Speakers

Ben Sawyer

Co-Founder, Digitalmill

Games for Health

Wednesday June 11, 2014 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Main Lounge

Deep Dive

3:30pm

Snack Time!

Wednesday June 11, 2014 3:30pm - 4:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

4:00pm

Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire.

Speakers

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Constance Steinkuehler

Speaker, University of California-Irvine & HEVGA

Constance Steinkuehler is a Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she investigates cognition and learning in multiplayer videogames in domains including literacy, scientific reasoning, mathematical reasoning, computational literacy, collective problem... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

4:00pm

Anatomy of a Learning Game: From Design to Development to Distribution

Anatomy of a Learning Game: From Design to Development to Distribution
Jen Groff, Leigh Hallisey, Allisyn Levy, Anne Richards, Heather Robertson

Developing a learning game means bringing together a diverse set of viewpoints, talents, and priorities. The list of “must haves” is lengthy: determining technical requirements; developing compelling and relevant curricula; maximizing the potential of embedded assessments and adaptability; delivering great user experience; reaching an often over-saturated audience; and implementing the game in its intended market.

This panel brings together the perspectives of five individuals who focus on different areas of this process, including an assessment expert, a developer, a publisher, a distributor, and a classroom teacher to share their experiences through the prism of their collaborative work on an innovative new learning game, Classroom Inc’s After the Storm.

Speakers

Jen Groff

Leigh Hallisey

Creative Director, FableVision

Allisyn Levy

VP, GameUp, BrainPOP

Since joining BrainPOP in 2007, Allisyn Levy has played an integral role in the creation, launch, and continued development of BrainPOP Educators, our online professional community. Now, as Vice President, GameUp, she leads outreach efforts for BrainPOP's online learning games portal... Read More →

Anne Richards

Vice President of Product Development, Classroom Inc.

Games, storytelling and the intersection of play and learning

Heather Robertson

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Inn Wisconsin

Panel

4:00pm

Massiveness in Educational Games

Massiveness in Educational Games
Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, Dan Norton, Joel Levin

Many genres of commercial games have social elements where many players play at once and have various types of interactions. A few projects have integrated this type of massiveness into educational games as well. There are many benefits to this design element such as the ability to collect large amounts of data, access to large pools of collaborators, potential to find mentors, and a "live" feel to the game world. However, there are also drawbacks in the amount of infrastructure and resources needed to get massive games up and running. This panel will discuss the value of massiveness in educational games and whether it's worth the resources to build them, drawing on current examples of educational projects.

Speakers

Eric Klopfer

Professor, MIT STEP/TEA

Dr. Eric Klopfer is Professor and Director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade at MIT. Klopfer’s research focuses on the development and use of computer games and simulations for building understanding of science and complex systems. His research explores... Read More →

Joel Levin

TeacherGaming

Dan Norton

Scot Osterweil

Creative Director, MIT Education Arcade

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Beefeaters

Panel

4:00pm

Changing Perspectives and Attitudes

Discussant: James Paul Gee

Political Agenda: A cognitive game for political perspective taking
Matthew Easterday, Selwa Barhumi, Yanna Krupnikov
How might we use games to teach citizens political perspective taking? The first phase of this design-based research project surveyed 187 undergraduate students and found relatively poor political perspective taking abilities. The second phase of the project designed an educational game for political perspective taking and used a single-group pre/post design to test the game with 14 social policy students and found that the game was engaging but did not promote learning. The third phase of the project describes the design of a game with an embedded intelligent tutor that provides the sort of step-level feedback needed for teaching reasoning on complex skills. This work argues that we can design effective and engaging civics games by: (a) teaching political perspective taking through moral foundations theory, (b) using fantasy environments that ask players to predict policy positions, and (c) using embedded intelligent tutors.

Project NEO: The effect of a science game to promote STEM learning by changing attitudes and skillsets of preservice teachers
Richard Van Eck, Mark Guy, Robert Brown, Scott Brewster, Austin Winger
The number of STEM majors needed to meet the expected needs of our future workforce is expected to grow, yet fewer students are choosing to major in STEM areas, and those who are may be underprepared by current school curriculum. While innovative solutions like video games in middle school STEM areas are critical, solutions may also need to involve elementary school preservice teachers (PSTs). Research shows that PSTs are underprepared, however, and that their students do not master fundamental skills needed for middle school. This NSF-supported project developed and tested the first of several planned modules of a video game based on the Next Generation Science Standards. Results suggest that PSTs who play the video game demonstrate improved science content knowledge. The study also found that PSTs had positive attitudes toward video games as instructional tools. Implications for PST education relating to games and science education are discussed.

Designing Beyond the Game: Leveraging Games to Teach Designers about Interaction, Immersion, and Ethical Perspective
David Simkins
This paper discusses a course developed to explore contextual ethics and critical ethical reasoning through study of the design of a popular, open world, sandbox role playing game. This work is based on a course centered on Elders Scrolls 5: Skyrim, offered spring 2012. Throughout the course, students played about 10 hours per week and kept a journal of their play, class time was spent discussing readings about the social context represented in the game, as well as ethical theory, and the practice of game and role play design.This paper offers a framework for other instructors in how one might use an integrated approach to exploring game design and humanities in a way that enhances student learning of both.

Speakers

Selwa Barhumi

Scott Brewster

Robert Brown

Matthew Easterday

Richard Van Eck

Mark Guy

Yanna Krupnikov

David Simkins

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

David is fascinated by the potential of games, particularly role playing as a tool for facilitating and encouraging learning. He is also fascinated by the constraints and affordances of different games as tools for learning. Fortunately, he is ale to study games, write about games... Read More →

Austin Winger

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

4:00pm

Well Played: Religious Experience in 'Journey' and 'Final Fantasy X'

Well Played: Religious Experience in "Journey" and "Final Fantasy X"
Kyrie Eleison Caldwell

This paper closely analyzes excerpts of two video games, "Final Fantasy X" and "Journey," to demonstrate video games’ affordance of interactive, transformative experience. The analysis applies humanist methods of inquiry and frameworks from game studies to compare mechanics, audiovisual spaces, and diegetic progression in games with theories and examples of ritual and sacred space in the real world. If presented, the paper would offer such analysis through live gameplay in order to illustrate the medium’s unique mergence of form, content, and interaction.

Speakers

Kyrie Eleison H. Caldwell

Graduate Student (Master's), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I am a master's candidate in Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I work in the MIT Game Lab and The Education Arcade. My current research interests lie in intersectional representation, gender, and affect in games, and my background is in... Read More →

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Festival Room

Well Played

4:00pm

Real-Time Data Analysis of Live Gameplay Using Econauts

Real-Time Data Analysis of Live Gameplay Using Econauts
Mark Stenerson, Allison Salmon, Shannon Harris, Matthew Berland, Richard Halverson, Kurt Squire

The GLS Center and The Learning Games Network will host a live demonstration of a GLS PlaySquad. During this session, a group of children will play Econauts, a multiplayer real-time strategy iPad game about human impact on the environment. While players are engaging with the game, live data about their in-game actions will be collected, aggregated, and displayed using the GLS Center’s ADAGE data collection platform. After the initial play session, the children will discuss their gameplay experiences with the researchers, developers, and subject-matter experts directly involved with the production of Econauts and then play the game a second time. In the latter half of the session, time will be allotted for observers to discuss topics such as the outcomes of the game session, the game development process, and the data collection system with researchers and developers.

Speakers

Matthew Berland

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Richard Halverson

Shannon Harris

Allison Salmon

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Mark Stenerson

Madison, WI, United States, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Wednesday June 11, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Class of '24

Workshop

5:00pm

Posters Session & Reception

Come join our Massively Multiplayer In-Person Poster Session (MMIPPS)—with a delicious dinner and open bar—ideal for those who wish to engage in informal, face-to-face discussions about their research with colleagues and other conference attendees. Don't forget to vote for your favorite poster!

Poster Curator: Gabriella Anton

Simulation to teach concepts of evolution: The Finger-Painting Fitness Landscape Application
Anya Johnson, Barbara Johnson

We are(n’t) the champions: Gamer Identity & Failure
Dennis Ramirez, Sean Seyler, Kurt Squire, Matthew Berland

The empty comfort of vanity: Assessing the effectiveness of an interactive game to increase skin cancer prevention outcomes
Lien Tran, Nicholas Carcioppolo, Sophia Colantonio, Clayton Ewing, Katharina Lang, David Beyea, Jennifer Beecker

Mobile-Enhanced Field Research: BioCore Plant Identification
David Gagnon, John Martin, Seth McGee, Breanne Litts, Justin Mouller, Nick Heidl

Take It All Remix: Engaging Students in Social Psychology Concepts
Jessica A. Stansbury, Geoffrey D. Munro

Socioeconomic Pong: A Social Impact Game about Inequality
Naomi Rockler-Gladen, Matthew Taylor

Developing Argumentation Skills through Game-Based Assessment
Yi Song, Jesse Sparks, James Wyman Brantley, Tanner Jackson, Diego Zapata-Rivera, Maria Elena Oliveri

A framework for understanding student perceptions of academic writing connections in fandom spaces
Dodie Niemeyer, Hannah Gerber

Using a level editor’s clickstream data as a performance-based assessment tool
Kevin Miklasz

Improving Learning and Assessment Outcomes through Automated Detection of Engaged and Disengaged Behavior in Game Based Assessments
Shonte Stephenson, Ryan Shaun Joazeiro de Baker, Seth Corrigan

Arctic Saga: A Game of Negotiation and Environmental Conscientiousness
Christian de Luna, Chris Vicari, Tom Toynton, Joey Lee

EcoChains: A Multiplayer Card Game to Teach Food Webs, Climate Change and Systems Thinking
Joey Lee, Stephanie Pfirman, Thomas Toynton, Eduard Matamoros

Iterative Design Process for Building a Successful Augmented Reality (AR) Game
Betsy McCarthy, Yvonne Kao, Iulian Radu, Sara Atienza, Michelle Tiu

Analyze This! Examining Mobile Augmented Reality Gameplay Through Analysis of End-User Data
Judy Perry, Fidel Sosa, Lisa Stump

How Kids Inform the Development of a Science Game
Martha Han, Christine Bediones, Katerina Schenke, Cathy Tran

Game Genre and Computational Literacy: Situating design and programming practice with Kodu
Benjamin DeVane, Cody Steward, Kelly Tran, Brian LaPlant

Greenify: A Mobile Platform to Motivate Sustainability via Game Mechanics and Self-Determination
Ahram Choi, Woonhee Sung, Jung-Hyun Ahn, Rafael Kern, Joey Lee

Geniverse: Science practices in a web-based game environment for high school genetics
Frieda Reichsman, Chad Dorsey, Trudi Lord

“Raid the fridge!”: Promoting healthy eating habits through the game Monster Appetite
Maria Hwang, Pantiphar Chantes, Mark Santolucito

Slides lead to Flips: Developing early spatial reasoning
David Hatfield, Solomon Liu, Dylan Arena

Touching Triton: A New Direction for Biomedical Serious Games
Adam Hott, Kelly East, Neil Lamb

No budget, no experience, no problem: Creating a library orientation game for freshman engineering majors
Kelly Giles

Solving the Hard Problem of Educational Video Game Design with Modeling Instruction
Eric Keylor

Game Design and their Toolkits as Vehicles for Expression
Chris Holden, Gianna May

Science Game Jam: How 48 hours impacted scientists and developers and produced 6.5 serious game prototypes
Audrey Aronowsky, Robert Lockhart

Games for Climate Change Education: Opportunities and Future Directions
Jason Wu, Joey Lee

Designing a game-inspired classroom: Videogames as models of good teaching
Jeff Holmes

Water+: Educational game based on system thinking
Jenny Kim, Yichao Guo, Xiuyuan Li, Simeng Yang, Mike Christel, Salvador Barrera, Janis Watson, Kylie Peppler
Presented by Samantha Collier and Matthew Champer

Digital Learning Design Lab
Michael Donhost, Chris Standerford

Getting Started With Playful Learning
Rex Beaber, Jen Groff, Remi Holden, Beth King, Peter Stidwill

Instructing Fear: Behaviorism in Limbo
Salvatore Papa, Bob De Schutter

Speakers

Jung-Hyun Ahn

Dylan Arena

Co-founder and Chief Learning Scientist, Kidaptive, Inc.

I've spent my life learning, playing, and helping people learn by playing. At Kidaptive, we create playful educational experiences for kids built upon a comprehensive early-learning curriculum and assessment framework. What I'm passionate about is extending that work to support early... Read More →

Audrey Aronowsky

Sara Atienza

Research Associate, WestEd

Ryan Baker

Salvador Barrera

Rex Beaber

Christine Bediones

Jennifer Beecker

Matthew Berland

University of Wisconsin-Madison

David Beyea

James Wyman Brantley

Assessment Developer, Educational Testing Service

Nicholas Carcioppolo

Pantiphar Chantes

Ahram Choi

Teachers College, Columbia University

Mike Christel

Teaching Professor, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University

Sophia Colantonio

Seth Corrigan

Benjamin DeVane

Assistant Professor, University of Iowa

Identity & Learning | Computational Thinking | Design & Aesthetics

Michael Donhost

Chad Dorsey

President and CEO, The Concord Consortium

Chad Dorsey is President and CEO of the Concord Consortium, which has been an innovation leader in researching and developing STEM educational technology for the past twenty years. Chad's experience ranges across the fields of science, education, and technology. In addition to overseeing... Read More →

Kelly East

Genetic Counselor, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

Clayton Ewing

Coral Gables, FL, USA, University of Miami

I'm an educator, developer and game designer.

David Gagnon

Field Day Lab Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Hannah Rox Gerber

Associate Professor of Literacy, Sam Houston State University

Kelly Giles

Applied Sciences Librarian, James Madison University

Getting Started with Open Science Framework (OSF)

Jen Groff

Yichao Guo

Martha Han

David Hatfield

Director of Assessment, Kidaptive

Nick Heidl

Remi Holden

GLS Playful Learning Summit Co-Chair, University of Colorado Denver

Chris Holden

Associate Professor, University of New Mexico

Jeffrey Brandon Holmes

Assistant Director, Center for the Art and Science of Teaching - Arizona State University

Adam Hott

Digital Applications Lead, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

Maria Hwang

Higher Education Institution, Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University

G. Tanner Jackson

Educational Testing Service

Anya Johnson

Barbara Z. Johnson

Lecturer, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

Yvonne Kao

Rafael Kern

Eric Keylor

PhD Candidate, Educational Technology, Arizona State University

Eric is completing his PhD in Educational Technology at Arizona State University. At ASU, Eric worked on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's iCivics project. He is an alumnus of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a programmer for the award... Read More →

Jenny Kim

Beth King

Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Neil Lamb

Katharina Lang

Brian LaPlant

Joey Lee

Xiuyuan Li

Breanne Litts

Doctoral Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Solomon Liu

Robert Lockhart

Trudi Lord

Christian de Luna

Doctoral Student, Teachers College, Columbia University

An aspiring instructional game designer earning a Doctorate in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. My research focuses on conveying abstract concepts (i.e., depression and relativity) through game-based learning environments. I have a particular interest in designing... Read More →

John Martin

Eduard Matamoros

Gianna May

Betsy McCarthy

Senior Research Associate, WestEd

Helping developers create and test educational games for formal and informal education environments.

Seth McGee

Instructor, UW Biocore

I teach intro Biology for honors undergrad students at UW Madison as well summer science camp for K-12 students. Ecology, Cell Bio, Botany, Restoration, and Molecular Bio Techniques and some of my interests.

Kevin Miklasz

Director of Digital Learning, Iridescent

Justin Mouller

Geoffrey D. Munro

Professor of Psychology, Towson University

Dodie Niemeyer

Teacher, Sam Houston State University

Doctoral Student | High School English Teacher

Maria Elena Oliveri

Salvatore Papa

Student Manager/Undergraduate Writing Consultant, Howe Writing Center

Kylie Peppler

Judy Perry

Cambridge, MA, United States, Scheller Teacher Ed Program

Judy currently oversees design, development and research for several projects involving games and simulations for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. Her research interests include location-based games and ubiquitous “casual” games. When she is not making or playing... Read More →

Stephanie Pfirman

Iulian Radu

PhD Candicate, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dennis Ramirez

Technical Director, USC IMGD, Videogame Researcher

Frieda Reichsman

Research Scientist, The Concord Consortium

Naomi Rockler-Gladen

When I was in high school, I played Miss Lynch, the curmudgeonly old teacher, in our production of Grease. I was memorably funny, but the part I really wanted to play was Rizzo, the bad girl. These days, though, I realize that Miss Lynch was the real badass. In no particular order... Read More →

Mark Santolucito

Katerina Schenke

Bob De Schutter

Oxford, Ohio, United States, Miami University

I'm a designer, researcher and teacher. My research interests are game design, the older audience of digital games, and the use of games for non-entertainment purposes.

Sean Seyler

Graduate Student, UW-Madison, Digital Media

Hello! I’m Sean. I’m a young graduate working towards a Master’s degree in Curriculum & Instruction (Digital Media) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Broadly put, my interests are about education, philosophy, and videogames, so if you like that sort of stuff, we can... Read More →

Yi Song

Fidel Sosa

Jesse Sparks

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Chris Standerford

Jessica A. Stansbury

Lecturer, Doctoral Student, Towson University

Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game

Shonte Stephenson

Cody Steward

Peter Stidwill

Executive Producer, Learning Games Network

Lisa Stump

Woonhee Sung

Matthew Taylor

Michelle Tiu

Senior Research Associate, WestEd

Tom Toynton

Associate Professor, Bloomfield College

Tom Toynton is an associate professor of Creative Arts & Technology and the coordinator for the Game Development program at Bloomfield College in New Jersey. His students have worked at all levels within the games industry – starting their own indie studios or working for triple-A... Read More →

Lien Tran

Assistant Professor, University of Miami

Game Design. Social Impact Games. Social Change. Higher Education.

Kelly Tran

PhD Candidate, Arizona State University

PhD Student at Arizona State University.

Cathy Tran

Researcher, UC Irvine

http://education.uci.edu/person/tran_c/tran_c_bio.php

Chris Vicari

Janis Watson

Jason Wu

Ph.D. Student, Teachers College, Columbia University

Co-founder of Greenify: | | Greenify is a mobile phone app where players complete eco-friendly challenges and earn rewards in the process. The game works in three simple steps: 1) Take action on various sustainability missions -- for example, recycling, reducing power use, or... Read More →

Simeng Yang

Diego Zapata-Rivera

Wednesday June 11, 2014 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Posters

7:00pm

Arcade open 'til midnight!

Join the staff of Guard Up! Family Swordsmanship from Burlington, MA in an exciting live-action adventure involving Nerf Blasters, Foam Swords, mystery, and mayhem. You and your allies are heroes being sent on a quest by Bram Stoker, himself, who has been summoned by Hephautus, the Blacksmith of the Gods, to find a solution to the vampires who are invading the University of Wisconsin. Find your weapons and solve the mystery to save you and the rest of humanity from the brain altering blood suckers!

Wednesday June 11, 2014 7:00pm - 11:59pm
Tripp Commons

Arcade

8:00am

Registration opens

Thursday June 12, 2014 8:00am - 9:00am
Annex Room

Registration

9:00am

Breakfast and Keynote

This button is a relevant link - try clicking it!

Opening Comments by Dean Julie Underwood from the UW School of Education.

It's Not About The Game
Scot Osterweil

In recent years speakers at GLS have made an increasingly persuasive case for preserving the authenticity and beauty of games, and for sacrificing neither in pursuit of educational goals. While defending the essence of games is necessary, there are other questions that also need to be asked with regard to the "learning + society" part of the formula. This talk will explore emergent hybrid forms that may be effective for learning but are not quite games, and also ask the question "what the hell do we think school is for anyway?"

Speakers

Scot Osterweil

Creative Director, MIT Education Arcade

Thursday June 12, 2014 9:00am - 10:00am
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Keynote

10:00am

Arcade opens for the day

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:00am - 11:59pm
Tripp Commons

Arcade

10:30am

Keynote Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Scot Osterweil.

Speakers

Scot Osterweil

Creative Director, MIT Education Arcade

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

10:30am

Advancing STEM Learning with Games in Civic and Cultural Institutions: A Play, Critique, and Discussion Session

Advancing STEM Learning with Games in Civic and Cultural Institutions: A Play, Critique, and Discussion Session
Edge Quintanilla, Barry Joseph, Marjee Chmiel, David Ng

In 2010 only 16% of U.S. undergraduates declared natural sciences and engineering as their primary field of study compared to higher rates in other countries. Science is seemingly not interesting to youth. This problem is being addressed in and out of school. However, out-of-school learning is crucial and helps youth connect learning that happens in school to learning that occurs in other areas through “ecologies” of learning. These ecologies provide pathways of engagement across the spaces where youth develop (Ito, 2013). The American Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum, Smithsonian Science Education Center and University of British Columbia have contributed to these pathways through the development of STEM games. This panel will explore what the driving ideas are for using these games. Panelists will discuss with the audience on how games are, and might be be used, for STEM learning using civic and cultural institutions as examples.

Speakers

Marjee Chmiel

Barry Joseph

VP of Digital Experience, Girl Scouts

For 18 years, I have been a driving force in both youth development and digital learning. First at Global Kids, a NYC-based after school organization, then at the American Museum of Natural History, I oversaw the design, supervision, and creative visioning for a slate of over 100... Read More →

David Ng

Professor, University of British Columbia

David Ng is a geneticist, science educator, and faculty based at the UBC Michael Smith Laboratories. Of note: (1) he is partly responsible for the massive DNA helix emblazoned on his building’s facade; (2) his Dad beat up Bruce Lee; (3) his first foray into general publishing... Read More →

Edge Quintanilla

Digital Learning Specialist, The Field Museum

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Beefeaters

Panel

10:30am

The State of the Surveys: Framing and Informing Research on Games and Learning

The State of the Surveys: Framing and Informing Research on Games and Learning
Barry Fishman, Lori Takeuchi, Michelle Riconscente, Seeta Pai

As the field of games and learning grows, our need for varied research approaches to inform and shape work in the areas of policy, design, development, and implementation of games grows as well. What do we know about the context(s) for games in formal and informal learning settings? What are the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of players, learners, educators, parents, policy-makers, and designers? How do these factors interact to create complex settings for game-use?

Panelists, from Common Sense Media, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and New York University's CREATE lab, each played key roles in the design of prominent surveys in games and learning. The presentation will highlight questions addressed by recent surveys about games and learning, share what has been learned from these surveys, and invite discussion among both panelists and the audience to identify high-need areas for further research.

Speakers

Barry Fishman

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Gameful learning, GradeCraft, motivation, higher education

Seeta Pai

Michelle Riconscente

Lori Takeuchi

Acting Executive Director, Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Inn Wisconsin

Panel

10:30am

Analyzing Social Interaction

Discussant: Sean Duncan

It’s better to talk with honey than vinegar: Insights into collaborative learning within mobile AR games
Denise Bressler
According to the National Research Council, the ability to collaboratively solve problems is of the utmost importance in scientific careers, yet students are not exposed to learning experiences that promote such expertise. Researchers have found that interdependent roles used within mobile AR games are an effective way to scaffold collaborative problem solving. Using a multiple case study approach, this study assessed communication responses, scientific practices, and language style used both by student teams playing a mobile AR science game and teams participating in a control activity. Conversations amongst game teams revealed not only higher levels of scientific practices but also higher levels of engaged responses and communal language. Conversations amongst control teams revealed lower levels of scientific practice along with higher levels of rejecting responses and commands. Implications for these findings are discussed.

Citizen Science in the classroom: An analysis of teacher-student discourse
Amanda Barany, Christian Schmieder, Jilana Boston, Kurt Squire
Preliminary analyses of a classroom implementation of the game Citizen Science suggests that patterns of lexical choices in teacher-student interaction may have implications for the projected efficacy of games in classroom settings. This proposal discusses consequences of our exploratory analysis of educator-student interactions while playing Citizen Science in a classroom setting. We will explore how these findings will inform subsequent implementation of telemetric game data and qualitative interviews with students. Furthermore we will introduce a series of tools and techniques for field workers and educators, designed to playfully reflect on lexical choices when implementing games in institutionalized educational contexts.

Speakers

Amanda Barany

Graduate student/research assistant, Drexel University School of Education

I am a graduate student in the school of Education at Drexel University with a focus on games as tools for interest, engagement, and identity development as immersive STEM career environments. I have experience with the GLS game Citizen Science, the Fair Play project at the Wisconsin... Read More →

Jilana Boston

Student Hourly, Games+Learning+Society

Denise Bressler

Education Researcher, Stevens Institute of Technology

Christian Schmieder

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

10:30am

“For the Records” – learning about mental illness

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“For the Records” – learning about mental illness
Doris Rusch, Anuradha Rana

For the Records is an interactive documentary about mental health, particularly OCD, ADD, eating and bipolar disorder. Including film clips, interviews, photo essays and games, it aims to increase understanding of these disorders. People with lived experience of the represented mental health issues have been actively involved in the conceptualization and design of the project. For the records is an interdisciplinary effort bringing together DePauls cinema and game development program as well as the School of Nursing. An intended application area of this project is mental health education. The presentation covers a life demonstration of games and other media pieces with an in-depth discussion of the design process and its various iterations with a special emphasis on metaphor identification and modification over time and across platforms.

Speakers

Anuradha Rana

Doris Rusch

Associate professor, DePaul University

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Festival Room

Well Played

10:30am

'PuppyBot Rescue - A Balancing Game' & 'The Creative Design of Physical Rehabilitation Games'

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Facilitated by Jolene Zwyica and Anna Roberts.

PuppyBot Rescue - A Balancing Game
Matt Champer, Mike Christel, Samantha Collier, Ricardo Merchan, Scott Stevens
This project is taking all the experience from our past games in the ENGAGE initiative and collaborating with Sesame Workshop to build a game under their Electric Company IP.

The Creative Design of Physical Rehabilitation Games
Niels Quinten
This working example describes a research project on digital games which assist stroke survivors in learning once more the physical abilities they lost during a stroke (e.g. drinking from a glass). Specifically, we aim to create a more engaging learning experience adapted to the needs and disabilities of stroke patients. Our focus lies on the creative design of these games.

Speakers

Matt Champer

Designer/Level Designer on the ENGAGE Project, Entertainment Technology Center @ Carnegie Mellon University

Mike Christel

Teaching Professor, Entertainment Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University

Samantha Collier

Ricardo Merchan

Niels Quinten

Scott Stevens

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Class of '24

Working Example

10:30am

Game Publishers

Speakers

BrainPOP

Kristen DiCerbo

Vice President of Education Research, Pearson

E-Line

GameDesk

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 1:00pm
Main Lounge

Deep Dive

10:30am

GLS Showcase

The GLS Showcase (formerly the Educational Game Arcade) is curated by Dennis Ramirez. Come play games made by your colleagues - then cheer on your favorites at the GLS Showcase Award Ceremony after dinner!

Collapse of Rome
Evan Wright

Ravenous
James Larsen, Erin Bardar, Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Cellvival! Evolutionary concepts as playable mechanics
Andrew Jefferson

The Radix Endeavor
Susannah Gordon-Messer, Louisa Rosenheck, Angie Tung, Jody Clarke-Midura, Jason Haas, Eric Klopfer

After the Storm: A Digital Literacy Game
Kathy Yu Burek, Anne Richards

The Gravity Ether: a physics simulation game with level editor
Kevin Miklasz

NELL: A Game based Approach to Neuroplasticity in Early Language Learning
Bert Snow

Kung-Fu Kitchen: A Physical Therapy Game to Remedy the Negative Consequence of Spasticity
Vero Vanden Abeele, Luc Geurts, Jelle Husson, Lieven Van den Audenaeren, Stef Desmet, Mathijs Verstraete, Bob De Schutter

Education Arcade: Build-a-Tree
Krystal Villanosa, Audrey Hosford, Michael Horn, Florian Block, Chia Shen

Game Arcade: Turn Up the Heat!
Michael Horn, Amartya Banerjee, Sarah D'Angelo, Pei-Yi Kuo, D. Harmon Pollock, Reed Stevens

Down with Food: An iPad Game About Digestion
Chris Berizko, Chantal Fry, James Gamboa, Nathan Petitti, Neil Young

Practice Spanish: A task-based immersive and mobile language learning game
Bert Snow

Go Extinct! A Revolutionary Evolutionary Card Game
Ariel Marcy

Backyard Engineers: Bringing Efficient Design to a Water Balloon Fight
Ellen Jameson, Marshall Behringer, Dave Hoffman, Chenya Chang, Gregg Sanderson

Sanctuary: Asymmetric Interfaces for STEM Learning
Jason Haas

Quest2Teach: Digitally bridging educational theory to practice
Anna Arici, Sasha Barab, Brenden Sewell

Worlds Made to Order in Planet Mechanic
Ellen Jameson, Fiona Zimmer, Flash Kowaleski, Rachel Berkowitz, Alexander Cooney

Bongo Balance: Scaffolding Work with Chemical Equations
Ellen Jameson, Marshall Behringer, Ryan Baron

Reach for the Sun: The Seeds of Strategy
Ellen Jameson, Fiona Zimmer, Marshall Behringer

Econauts
Mark Stenerson, Ted Lauterbach, John Karczewski, Kurt Squire

Speakers

Vero Vanden Abeele

Anna Arici

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Director, EdGE at TERC

I direct a team of game designers, researchers, and learning scientists who live and work on the edge of science and play.

Lieven Van den Audenaeren

Amartya Banerjee

Sasha Barab

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Erin Bardar

Education Materials Director, EdGE at TERC

As Education Materials Director for EdGE at TERC, my role includes elements of game design, outreach, and curriculum development. I work with the design team to help ensure that beneath all the fun, the games we develop are grounded in science that is both accurate and aligned with... Read More →

Ryan Baron

Marshall Behringer

Madison, WI, USA, Filament Games

Chris Berizko

Rachel Berkowitz

Florian Block

Kathy Yu Burek

New York, NY, United States, Classroom, Inc.

Chenya Chang

Jody Clarke-Midura

Alexander Cooney

Sarah D'Angelo

Stef Desmet

Chantal Fry

Undergraduate Student, University of California, Irvine

James Gamboa

Luc Geurts

Susannah Gordon-Messer

Education Content Manager, The Education Arcade, MIT

The Radix Endeavor, a multiplayer online game for high school STEM learning. radixendeavor.org

Jason Haas

Cambridge, MA, United States, Scheller Teacher Education Program

Dave Hoffman

UX Artist, Filament Games

Michael Horn

Evanston, Illinois, United States, Northwestern University

Audrey Hosford

Northwestern University undergraduate pursuing full-time software development with General Motors IT in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2014.

Jelle Husson

Ellen Jameson

Learning Specialist, Filament Games

Andrew Jefferson

John Karczewski

Flash Kowaleski

Project Assistant, Filament Games

Pei-Yi Kuo

PhD Student, Northwestern University

James Larsen

EdGE at TERC

I'm interested in leveraging games and play to get people outside.

Ted Lauterbach

Ariel Marcy

Founder, STEAM Galaxy Studios

Kevin Miklasz

Director of Digital Learning, Iridescent

Nathan Petitti

D. Harmon Pollock

Dennis Ramirez

Technical Director, USC IMGD, Videogame Researcher

Reed

Evanston, Illinois, United States, Northwestern University

Anne Richards

Vice President of Product Development, Classroom Inc.

Games, storytelling and the intersection of play and learning

Louisa Rosenheck

Ed Tech Designer and Researcher, MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program

Gregg Sanderson

Bob De Schutter

Oxford, Ohio, United States, Miami University

I'm a designer, researcher and teacher. My research interests are game design, the older audience of digital games, and the use of games for non-entertainment purposes.

Brenden Sewell

Game Designer, E-Line Media

I am a game designer for E-Line Media, serving as design lead for the development of the Quest2Teach series of games for teacher professional development, and the Atlantis Remixed games targeting middle school curriculums, in conjunction with Arizona State University's Center for... Read More →

Chia Shen

Director&Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University

How can useful data visualization, innovative designs and fluid human-display interaction help us to solve social issues including learning, education and health?

Bert Snow

Vice President, Design, Muzzy Lane Software

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Mark Stenerson

Madison, WI, United States, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Angie Tung

Mathijs Verstraete

Krystal Villanosa

Evan Wright

7th Grade Technology Teacher, Troy Middle School

Neil Young

Fiona Zimmer

Game Artist, Filament Games

Fiona has been doodling since she was old enough to hold a pencil, and has been working for Filament Games for nigh on seven years. When not subverting the dominant paradigm, she enjoys tabletop RPGs, video games, and reading (and occasionally writing) genre fiction.

Thursday June 12, 2014 10:30am - 4:00pm
Great Hall

Arcade Educational Game Arcade GLS Showcase

11:30am

Snack Time!

Thursday June 12, 2014 11:30am - 12:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

12:00pm

Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Colleen Macklin.

Speakers

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

12:00pm

Tuning the Knobs and Dials: Empirically Maximizing Features for Serious Games

Tuning the Knobs and Dials: Empirically Maximizing Features for Serious Games
Rita Bush, Carl Symborski, Rosa Mikeal Martey, Tobi Saulnier, Beth Veinott

Games research has often treated the game as a black box; we introduce the game into a situation, observe the effects, and declare success. But we don’t know why the game worked. What was it about the game that made it a powerful tool for learning? Can games be used to teach not just concepts and knowledge, but to also spark changes in reasoning, judgment, and decision-making? This panel will address these questions.

Speakers

Rita Bush

Program Manager, IARPA

Dr. Rita Bush is concurrently serving as the Acting Director and a Program Manager in the Office of Incisive Analysis. She previously served as Division Chief of the Information Exploitation (InfoX) Research Division in the Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), where she oversaw an... Read More →

Rosa Mikeal Martey

Emilie Saulnier

CEO, 1st Playable Productions

Tobi Saulnier, as Founder and CEO of 1st Playable Productions, leads a game development studio that has created such hit games such as Club Penguin for the Nintendo DS, Ben 10 DS, Disney Princess DS, and a number of other DS games designed for very specific demographics ("kids' games... Read More →

Carl Symborski

Chief Engineer, Leidos Inc.

At Leidos, Inc. (formerly known as SAIC), I am a program manager and technologist leading science and technology programs, including training games-related human subjects’ research programs. My research interests include online games, virtual communities, and computer networkin... Read More →

Beth Veinott

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Beefeaters

Panel

12:00pm

Meta Discussion

Discussant:
Ira Sockowitz

Facilitating the Discovery and Use of Learning Games
William Jordan-Cooley
Despite the growing popularity and development of educational games, poor distribution, technical challenges, and lack of teacher support impede successful implementation. As a solution, BrainPOP's GameUp provides a curated database of quality educational video games. Additionally, each game is aligned with K-12 learning objectives and accompanied by supplemental materials. This paper will present the internal evaluation process used for selecting games, including technical, logistical, legal and quality considerations. The evaluation criteria for quality combine a standardized set of heuristics with open-ended qualitative analysis. The purpose of presenting our process is to invite feedback and inform interested game developers about GameUp as a support for successful discovery and use of educational games.

A theoretical framework for the research and design of serious games to promote problem solving
Richard Van Eck, Woei Hung
While problem solving is lauded as a benefit of video games, little empirical evidence exists to support this assertion. Current definitions and taxonomies are often contradictory and do not capture the complexity and diversity of modern games. Many video game researchers are also unfamiliar with the 75+ years of problem solving research in Europe and the United States. We propose a classification of gameplay that accounts for the cognitive skills during gameplay, relying in part on Mark Wolf's concept of grids of interactivity. We then describe eleven problem types and the dimensions along which they vary. Finally, we use the shared dimensions of gameplay and problem types to align gameplay types and problems. We believe that this framework for thinking about games and problem solving can guide future design and research on problem solving and games.

Discussants

Ira Sockowitz

Executive Director, Learning Games Network

Speakers

Richard Van Eck

Woei Hung

William Jordan-Cooley

Instructional Designer, BrainPOP

Will is an Instructional Designer specializing in educational games. At BrainPOP, Will works on GameUp, a curated collection of over 100 educational games with K12 alignments and teacher support materials. | | Will obtained his M.A. in Instructional Technology and Media from... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

12:00pm

Writing

Discussant: Rebecca Black

Dense Worlds, Deep Characters: Role-Playing Games, World Building, and Creative Writing
Trent Hergenrader
While much critical attention in game studies focuses on the relationship between digital games and narrative, games of all types can act as excellent storytelling engines that encourage students to explore new directions with their writing. Reflecting on his experiences teaching college-level fiction writing built around role-playing games (RPGs), the author explains how a combination of RPG rules and aleatory elements provide both structure and spontaneity for beginning fiction writers, but also pose significant classroom challenges. He argues that instructors can use the combination of quantitative and qualitative information found in RPG catalogs can be used as models for the collaborative creation of fictional worlds through the processes of critical world building and detailed character creation exercises, which he explains in detail.

A World Filled with Darkness, Dungeons, and Dragons: Using Analog Role Playing Game Creation to Enhance Literature and Writing Instruction in High School English Classes
Kip Glazer, Trent Hergenrader
Many K-12 educators interested in better engaging with students in K-12 classrooms have turned to game-based learning; however, these instructors often mistakenly believe this approach is limited to using digital games to teach STEM skills. This paper argues that non-digital game-based approaches can be effective in teaching literacy skills, specifically through the use of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs). When students turn a work of literature into a playable RPG, they develop a well-rounded sense of context for the work and learn about the inherent possibilities in the narrative. This approach also allows students to engage in collaborative knowledge-building, to gain experience with digital online writing tools, and experiment with their own creative production in different media. Students gain a deeper appreciation for literature while also developing important literacy skills in a fun and engaging group project.

Finding the Journal of Odysseus: A Pervasive Game in class
John Fallon
"Finding the Journal of Odysseus" is an ARG inspired pervasive game designed to pair with my reading of Homer's Odyssey in 7th grade English. It uses ARG style puzzles and narrative to engage students in their reading of the Odyssey as well as to emphasize critical thinking, collaboration, technological and creative skill sets within a game-based learning context. It is currently in its second interation in a 7th grade all boys classroom at Fairfield Country Day School in Fairfield, CT.

Discussants

Rebecca Black

Associate Professor, UC Irvine

Speakers

John Fallon

English teacher, Fairfield Country Day School

John Fallon is a 7th & 9th grade English teacher at Fairfield Country Day School, a Prek-9 all boys school in Connecticut. His first game based learning project was a pervasive Alternate Reality Game to support the teaching of Homer's Odyssey in his 7th grade class. John also co-designed... Read More →

Kip Glazer

Teacher / Doctoral Student, Independence High School / Pepperdine University

I am a high school teacher and doctoral student at Pepperdine Univeristy, pursuing a doctorate in Learning Technologies. I am passionate about public education, technology integration, and game-based learning. I want to help high school teachers to use more technology and games of... Read More →

Trent Hergenrader

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Inn Wisconsin

Paper Presentations

12:00pm

FarmVille. Testing limits. Four years. Level 1446.

FarmVille. Testing limits. Four years. Level 1446.
Heinrich Soebke

FarmVille started in 2009 on Facebook and has been a genre-coining Social Network Game. Due to, inter alia, its simple game mechanics and accessibility it reached a new demography of players. It is criticized by traditional gamers for being a mere click sequence and being without challenges. We depict our experiences from playing FarmVille without buying progress since February 2010, often finding the intersections between joy and chore, between commerce and fun. Our complex goal was to optimize the progress. Specific for browser games like FarmVille is the continuous development of contents. In small steps adjusted game mechanics can be rolled out to the players. During the last 4 years FarmVille has evolved considerably within the borders of the game's genre and theme. We point out examples for this trajectory. Although FarmVille shows some weaknesses finally we argue to be aware of the merits and to use them beneficially.

Speakers

Heinrich Söbke

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Bauhaus Universtät Weimar

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Festival Room

Well Played

12:00pm

'Text Adventure Creation Tool (TACT)' & 'The Ward Game: A Pervasive Novel Study'

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Facilitated by Courtney Francis and Jolene Zywica.

Text Adventure Creation Tool (TACT)
Evan Wright
TACT is a web-based, classroom friendly tool which allows students to easily create and play each others text-based adventure games. Teachers can provide feedback to students directly through the web interface and can get a complete dump of a project to facilitate grading it. The project has several classroom applications and can help teachers meet numerous Common Core ELA standards.

The Ward Game: A Pervasive Novel Study
Paul Darvasi
The Ward Game is a pervasive game where students experience the world of a novel in an embodied and immersive fashion. Designed to teach Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, players are transformed into patients and the school's classrooms, corridors, bells and clocks became those of Nurse Ratched's ward. For 30 days, players are plunged into the world of the novel through a modular elixir of video game mechanics, videos, social media, interactive tools and locative activities.

Speakers

Paul Darvasi

Educator, Royal St. George's College

Paul Darvasi teaches at Royal St. George's College in Toronto, Canada, and he's a PhD candidate in York University's Faculty of Education, with a focus on digital and pervasive games in educational environments. He experiments with video games and interactive technology in his classes... Read More →

Evan Wright

7th Grade Technology Teacher, Troy Middle School

Thursday June 12, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Class of '24

Working Example

1:00pm

Lunch

Thursday June 12, 2014 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

1:00pm

Networking Event: Meet the Publishers!

Continue the conversation about game publishing over lunch!

Thursday June 12, 2014 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Networking

2:30pm

Inquiry and Learning through Mobile Game Design

Inquiry and Learning through Mobile Game Design
Chris Holden, Owen Gottlieb, Kim Long, Edge Quintanilla, David Leach, Alainya Kavaloski, Susan Lynch, David Gagnon

They say if it takes a lot of learning to play a game, it takes much more to make a game. This basic premise underlies many programs to teach through game design. What is perhaps less common is to situate design experiences within other meaningful contexts. But over the past few years this is just what many groups and teachers have been doing with ARIS. They typically establish modes of inquiry, usually around a local place or conceptual framework, and have their students engage in locative game design as a way of becoming involved in that context. In this panel discussion, some of these educators will share their experiences and describe how situating mobile game design is having a positive effect in their classrooms and programs, giving students new routes to knowledge and helping them to develop their interests.

Speakers

David Gagnon

Field Day Lab Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Owen Gottlieb

Faculty, RIT MAGIC Center

Chris Holden

Associate Professor, University of New Mexico

Alainya Kavaloski

PhD Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Laini Kavaloski is a dissertator in the English department at University of Wisconsin-Madison and is heading off to teach media design and literature at SUNY-Canton in the fall. She has an M.A in literature from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is passionate about literature... Read More →

David Leach

Chair, Department of Writing; Director, Technology & Society Minor, University of Victoria

Kimberly Long

Program Assistant, Minnesota Historical Socity

Susan Lynch

Edge Quintanilla

Digital Learning Specialist, The Field Museum

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Inn Wisconsin

Panel

2:30pm

Where Do Teachers Fit? A Field-Wide Discussion

Organized by Rex Beaber.

Where Do Teachers Fit? A Field-Wide Discussion
Constance Steinkuehler, Drew Davidson, Zack Gilbert, Steve Isaacs, Ellen Jameson, Joel Levin, Allisyn Levy, Jessica Millstone, Andrew Phelps, Kimberly Sheridan

The purpose of this panel is to spark continuation of a field-wide discussion around the role of teachers in the development of game-based learning. To accomplish this we have organized a diverse panel of representatives from academia, industry, and classroom education to offer perspectives on the investment in game-based learning.

Speakers

Rex Beaber

Drew Davidson

Director, etc@cmu

Zack Gilbert

EdGamer Host, EdReach

Zack Gilbert is currently a 6th grade social studies/language arts teacher in Normal, Illinois. He is the host of EdGamer on EdReach and he is also on the advisory board for Playful Learning through the Learning Games Network. Games are an important part of Zack’s life, in and out... Read More →

Steve Isaacs

Teacher, Bernards Township Board of Education

Steve has been a gamer since the days of Atari and his Apple II+. His parents were initially concerned with how consumed he was with technology. Now they chuckle as he has created a career around his passion. Steve has been teaching Video Game Design and Development for 15 years... Read More →

Ellen Jameson

Learning Specialist, Filament Games

Joel Levin

TeacherGaming

Allisyn Levy

VP, GameUp, BrainPOP

Jessica Millstone

Andrew Phelps

Director, Rochester Institute of Technology

Andrew "Andy" Phelps is an educator, digital artist, and technologist with over 15 years experience. He currently serves at the request of RIT President William Destler as the founder and director of the RIT Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC), and holds... Read More →

Kimberly Sheridan

Constance Steinkuehler

Speaker, University of California-Irvine & HEVGA

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Beefeaters

Panel

2:30pm

Gender Matters

Discussant: James Paul Gee

Learning, Play, and Identity in Gendered Lego Franchises
Rebecca Black, Bill Tomlinson, Ksenia Korobkova, Sierra Ivy
In this paper, we use a mixed methods approach to compare the multimodal “building blocks” of play provided by the Lego Friends franchise, which is primarily aimed at female audiences, and several other Lego series that are marketed to similar-age male audiences. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, we examine if and how certain configurations of play and gendered-discourses may be privileged through preferred set constructions (i.e., those provided by Lego via instructions and marketing materials) and associated media narratives (i.e., videogames and videos). Initial quantitative analyses suggest that Lego sets for girls may be at a slightly more developmentally advanced level than those for boys. Qualitative analysis suggests that the sets, games, and materials both challenge and affirm traditional gender stereotypes.

Boys and their Toys: Video Game Learning & the Common Core
Jason Engerman, Monique MacAllan, Alison Carr-Chellman
Traditional K-12 public school culture seems to be alienating and distancing for many boys today (Martin 2002). Author proposes that this crisis is due to the rejection of boy culture (2011). Gaining acceptance of games in traditional classrooms has the powerful potential to change the culture of schools to one that is more welcoming to boys’ ways of being, but most teachers find games without sufficient curricular merit to spend the necessary time learning and utilizing games effectively. This study sought to understand the potential interaction between commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) video games and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as reported by boy gamers. Data was gathered through phenomenologically based semi-structured interviews with boys, aged 10-17. Our results indicate specific connections between COTS and the CCSS, further supporting such theoretical works from Prensky (2006) and Gee (2003).

Tech Trajec-Stories: Values That Shape the Lives of Women in Technology
Meagan Rothschild, Amanda Ochsner
Education and industry would benefit from more women in computer science. Still vastly underrepresented, there is a need for more research on women’s experiences with technology. Better understanding how those experiences shape—and are shaped by—women’s ongoing relationships with play and learning may reveal new approaches for engaging women in computer science education and the technology industry. This paper reports on first steps in this direction of inquiry, describing the outcomes of interviews with women in computer science. Interviews focused on each woman’s long-term trajectory, querying how each participant remembers and ranks her values as she thinks back on key phases of her life. Guiding research questions included, 1) How do successful women in computer science fields describe their life story in terms of play and learning experiences? 2) Given a list of values, how do women in computer science rank values across selected seasons from youth to adulthood?

Speakers

Rebecca Black

Associate Professor, UC Irvine

Alison Carr-Chellman

Head of Department, Penn State Learning and Performance Systems

Boys and gaming. Focused on ways that games can help change the culture of schools and bring about significant enough disruptions to create systemic change (has always been a passion). User-design, the creation of systems of all kinds by the users themselves, with true decision... Read More →

Jason Engerman

Professor/Researcher, Pennsylvania State University

I am a doctoral candidate in Learning, Design & Technology within the Learning and Performance Systems department at Penn State University. I am interested in authentic teaching and learning through socioculturally relavant technologies. This has led me to video game spaces and their... Read More →

Sierra Ivy

Ksenia Korobkova

Monique MacAllan

Amanda Ochsner

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California

Meagan Rothschild

Assessment & Design Specialist, WIDA Consortium (UW-Madison)

I am an Assessment and Design Specialist at WIDA and PhD candidate at UW-Madison. I work on the R&D of media environments that merge research-based learning principles with interactive, gaming, and play-based strategies to engage learners. I specifically focus on how designs can elicit... Read More →

Bill Tomlinson

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

2:30pm

Elder Scrolls Online: Cooperative & Social aspects of game-play

Elder Scrolls Online: Cooperative & Social aspects of game-play
Michelle Aubrecht, Jeff Kuhn, Justin Eames

This session will focus on social aspects of game play, especially the interplay between player actions and the rules, interface options, and MMO environment. Attention will be given to how its organization encourages cooperation, sharing of resources, the process of team-formation and communication, skill-building, and leveling up. We will examine how the ESO economy is structured for group play, and how the interface supports teamwork and cooperative play. We will also reflect on how we balance individual play and discovery with group quests, and how we negotiate our commitment to playing ESO with our jobs and families. Someone attending this session can expect to find out what it’s like to play ESO and be guided through character creation, specific areas, and watch a live demo of how we campaign together.

Speakers

Michelle Adrienne Aubrecht

game-based learning specialist, project manager

M. Adrienne ... starting something new.

Justin Eames

Technology Teacher, The SEED School of Maryland

As a teacher in Baltimore for nearly a decade, Justin strives to incorporate technology into instruction whenever possible. Currently, he teaches middle and high school technology at The SEED School of Maryland, a public boarding school in West Baltimore. He also helps other educators... Read More →

Jeff Kuhn

Instructor, Ohio University

Recent PhD graduate in educational studies researching distributed cognition and problem solving in video games. Moderator of the EVO Minecraft MOOC, a space for teachers to learn games and games literacy.

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Festival Room

Well Played

2:30pm

'Arctic Saga' & 'Dream Flight Adventures — Mission Ops'

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Facilitated by Anna Roberts and Courtney Francis.

Arctic Saga
Christian de Luna, Chris Vicari, Tom Toynton, Joey Lee
Arctic Saga is an educational board game designed to simulate marine spatial planning, a technique used to resolve stakeholder spatial interests in disputed regions. Players negotiate stakeholder economic interests while working together to maintain the Arctic environment.

Dream Flight Adventures — Mission Ops
Gary Gardiner, Sarah Gardiner
Mission Ops is a sister product that accompanies Dream Flight Adventures simulators. Whereas the standard simulators are heavily themed immersive environments, Mission Ops is less themed and more suitable for a variety of typical learning environments (classrooms, after school programs, labs, etc.). Dream Flight simulators and Mission Ops work hand-in-hand—the former sending crews of students on epic missions throughout time and space, and the latter enlisting students to work as the "mission control" behind the scenes of these missions. Together, they provide a full learning experience.

Speakers

Gary Gardiner

Director, Dream Flight Adventures

I am an accomplished designer and business manager specializing in interactive entertainment. I design games, launch tech companies, develop entertainment technologies, and practice the discipline of getting things done by making them fun. | | I pursue a whole-brain approach... Read More →

Sarah Gardiner

Joey Lee

Christian de Luna

Doctoral Student, Teachers College, Columbia University

Tom Toynton

Associate Professor, Bloomfield College

Chris Vicari

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Class of '24

Working Example

2:30pm

Industry Resume Workshop: Pursue your goals with your experience

Industry Resume Workshop: Pursue your goals with your experience.
Mary-Margaret Walker

This workshop will cover the basics of managing your career starting with a simple 10 finger explanation of how easy and rewarding it is to always be prepared, informed and empowered. By the end, you will not only have a great resume, you will know how to keep it in great shape and ready when you need it. You will also understand how a well maintained resume will affect your career in between your job searches and during your job searches.

Speakers

Mary-Margaret Walker

Mary-Margaret Network, Mary-Margaret Network

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Capitol View

Workshop

2:30pm

Play data sandbox: Understanding learning from gameplay data

Play data sandbox: Understanding learning from gameplay data
Facilitated by Matthew Berland, with representatives from Learning Games Play Data Consortium, Games+Learning+Society (University of Wisconsin–Madison), GlassLab, SURGE Lab (Vanderbilt University), Education Arcade (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

The Learning Games Play Data Consortium (PDC) is developing a community around structuring and analyzing in-game play data. In this workshop, we will work with participants and introduce them to four core aspects of analyzing play data in games for learning:

- Instrumenting games to collect information about play patterns
- Generating research and design questions that can be answered using play data
- Developing quantitative analyses and metrics for play data
- Producing visualizations for discovering patterns in play data

The workshop will be an opportunity for participants to learn about the field of gameplay analytics, to see the latest tools for analyzing game data, and to interact with current leaders in learning analytics and educational data mining. We will also discuss new and emerging findings to give participants a sense of what is just becoming possible.

All participants are welcome, but this workshop is specifically targeted toward:
- Learning scientists and educational researchers who want to understand how people learn in and with games
- Game designers and developers interested in how people play and learn in and with their games
- Game analytics researchers interested in new questions and methods

Speakers

Matthew Berland

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Learning Games Play Data Consortium

Kristen DiCerbo

Vice President of Education Research, Pearson

Eric Klopfer

Professor, MIT STEP/TEA

SURGE Lab (Vanderbilt University)

Thursday June 12, 2014 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Main Lounge

Deep Dive

3:30pm

Snack Time!

Thursday June 12, 2014 3:30pm - 4:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

4:00pm

Fireside Chat: Getting into the Industry

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Mary-Margaret Walker about getting into industry!

Speakers

Mary-Margaret Walker

Mary-Margaret Network, Mary-Margaret Network

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

4:00pm

Gone Home, Playful Narratives and Classroom (de)Constructions of Contemporary Culture

Gone Home, Playful Narratives and Classroom (de)Constructions of Contemporary Culture
Kelly Bergstrom, Negin Dahya, Paul Darvasi, Jennifer Jenson, Karla Zimonja, David Simkins

Gone Home is a first person exploration game that unearths a compelling family drama by means of discovering documents, artifacts and personal possessions in their home. Players become intimate with the family’s history that includes a queer young person “coming out”, a depressed and alcoholic parent, and another implicated in infidelity and spousal neglect. It is a highly visual, interactive and non-linear narrative that exemplifies a game’s power to relate a compelling story.

This panel provides a unique opportunity to converge three perspectives relating to games and learning: Gone Home’s developers, the teacher who used the game in his high school English class, and a team of university researchers with a focus on learning through play who observed the classroom where Gone Home was played and deconstructed as text. Presenters will explore intriguing directions for the future of games and learning in formal and informal schooling through narrative-based play.

Speakers

Kelly Bergstrom

York University, Canada

Negin Dahya

Research Associate, York University/PlayCES Research Lab

Dr. Negin Dahya completed her PhD in the Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Canada. Her research is grounded in anti-oppressive education for ethnoracial minority groups, with a focus on girls and women using technology. Specifically, Dr. Dahya’s work explores the following... Read More →

Paul Darvasi

Educator, Royal St. George's College

Jennifer Jenson

David Simkins

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

Karla Zimonja

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Beefeaters

Panel

4:00pm

Affinity Spaces

Discussant: Elisabeth Gee

“About as Educational as Minecraft Can Get”: Youth Framings of Games and Learning in an Affinity Space
Sean Duncan, Joey Huang
As part of a larger study investigating teacher, parent, and youth interactions regarding game-based learning, we focused on exchanges between teachers and students around the game Minecraft. Drawing text from a popular online affinity space for Minecraft, Reddit's /r/minecraft subreddit, we performed a detailed big-D Discourse analysis (Gee, 2010) on one self-professed youth's instructional model for implementing Minecraft in a classroom. The analysis reveals biases toward freeform play and using games as platforms rather than as directed instructional tools in schooling environments, further illustrating a potential gap between teacher goals and expectations of digitally-engaged youth regarding games for learning.

Construction and community: Investigating interaction in a Minecraft affinity space
Anthony Pellicone, June Ahn
Traditionally situated learning has been understood in terms of communities of practice, where membership in a community helps individuals develop knowledge in a specific domain. However, the framework of affinity spaces has been developed to account for the anonymous nature of learning which occurs in online environments. This paper examines the conflicts and intersections of these two different theoretical frameworks for considering the learning environments which form in knowledge sharing around digital games. This paper combines both discourse analysis and social network analysis to understand and describe an online environment dedicated to Minecraft. We find that this particular environment is an example of an affinity space. However, by examining the unstated assumptions found within the discourse of the space we find that participants in this space often bring with them the contours of an assumed culture which exists outside of the structural bounds of the space.

On the Fields of Justice: The Emergence of Teamwork in League of Legends
Christian de Luna
In today’s working world, no one person can accomplish everything by him or herself. Collaborative skills are in high demand by employers, and educators in recent years have been researching ways to foster such collaborative skills in students. Some researchers have turned to online game environments as potential training grounds for leadership and training skills development. This study investigates the emergence of teamwork, expert-novice interaction, and cross-cultural communication in Riot Games’ League of Legends, a multi-player online battle arena, and suggests how those observations may help inform the development of online game environments intended to promote teamwork skills.

Speakers

June Ahn

Assistant Proessor, University of Maryland, College Park

Sean Duncan

Assistant Professor, Indiana University

Joey Huang

Indiana University, United States of America

I am a doctoral student in Indiana University’s Learning Sciences program. My research interests include affinity spaces, informal learning, and learning through social media. In particular, I am interested in developing creative and innovative learning environments. I recently... Read More →

Christian de Luna

Doctoral Student, Teachers College, Columbia University

Anthony Pellicone

New York University

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

4:00pm

Becoming Employee 427: The Stanley Parable

Becoming Employee 427: The Stanley Parable
Diane Alken; presented by Jaymie Ludlow & Phil

The Stanley Parable (2013) is perhaps best described as “this interactive thing where you wander down hallways and a narrator makes fun of you for opening the wrong door” (Rossi, 2013). Specifically, this game breaks convention, rules, and questions what a video game is and is meant to be. The player follows the instructions of the sometimes encouraging/sarcastic/belittling narrator, but pivotal decisions in the game’s storyline and experience are made by the player; however, each decision is always influenced by the presence of the narrator, and what he wants you to experience throughout the game. In this paper, I will discuss how The Stanley Parable plays with narrative and structure, arguing that the true originality of the game lies in how it balances interactivity and storytelling; I will then describe my favourite ending and play-through of the game, and through my experience illustrate the power of the game’s meta-awareness.

Speakers

Jaymie Ludlow & Phil

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Festival Room

Well Played

4:00pm

'GradeCraft' & 'Adolescents and App Development in Middle School Classrooms'

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Facilitated by Jolene Zywica and Anna Roberts.

GradeCraft
Caitlin Holman, Stephen Aguilar, Barry Fishman, Michelle Carr, Michelle Fiesta, Adam Levick, Sara Molnar, Lauren Rocco
GradeCraft is a game-inspired learning management system. We believe that gameful courses can create more engaging classrooms, and we want to make it possible for any instructor interested in running a course like this to have a playful, intuitive space to do that. We are also dedicated to displaying real-time learning analytics information, helping teachers understand exactly what’s going on in their class, and allowing students to make informed choices about how they can achieve success.

Adolescents and App Development in Middle School Classrooms
Danielle Herro, D. Matthew Boyer, Christina Gardner
Our research involves investigating the viability of teaching computational thinking (CT) to middle school students through application (app) development. Computational thinking is a way of devising, decomposing, and designing ways to solve problems. Many computer scientists and educational researchers consider CT foundational skills for everyone, believing they complement core elements of computer science, and attend to human-computer interactions involving creativity, innovation, collaboration, aiding in structuring and solving problems efficiently (Papert, 1996; Wing, 2006).

Speakers

Stephen J. Aguilar

Ph.D. Candidate, ABD & Visiting Scholar, University of Michigan / UC Irvine

Matthew Boyer

Assistant Professor, Clemson University

assistant professor of digital media & learning in the eugene t. moore school of education at clemson university

Michelle Carr

Michelle Fiesta

Barry Fishman

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Gameful learning, GradeCraft, motivation, higher education

Christina Gardner

Danielle Herro

Associate Professor of Digital Media and Learning, Clemson University

Caitlin Holman

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Adam Levick

Sara Molnar

Lauren Rocco

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Class of '24

Working Example

4:00pm

The Sophia Engine: Defining Fun As an Emotion for Learning

The Sophia Engine: Defining Fun As an Emotion for Learning
Erin Hoffman

Defining “fun” has been a dangerous prospect throughout the history of game development theory. Raph Koster defines fun as “the positive feedback given by the brain for cognitive learning, the process of building schemata for coping with the world” (Koster, 2005), notably connecting the mechanics of cognition and learning to this idea of engagement or entertainment. At the GlassLab, a division of the Institute of Play charged with creating formative assessment learning games, we have connected entertainment game developers to the learning process in a deep way, and have, over the past year and a half, encountered numerous new insights on the intersection of fun and learning.

What we have observed suggests that learning itself may be a distinct emotional state, and that it is this state, unique among those generally sought by entertainment games, that should be produced by the game mechanics derived from learning competencies.

Speakers

Erin Hoffman

Thursday June 12, 2014 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Inn Wisconsin

Workshop

5:00pm

Marquee Dinner

Dinner on Tripp Deck - to be followed by dessert at the GLS Showcase Award Ceremony.

Thursday June 12, 2014 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Tripp Deck

Delicious Food!

7:00pm

GLS Showcase Award Ceremony

The first GLS Showcase Award Ceremony: come for the dessert, coffee, and drinks - stay for the glitz, glamour, and games!

Our brilliant and varied panel of judges have played all the games in the GLS Showcase (formerly the Educational Game Arcade), and chosen the top five. Come see pitches for the top five games, followed by brief feedback by our panel of judges (Erin Hoffman, Colleen Macklin, James Paul Gee, Scott Price, & Lucien Vattel), and don't forget to vote for your favorites!

Full Judges List:
Alan Gershenfeld
Andy Phelps
Brian Pelletier
Colleen Macklin
Dennis Ramirez
Don Rawitsch
Drew Davidson
Elisabeth Gee
Erin Hoffman
James Paul Gee
Michael John
Scot Osterweil
Scott Price

Speakers

James Paul Gee

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Erin Hoffman

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

Scott Price

BrainPOP

Dennis Ramirez

Technical Director, USC IMGD, Videogame Researcher

Lucien Vattel

CEO, GameDesk

Trailblazing education and game development visionary Lucien Vattel is at the forefront of a nationwide crusade to revolutionize learning in the classroom and beyond. As the CEO of the Los Angeles-based interactive curriculum creator and digital publisher GameDesk, Vattel is transforming... Read More →

Thursday June 12, 2014 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Great Hall

Educational Game Arcade GLS Showcase

8:00pm

Arcade open 'til midnight!

Thursday June 12, 2014 8:00pm - 11:59pm
Tripp Commons

Arcade

8:30pm

Filament Games Soiree

Join Filament Games, a Madison-based educational game design studio, for drinks, live music, and a chance to chat with the founders, developers, and designers.

Complimentary shuttles will be located in front of the Memorial Union on Langdon Street to pick up reception attendees at 8:30pm and will run every hour up until 10:30pm to take guests back and forth.

Tweet using #FilamentSoiree14 to start the chatter!

Thursday June 12, 2014 8:30pm - 10:30pm
Filament Games

8:00am

Registration opens

Friday June 13, 2014 8:00am - 9:00am
Annex Room

Registration

9:00am

Breakfast and Keynote

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Join in the Ultimate Game: Closing the Engagement Gap in Education
Jessica Lindl

Our nation's learners are experiencing an engagement crisis as they progress through our education system – over 80% of elementary school kids are engaged in their learning, which is cut in half to 40% in high school, resulting in almost a 30% high school drop out rate. This daunting challenge can only be solved through collaborating. Jessica will discuss how a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach among educators, game designers and researchers can create impact at scale by activating and empowering developers, educators, and the whole host of other collaborators with a role to play in 21st century learning.

Speakers

Jessica Lindl

General Manager at the Institute of Play, GlassLab

Jessica is responsible for overseeing GlassLab, focusing on transforming learning and assessment through digital games. Jessica has spent over 15 years leading teams that design, develop, market and sell learning games to the global education market. In her work at organizations like... Read More →

Friday June 13, 2014 9:00am - 10:00am
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Keynote

10:00am

Arcade opens for the day

Friday June 13, 2014 10:00am - 12:00pm
Tripp Commons

Arcade

10:30am

Keynote Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Jessica Lindl.

Speakers

Jessica Lindl

General Manager at the Institute of Play, GlassLab

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

10:30am

Computer Science

Discussant: Matthew Berland

A Design-Focused Analysis of Games Teaching Computer Science
Casper Harteveld, Gillian Smith, Gail Carmichael, Elisabeth Gee, Carolee Stewart-Gardiner
This paper presents a design-focused analysis of 36 educational games in the domain of computer science. Given the importance of broadening participation in computing and especially improving gender diversity, it takes a gender-inclusive view on the design of such games, examining design features that are related to gender, storytelling, and fostering an inclusive environment. Ten broad patterns emerge from applying the analytical framework,, such as the prevalence of robots, the portrayal of computing as individualistic, and the dominance of puzzle elements. The framework and resulting patterns can be used to inspire the future development of educational games teaching computer science, through identification of new opportunities, as well as to guide the evaluation of their design.

Program-to-play videogames: Developing computational literacy through gameplay
David Weintrop, Uri Wilensky
This paper introduces program-to-play videogames, a design approach for creating game-based learning environments intended to support novices in developing computational literacy skills. Unlike conventional videogames where players control their on-screen avatars directly as the game unfolds, in program-to-play games, players articulate their gameplay strategies by constructing simple programs for their in-game character to carry out. Parallels between videogames norms and the practice of programming make the program-to-play approach especially well suited for giving learners the experience of expressing ideas in a computational medium. Using RoboBuilder, a program-to-play game of our own design, we discuss key features of this type of game and present data from a study we conducted with programming novices showing how the program-to-play design approach can scaffold learners in developing computational literacy skills.

Learnable Computing with Kodu? Computational thinking and the semiotics of game creation interfaces
Benjamin DeVane, Kelly Tran, Cody Steward, Brian LaPlant
Drawing on data from an after-school game-creation program for youth ages 10-13, this paper examines the way the interface of a visual game programming environment called Kodu affords and constrains how participants' learn basic computer science practices. Using data from a series of programming challenges presented to participants, this paper employs multimodal semiotic analysis of participants' log files and video recordings from the challenge to argue that Kodu's visual interface structure may lead users to solve problems using easily visible interface tools.

Speakers

Gail Carmichael

Computer scientist, educator, blogger. Passionate about getting people - especially girls - interested in computer science.

Benjamin DeVane

Assistant Professor, University of Iowa

Identity & Learning | Computational Thinking | Design & Aesthetics

Elisabeth Gee

Professor, Arizona State University

Casper Harteveld

Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Northeastern University

Dr. Casper Harteveld is an Assistant Professor of Game Design at Northeastern University, and author of Triadic Game Design (Springer, 2011), a book about serious game design. He earned his PhD degree from Delft University of Technology in Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis & Management... Read More →

Brian LaPlant

Gillian Smith

Cody Steward

Carolee Stewart

Union, NJ, Kean University

Kelly Tran

PhD Candidate, Arizona State University

PhD Student at Arizona State University.

David Weintrop

Northwestern University

Uri Wilensky

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Inn Wisconsin

Paper Presentations

10:30am

Social/Emotional Skills

Discussant: Kurt Squire

Compassion as a Learnable Skill
Richie Davidson
Compassion meditation produces changes in brain function that promote well-being, foster certain forms of positive affect and virtuous dispositions and impact physical health and illness. Through research with both long-term practitioners and novices studied longitudinally, this talk will illustrate some of key findings and challenges in the nascent field of contemplative neuroscience and will also showcase a major research project on the impact of games developed to cultivate mindfulness and compassion on the brain and behavior.

Social Emotional Learning: Scaling Impact
Jessica Berlinski
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is comprised of two key facets: skill building and creating safe, supportive climates where these skills can thrive. Whether in school or at home, effective SEL teaching requires that teachers and parents role model their own management of emotions, empathy, attentive listening and respectful communication to create these safe climates. Berlinski will share how can we leverage technology – particularly games – to build both key facets of SEL. She will also discuss the broader socio-culture ecosystem and how we must engage all sectors and stakeholders to create the needed cultural shift to make 21st skills like perseverance, collaboration and empathy educational priorities.

Speakers

Jessica Berlinski

Chief Learning Officer and Co-Founder, If You Can

Jessica Berlinski is Chief Learning Officer and Co-founder of If You Can, a San Francisco and London based company dedicated to building Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills in youth via a game platform. She joins Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins in creating the first... Read More →

Richard J Davidson

William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr Davidson's research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style and methods to promote human flourishing including meditation and related contemplative practices. His studies have included persons of all ages from birth though old age and have also included... Read More →

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

10:30am

Life is a journey: game-infused learning progressions with real-world impact

Life is a journey: game-infused learning progressions with real-world impact
Sasha Barab, Anna Arici, Adam Ingram-Goble, Brenden Sewell, Alan Gershenfeld

In this symposium, we will present data and insights from two of our student-facing games implemented with over 800 middle-schools students with low socio-economic status in a number of comparison studies. A core finding here was that having agency and consequentiality was a key learning value, and served to create a strong connection among player, content, and context. Further, we also learned that we had under-estimated the challenges of eco-system integration, and this finding prompted us to focus on supporting games for teachers, on developing a broader platform infrastructure, and putting more resources into the experience around the game. Further, as the largest public teacher certification program, we also focused on leveraging the same theory of change and infrastructure to build out game-infused professional development modules that will also be deconstructed as part of this symposium.

Speakers

Anna Arici

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Sasha Barab

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Alan Gershenfeld

President and Co-founder, E-Line Media

Alan is President and Co-Founder of E-Line Media, a leading publisher of games that engage, educate and empower. Alan was previously a member of the executive team that rebuilt game publisher Activision from bankruptcy into an industry leader. He has spoken on games and social impact... Read More →

Adam Ingram-Goble

Director of Innovations, Arizona State University

Brenden Sewell

Game Designer, E-Line Media

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Class of '24

Symposium

10:30am

Bridging the gap between researchers and entrepreneurs

Bridging the gap between researchers and entrepreneurs
Cameron White, Esteban Sosnik, Matt Messinger, Ira Sockowitz

Many researchers and entrepreneurs agree that high-quality games hold the promise of driving student achievement. At the same time, there is a stark, potentially counterproductive disconnect between the fast-paced, iterative logic of consumer game development and the lumbering process of creating and distributing educational games. Much of the best research is locked up inside universities while most experienced game designers are developing entertainment software; developers interested in applying their skills to educational games have limited access to leading thinkers and practitioners in the field. During this session, join the founding team of co.lab -- an edtech accelerator by NewSchools Venture Fund and Zynga.org – and the executive directors of Learning Games Network and the Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services, to brainstorm about how we can make research more actionable and create new opportunities for collaboration between startups and universities.

Speakers

Matt Messinger

Executive Director, Wisconsin Center for Education Products & Services

Matt’s background is hybrid of education and business. To start his career, he spent three years working as a college counselor and teacher at Eastside College Prep, a school for low-income students. Prior to WCEPS, he spent seven years working at for-profit educational technology... Read More →

Ira Sockowitz

Executive Director, Learning Games Network

Esteban Sosnik

Executive Director, co.lab

Cameron White

Associate Partner, NewSchools Venture Fund

Cameron White is the Associate Director of co.lab, an edtech accelerator by NewSchools Venture Fund and Zynga.org. Previously, Cameron worked at NewSchools as a Fellow and Learning Technology Specialist. He has also worked at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, DC, where... Read More →

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Beefeaters

Workshop

10:30am

The Metagame: Discuss and Design

The Metagame: Discuss and Design
Sean Duncan, Colleen Macklin, John Sharp

The revised Metagame (designed and published by Local No. 12) features 250 cards representing cultural artifacts -- from Pride and Prejudice to the Big Mac -- as well as comparison cards ("Which will save the world?"). Using the Metagame, we seek to present Games+Learning+Society attendees the opportunity to learn about playful approaches to discussion and culture, as well as practice game design skills using the Metagame as a "game design toolkit" to remix and modify. The bulk of the workshop will be design-focused, with attendees encouraged to create new game designs using the Metagame that address curricular and disciplinary interests of the session's participants. Games designed in the session will be critiqued, as will the Metagame itself, with participant designed games shared online for other educators and researchers to engage with.

Speakers

Sean Duncan

Assistant Professor, Indiana University

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

John Sharp

IndieCade West 2015 Chair

Friday June 13, 2014 10:30am - 11:30am
Festival Room

Workshop

11:30am

Snack Time!

Friday June 13, 2014 11:30am - 12:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

12:00pm

Fireside Chat

Come sit by the "fire" and chat with Elisabeth Gee, Sasha Barab, and Alan Gershenfeld.

Speakers

Sasha Barab

Tempe, Arizona, USA, Arizona State University

Elisabeth Gee

Professor, Arizona State University

Alan Gershenfeld

President and Co-founder, E-Line Media

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Capitol View

Fireside Chat

12:00pm

Micropresentations

Curator: Sean Duncan

Games vs. gamification: The ultimate showdown
Moses Wolfenstein
Since ancient times, games have been a powerful force, providing form around the deep and fundamental desire to play, and creating purposeful and informal opportunities for learning. Within many cultural contexts, games have been pushed out to the edges of the learning ecosystem. However, the desire to play persists, and so games have continued to find a way. Now, and not for the first time, individuals seek to control games, placing the raw primordial force of play in the service of their ambitions through gamification. However, as many of our brightest scholars have stated, games are more than points and badges, more even than the rules that give them form. The arrogance of (humans) is thinking that (games) are in our control and not the other way around. In this session, games and gamification will square off in the ultimate showdown, and we will determine once and for all who is the true king of the monsters.

Twitch Plays Pokemon
Dennis Ramirez, Jenny Saucerman, Jeremy Dietmeier
Given enough time, a thousand monkeys sitting at a thousand typewriters will produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Under a similar premise, the phenomena that is Twitch Plays Pokemon has set out to see if order can arise from chaos. Can a thousand gamers at a thousand computers can collectively beat the game Pokemon?

CARD-tamen™ TPACK: Assessing Teacher Ability to Wisely Integrate Technology in the K12 Classroom
Beomkyu Choi, Stephen Slota, Michael Young
Amid a growing influx of smart devices, mobile phones, laptops, and tablets, the ability to seamlessly integrate technology and pedagogy has emerged as a crucial component of 21st century master teaching. In response, Koehler and Mishra (2009) developed the Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework to better define and catalogue the complex dimensions of technology integration as associated with innovative instruction and domain expertise. The authors have expanded upon Koehler and Mishra’s vision by adding the context of contemporary learning theory and adapting a commercially available card game, CARD-tamen™, such that players (i.e., practicing educators) can externalize their knowledge concerning issues commonly associated with TPACK. The authors anticipate that this approach will improve integration strategies at the intersection of Technology, Pedagogical, and Content knowledge and provide important assessment information for decision-making concerning in-service teacher program coursework.

Role-Taking as an Advocacy Strategy for Policy Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Presentation Modes in Evoking Empathy and a Willingness to Act
Lien Tran, Katharina Lang, Nicholas Carcioppolo, David Beyea
This is a presentation on the comparative effectiveness of a tabletop serious game and a written report on a person’s empathy and willingness to engage in advocacy behavior. The game Cops and Rubbers simulates the adverse effect of the condoms-as-evidence policy on sex workers' health and human rights. The effectiveness of this game as an alternative advocacy tool is compared to a written report on this same policy. The current study assesses how serious games can impact attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. Preliminary results reveal that (1) there are no significant knowledge differences between the report and game condition, suggesting the game is similarly efficacious as a detailed report; and (2) the game resulted in significantly higher intentions to advocate for sex workers’ rights than the pamphlet. These results suggest that Cops and Rubbers may be an effective way to increase knowledge, attitudes, and intentions concerning sex workers’ rights.

Growth, reproduction, and environmental stress: the evolution of a botany game in response to rapidly changing conditions
Trevor Brown, Arthur Low
In an age where many students are hard-pressed to identify even the most common garden vegetables, relating complex concepts like photosynthesis and pollination to a middle school audience is no small task. The game we’d like to explore aims to do just that by exposing students to a simplified model of a highly identifiable annual plant growing from seed to mature fruit-bearer over the course of a single growing season. We describe the development of a learning game that draws an engaging parallel between the cycle of growth, maturation, dissemination, and eventual renewal seen in the propagated life of a plant, and the iterative release cycle of an agile development shop.

“Smarter thinking and trial and error x 17” – Building epistemological presence in game spaces
Bob Coulter
Popular perceptions of games run the gamut from frill to menace. In school, games are trivialized to being a tool best used to Raise Test Scores. For better or worse, these viewpoints limit the potential for games to support kids’ growth and development. To counter this, the author argues for richly constructed game spaces that promote epistemological presence – “an atmosphere in which the complexity of knowledge and the knower’s experience of it is constantly in play” (Sockett, 2012). Specific examples of game play and design show how environments designed for epistemological presence can move kids into a new and profoundly generative space. As a result, kids iteratively build capacity and are motivated toward continuing growth. As Self Determination Theory predicts, kids (and other humans) thrive if their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are met. Designing the space for that growth is an essential step toward that goal.

Sell the Kids for Food: A Caution on Computers, Luck, and Children
Jason Haas
In what is sure to be a jam packed near-seven minutes, I will quickly explain how games are time machines for human identity, why this is important, and how our current fixation on data-driven outcomes for kids kills an important part of humanity in them as well as in our culture. Core to this argument will be an understanding of Callois’ “Alea,” (or chance) and how deterministic computational models can remove this core aspect of self-determination. Traditionally, Americans have ironically preferred cultures of control to cultures of chance, banning gambling and touting a meritocratic ideal that hard work pays off even as fundamental components of our economy thrive on chance. I will argue that current attempts to computationally track, assess, and predict our kids are ideologically driven and fundamentally at war with something at the core of why games and gaming are important to us as humans, and that the GLS Community is in a key position to push back.

Against ‘Identity’: The self and learning in a language (of) game
Benjamin DeVane
The term ‘identity’ has become increasingly central to game-based learning and research. Designers, scholars, teachers and practitioners are all talking about players’ identity changes in games. But we never quite understand what anybody else means when they talk about games and identity, even though we often think we do. In this talk I argue that we should stop saying that players’ identities are being transformed into that of a character in a learning game, because they are not, and it causes confusion. Instead I contend that educators and researchers should think more about the identities that players bring to games and the ways that players fashion identities around play spaces, not within virtual environments. Old-fashioned, unsophisticated words like “character” and “role” are much better suited to describing players’ ongoing development of a narrative-social self within a gameworld.

Speakers

David Beyea

Trevor Brown

Art Director, Filament Games

Trevor specializes in interaction design at Filament Games. He relishes the many challenges involved in the creation of learning games, from designing intuitive interfaces to crafting attractive, audience-appropriate graphics. Trevor particularly enjoys using his career as an excuse... Read More →

Nicholas Carcioppolo

Beomkyu Choi

Bob Coulter

Director, Missouri Botanical Garden

Bob is the director of the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, an R&D-focused division of the Missouri Botanical Garden. As part of that work, Bob leads game-based learning initiatives using augmented reality and agent-based modeling tools.

Benjamin DeVane

Assistant Professor, University of Iowa

Identity & Learning | Computational Thinking | Design & Aesthetics

Jeremy Dietmeier

Jason Haas

Cambridge, MA, United States, Scheller Teacher Education Program

Katharina Lang

Arthur Low

Engineering Director, Filament Games

5 year veteran of Filament Games. I've worked in some capacity on the majority of projects the studio has produced (including programming many of them). I like to talk about code. I like to talk about games for learning.

Dennis Ramirez

Technical Director, USC IMGD, Videogame Researcher

Jenny Saucerman

Madison, WI, United States, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Stephen Slota

Co-Founder, The Pericles Group, LLC

Lien Tran

Assistant Professor, University of Miami

Game Design. Social Impact Games. Social Change. Higher Education.

Moses Wolfenstein

Madison, WI, United States, University of Wisconsin, Extension

Moses has worked in the field of education for over a decade, and has been studying and creating games and other digital media for learning since 2006. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis where he worked with his adviser... Read More →

Michael Young

Profesor, University of Connecticut

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Festival Room

Micropresentations Speed Runs

12:00pm

You've finished your game-based dissertation - now what?

Are you finishing up your dissertation and thinking about going on the market? Are you wondering where to go in the next phase of your career? Come chat with David Simkins, Cynthia D'Angelo, Debbie Fields, & Trent Hergenrader about the various different directions you can go, and get advice from recent graduates who have a wide variety of experiences in the field!

Speakers

Cynthia D'Angelo

Deborah Fields

Independent Research Consultant & Temporary Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, Utah State University

Trent Hergenrader

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

David Simkins

Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Beefeaters

Panel

12:00pm

Implicit Learning, the Brain, and 'Non-Cognitive' Skills

Discussant: James Gambrell

Crossing the Bridge: Connecting Game-Based Implicit Science Learning to the Classroom
Elizabeth Rowe, Jodi Asbell-Clarke, Erin Bardar, Emily Kasman, Barbara MacEachern
Games offer a unique opportunity to promote and study implicit learning that could be foundational for further STEM learning. This paper reports on preliminary results from a national classroom implementation study. In this study, 42 teachers were assigned to the Bridge (classroom activities and game play), Games (game play only), or Control group. The game, Impulse, immerses players in the physical laws of Newtonian motion. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from the first 14 teachers to complete the study shows a significant positive effect of the Bridge group compared to the Control group on student’s post-assessment scores after accounting for pre-assessment scores. This Group effect, however, was significantly moderated by whether more than half of the students enrolled in the class completed the study (strong vs. weak cohort). This initial finding supports our conjecture that Impulse can help prepare some students for improved science learning in class.

No hands needed: Investigating the affordances of using a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) as a game controller and its potential effect on learning and user experience
Selen Turkay, Maria Hwang, Pantiphar Chantes, Dan Hoffman, Charles Kinzer, Ahram Choi, Shuyi Hsu
Recently, Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have attracted attention in the educational gaming field, but research with such devices is sparse. This study used the Emotiv EPOC BCI neuroheadset to investigate the affordances of using BCI as a game controller and its potential effect on learning and positive player experiences, with a view to providing implications for designing educational games. The study showed that the Emotiv interface helped participants learn abstract symbols and their associated English meanings as well as those who did not use the headset. Additionally, the BCI shows promising potential as fun and engagement were consistently higher throughout the game. Educational game designers can consider the potential of BCIs and how they can take advantage of increased engagement towards better learning.

Effects of the systematic playing of a mindfulness game on attentional processes
Elena Patsenka

Speakers

Jodi Asbell-Clarke

Director, EdGE at TERC

I direct a team of game designers, researchers, and learning scientists who live and work on the edge of science and play.

Erin Bardar

Education Materials Director, EdGE at TERC

Pantiphar Chantes

Ahram Choi

Teachers College, Columbia University

Dan Hoffman

Shuyi Hsu

Teachers College, Columbia University

Maria Hwang

Higher Education Institution, Teachers College, Columbia University

Teachers College, Columbia University

Emily Kasman

Charles Kinzer

Barbara MacEachern

Outreach Coordinator/Facilitator of Fun, EdGE at TERC

My EdGE role includes leading outreach efforts and communications, actively and enthusiastically engaging young people and teachers in game testing, basically, I get to facilitate FUN. I have a background in facilitation and community-based work, as well as activity design and implementation... Read More →

Elena Patsenka

Elizabeth Rowe

Director of Research, EdGE @ TERC

Selen Turkay

Harvard University

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Old Madison

Paper Presentations

12:00pm

Systems Reasoning

Discussant: Seann Dikkers

Children of the Sun: The design and evaluation of an educational game about middle mississippian culture
Steffan Byrne, Paul Gestwicki, Ronald Morris
Children of the Sun is a tablet-based educational game about the Middle Mississippians. It is designed for use in museum outreach programs and employs a collocated multiplayer design: each player has his or her own tablet computer and competes against those nearby. In Children of the Sun, the player is a village chief, responsible for assigning his three hundred villagers to the four primary tasks of farming, hunting, mound-building, and raiding. After successful deployment of the game, a research team conducted a formal qualitative study to discover which aspects of the game contributed to or distracted from the learning objectives. We document three major findings: the players strongly identified with their own village; the game clarified some misconceptions about Native American culture; and players' collocation encouraged them to help each other quickly learn the rules and interface of the game.

Turn Up the Heat! Board Games, Environmental Sustainability, and Cultural Forms
Michael Horn, Amartya Banerjee, Sarah D'Angelo, Pei-Yi Kuo, D. Harmon Pollock, Reed Stevens
Turn Up the Heat! is a cooperative board game designed to encourage families to reflect on tradeoffs related to energy, money, comfort, and environmental sustainability. In particular, the game playfully confronts power dynamics associated with the use of residential thermostats to control domestic heating and cooling systems. Turn Up the Heat addresses common misconceptions about how thermostats work and how they can be used to save energy and money. Our game incorporates traditional elements such as cards, tokens, and a game board, but it also includes a tablet computer app as a central feature of play. The app simulates heating and cooling system based on factors such as outdoor temperatures, thermostat settings, and home insulation levels. It also gives all players (parents and children alike) the opportunity to adjust a thermostat on their turn.

Talking with kids on game design, computer programming, and taking over the world with dragons
Amanda Ochsner, Gabriella Anton
This paper examines the programming and game design practices of middle school students who attend an informal after-school group called the Cyberlearning Club. Using tools like Scratch and Kodu the students use programming to design digital games individually and collaboratively. Several of the students have begun to express interest in more advanced programming languages and are utilizing online tools and books to expand their programming abilities. This paper reports on the results of semi-structured qualitative interviews meant to capture students’ conceptual understandings and trajectories relating to programming and game design. The questions aim at understanding where each student is at in terms of opinions on their programming ability, their experiences of different tools and resources, and what their learning goals and future aspirations are. We profile students who reported distinct learning goals and programming trajectories, focusing on how to support their future design and programming endeavors.

Discussants

Seann Dikkers

Associate Professor, Bethel University

Speakers

Gabriella Anton

Amartya Banerjee

Steffan Byrne

Sarah D'Angelo

Paul Gestwicki

Associate Professor, Ball State University

I am in the Computer Science department, where I teach advanced programming as well as game design and development. I regularly form multidiscplinary teams of undergraduates to work with community partners on serious game projects.

Michael Horn

Evanston, Illinois, United States, Northwestern University

Pei-Yi Kuo

PhD Student, Northwestern University

Ronald Morris

Professor; Presidential Immersive Learning Fellow, Ball State University Department of History

I am passionate about providing curriculm materials to elementary social studies teachers, providing digital resources to enrich elementary social studies classrooms for students, and creating digital materials to help cultural institutions work with families.

Amanda Ochsner

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California

D. Harmon Pollock

Reed

Evanston, Illinois, United States, Northwestern University

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Inn Wisconsin

Paper Presentations

12:00pm

Building a better donkey: A game-based layered learning approach to veterinary medical education

Building a better donkey: A game-based layered learning approach to veterinary medical education
Eric Bauman, Reid Adams, David Pederson, Greg Vaughan, Devon Klompmaker, Adam Wiens, Mike Beall, Jake Ruesch, Emanuel Rosu, Kevin Schilder, Kurt Squire

Background:

Veterinary education faces many of the challenges associated with human medicine in terms of patient safety associated with clinical educational processes. In addition, veterinary clinical educational settings pose the additional challenges associated with clinician or student safety, particularly in the presence of large animals.

Problem:

Simulation provides a viable and often used mechanism to provide safe training opportunities for healthcare students associated with human clinical practice such as nursing and medical students. However, there are few mannikin-based simulators specific to veterinary education. Further, even when mannikin-based is available included in the curriculum; it affords only limited opportunity for deliberate practice.

Outcome/Discussion:

This paper will detail the research and development process used to create game-based mobile applications that support veterinary medicine, including a donkey anesthesia simulator. The process leverages a layered learning model where game-based learning prepares studentss for future mannikin-based simulation, and later real-world clinical experiences.

Speakers

Reid Adams

Director of Simulation Ops., DeVry Medical International's Institute for Research and Clinical Strategy

Reid Adams works in Clinical Simulation Research for DeVry. He has worked extensively in simulation with multiple healthcare disciplines at various levels of training, ranging from under graduate to practicing clinician. Reid’s previously work at the Ross University School of Medicine... Read More →

Eric Bauman

Iselen, New Jersey, United States, DeVry Medical International's Institute for Research and Clinical Strategy

Mike Beall

Project Leader, Learning Games Network

I am a Game Designer, Project Leader, and Artist working with the Learning Games Network and Games Learning Society. In addition to direct involvement with design and development of many GLS/LGN games, I also work with local schools and community centers where I engage with University... Read More →

Devon Klompmaker

David Pederson

Emanuel Rosu

Jake Ruesch

Art Director, Gear Learning

Kevin Schilder

Kurt Squire

University of California, Irvine

Greg Vaughan

Sr. Software Engineer, Learning Games Network

C#, Unity 3D Development,

Adam Wiens

Friday June 13, 2014 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Class of '24

Workshop

1:00pm

Lunch

Friday June 13, 2014 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food!

1:00pm

Speed Runs

Speed Runs
Facilitated by Sean Duncan

The GLS 10 Closing Keynote will unveil our very own version of pecha kucha: Speed Runs. Featuring top folks in the field, including John Sharp, Colleen Macklin, Constance Steinkuehler, Dan Norton, Elizabeth Lawley, Barry Joseph, & (of course) our curator, Sean Duncan. Come prepared for fast-paced, brilliant, and provocative ideas!

Awards:
Winners of the Conquering GLS game and the Android: Netrunner Quasi-Tournament! will be announced and appropriately celebrated. (It could be YOU! o_O)

Speakers

Sean Duncan

Assistant Professor, Indiana University

Barry Joseph

VP of Digital Experience, Girl Scouts

Elizabeth Lawley

Professor, RIT Interactive Games & Media

Social computing. Location-based games. Dubrovnik. My kids.

Colleen Macklin

Founder and co-director, PETLab

Dan Norton

John Sharp

IndieCade West 2015 Chair

Constance Steinkuehler

Speaker, University of California-Irvine & HEVGA

Friday June 13, 2014 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Keynote

1:00pm

Networking Event: 'Non-Cognitive' Skills

Join the continuing conversation about so-called "non-cognitive" skills over lunch!

Speakers

James Gambrell

Research, ACT

Dr. James Gambrell is a psychologist, psychometrician, and gamer. His research interests focus on validity and fairness issues surrounding large-scale ability and achievement tests as well as gifted education. Currently he is a research associate at ACT where he is investigating... Read More →

Kristin Stoeffler

ACT

Jason Way

Research Associate, ACT

I am working in the area of the research and development of non-cognitive assessments.

Friday June 13, 2014 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Great Hall

Delicious Food! Networking

2:30pm

Take our GLS 10 Survey!

This button is a relevant link - try clicking it!

Friday June 13, 2014 2:30pm - 3:00pm
THE INTERNET

Online Survey

3:00pm

Beer & Brats

See a GLS volunteer to get your Beer & Brats card, then wander on down to the terrace to enjoy the lake and relax.

Friday June 13, 2014 3:00pm - 6:00pm
Terrace

Delicious Food!