My boss just asked me what I think is the difference between a game and an interactive, and I stammered.
Here’s a more concrete reply:
“A game offers a form of play within a set of rules, which is ultimately decided by skill or luck.”
Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (10:30am)
“Engage, Empower Students with 21st Century Skills” – Susan Meeks, Breakaway Games
SUMMARY:
The speaker covered some problems in the current education system(s), it’s antiquated goals, and the incomplete theories that form its foundation. Also covered several new inventions and innovative ideas for reform.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
While there are two must-see videos about the current American school system, I think the most interesting aspect of this talk was: the weird reactions (especially, the things it made me think about – zany brainstorms included below).
The question at the end (about presenting our long term assessment metrics to upper management, in a useful manner) struck me as one of the more profound takeaways of the whole conference.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (9am)
“The Role of Assessment”
– Alex Games (Education Design Director, Microsoft), Zoran Popovic (Associate Professor, University of Washington), James Portnow (CEO, Rainmaker Games), Bob Dolan (Senior Research Scientist, Pearson)
SUMMARY:
Some really insightful thoughts on how to assess the effectiveness of any education.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
several useful quotes from some smart speakers (thinking of education as a process instead of a product, to the ideas around how games can assess for the rest of your life to… much more).
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (6pm)
“Mining Student Interactions for Evidence of Collaborative Problem Solving.”
Ellen Strain-Seymour, Bob Dolan. Pearson Assessments
SUMMARY:
A delightful dissection of some serious statistics gathering – followed by a fun audience participation in a communication experiment.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
There were several ponderous examples of how-to-do feedback statistics gathering. There was a fun example of distance learning engagement in action. It is also interesting to ponder the specific terms and concepts they thought were worth tracking during the student experience.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (4:30pm)
“The Lost (But Critical) Art of Storytelling in Serious Gaming” David Versaw, WILL Interactive
SUMMARY:
Basically a demonstration of their branching video projects. Uh, I feel it’s pretty clear “interactive movies” didn’t catch on 10 years ago. shrug.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
We won’t be paying for these professional movie making services anytime soon, but it is always fun to keep the importance of “cinematic storytelling” in mind when creating our future videos. [random thought: it might be cool to try and rope some aspiring OSU filmmakers into experimenting with storytelling for our videos.]
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (3:30pm)
“Reporting Real-Time Engagement and Learning Data Using Sensor Suites”- Robert Christopherson, Arizona State University / Sempre Learning
SUMMARY:
Thrilling overview of current state of biometrics/psychophysiology.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
Gathering massive amounts of data, and processing them in ways to divine trends (and deeper truths than you can get from simple surveys) is the future of evaluation. I’m deeply passionate about incorporating biometrics into the evaluation of our learning exercises.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (2pm)
“Unity3D & Blender: Serious Game Development” Zack Larson, Design3
SUMMARY:
This was a kind of weak introduction to Unity3D (nothing new for me).
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
I got to ask a couple interesting questions afterwards. but. meh, this session was mostly a mistake.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (1pm)
Lab: “Play the Science: Experiencing Science by Having Fun with Games” – Jeremy Friedberg, Spongelab Interactive
SUMMARY:
Very insightful and cool examples of online learning games, from someone who is out there delivering them. Very inspiring to see how they’re tackling different approaches (based more on what they think would be cool to learn, rather than what is forced by a strict school bureaucracy), and hear their justifications for some of their choices.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
Changed my ideas about where online education could end up in five years…
(and left me obsessed with the idea of students creating an “education profile” – something like Xbox-achievements-accumulating-profile meets real-world-medical-records).
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (11:30am)
Techniques for Achieving an Effective Blend Between Engagement and Learning in Games
– Talib Hussain, Raytheon BBN Technologies
SUMMARY/ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
Some interesting thoughts on the importance of making the exercise fun, while also allowing room for the pain and suffering struggle that you need for proper learning. Ultimately my notes aren’t very good though.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
Official Session Name: (10:30am)
US Game-based Learning Market Forecast: All Roads Lead to Mobile
– Sam Adkins (Chief Research Officer, Ambient Insight)
Summary:
At first I thought I went to the wrong session (this was a last minute room change. and initial talk was more about “money making” reality than “education effectiveness” reality). But there turned out to be some interesting analysis, and much food for thought (including several interesting apps and consumer learning products I’d never never heard of).
Ecampus Takeaway:
Some interesting discussion of tablets and asian markets, interesting links, and ideas for mobile apps we should make.
Raw Notes: Continue reading
