Games+Learning+Society Educator Symposium

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Are you an educator, library media specialist, administrator, or technology coordinator? Are you interested in learning more about how media and technology can be integrated into schools and universities? If so, then join us for the third annual GLS Educator Symposium on Tuesday, June 14th. This event runs from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Memorial Union in Madison, Wisconsin. The GLS Educator Symposium features panel presentations and roundtables from noted scholars in videogames and digital media as well as hands-on workshops. This event is open to past GLS conference attendees as well as newcomers. Registration is now closed. One or two graduate credits, through the University of Wisconsin – Madison, are also available for an additional $150 per credit. The syllabus and information on course registration are available. If you have any questions about the course, please contact Mark Dziedzic at Education Outreach and Partnerships. If you would like to inquire about the GLS Educator Symposium, get in touch with co-chairs Jen Scott Curwood and Remi Holden.

9:00	–	9:30	Browsing Library, 2nd Floor Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:30	–	10:45	Main Lounge, 2nd Floor Panel Discussion: “Technology Implementation in Schools” Speakers: Danielle Herro, Technology Administrator for the Oconomowoc School District; Erin Schwane, English Teacher at New Berlin West High School; Gary Weisserman, Head of School at Oakland High School Early College in Detroit; Dee Johnson, Student at Shabazz High School in Madison. Together our four panelists will share their perceptions of the state of new media and schools and talk through some of the challenges and opportunities games and digital technologies present for the classroom. This will be an interactive panel, so we encourage you to come prepared with questions for our panelists about how to start up or move forward with the use of new media in your own schools.
10:45	–	11:15	Break
11:15	–	12:30	Main Lounge, 2nd Floor Roundtables Join noted games and media scholars to critically discuss their current work. Roundtables will give participants the opportunity to engage directly with scholars and gain insight into current research and design in the field. “Saving the Universe” - LEGO Universe in School, with Marianne Malmstrom, The Elizabeth Morrow School. Virtual Learning Environments for All: A Discussion About LMS and Media Design Access, with Richard Halverson, University of Wisconsin – Madison. Development Post-Mortem and Research Results for Mecanika, a Game to Learn Newtonian Concepts, with François Boucher-Genesse, Martin Riopel, Patrice Potvin, University of Quebec in Montreal Globaloria and Computational Thinking in Middle School Students, with Luke Kane, Michigan State University, and Ivan Alex Games - Microsoft Games. Mobile Civic Engagement: Participation, Documentation and Design, with Jim Matthews and Remi Holden, University of Wisconsin – Madison. Transforming Student Behavior and Health in the Real World through Gameplay, with John Ferrara, Bri Lance, Andrew Karetas, Amanda Ferrara from Fitter Critters. “I Really Didn’t Do Anything”: A Multiple Case Study Analysis of Teacher Professional Development Trajectories Towards the Use of Digital Tools in the Classroom, with Seann Dikkers, University of Wisconsin – Madison. An Educator’s Guide to Transmedia: How are Children’s Media Companies Working to Reach Our Kids? with Meagan Rothschild, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
12:30	–	2:00	Main Lounge, 2nd Floor Catered Lunch and Raffle
2:00	–	4:00	Workshops: Main Lounge, 2nd Floor Rapid Game Prototyping with Kevin Harris, Matt Gaydos, and Ryan Martinez, University of Wisconsin - Madison. Video games are just one way to integrate games into curriculum. Used within the video game industry, paper prototyping helps individuals explore content, think systemically, and iteratively develop game concepts – all using everyday supplies, such as dice, cards, pens and paper. In this workshop, participants will develop playable games in small groups; afterwards, we will play the games created. The last portion of the session will be an open discussion between participants and the facilitators for feedback on how games and game design might be integrated into curriculum. Playful dispositions are a must, but no previous game design experience is required. Inn Wisconsin East, 2nd Floor Touring with Technology: Google Earth, Flip Cams, and Photo Editing to Engage Middle School Students in Social Studies Research with Patrick Stinnett and Dani Herro from the Oconomowoc School District. During this interactive session, participants will explore curriculum, assessments, and project-based work in a 6 week course entitled Touring with Technology. Currently implemented in the Oconomowoc Area Schools, students within the course research a location based on units taught within their social studies curriculum, and examine history, location, points of interest, climate, and famous people from a particular locale. Teachers scaffold the learning; Google Earth, wikis, Flip camera and photo-editing software offer opportunities for students to create and collaborate as they design and share a tour with technology. Please bring a laptop computer with Google Earth already downloaded. Optional requirements - download a free trial version of Sony Creative Software Vegas Movie Studio HD v. 10. Beefeaters, 3rd Floor Designing Games for Active Citizenship: Civic Engagement through DevInfo Gameworks, with Jeff Kupperman, University of Michigan-Flint and Remi Holden, University of Wisconsin - Madison. DevInfo Gameworks (DIGW) brings wide-ranging information on the condition of humanity to young people in an engaging, social way through a software gaming engine that supports the creation, exchange and play of games based upon United Nations development data from around the world. Implemented internationally with support from organizations such as UNICEF, the free, easy to use DIGW platform provides opportunities to design games appropriate for K-12 classrooms in any subject area. Bring your laptops and mobile devices to this hands-on workshop where you will both create games and learn how to design experiences for your students to become game designers, digital media producers, and active citizens. Join DIGW at http://digw.org/. Old Madison East, 3rd Floor Up and Running: Making Mobile Games with ARIS with Chris Holden, University of New Mexico; Chris Blakesley, David Gagnon, John Martin, Jim Mathews, University of Wisconsin - Madison; and Dee Johnson, Madison Metropolitan School District. Mobile games can be a powerful way to connect place to academic content. Developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, ARIS is an open-source mobile game platform for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Teachers and students have already used ARIS to create mobile games in a variety of contexts. In this hands-on workshop, we will share the current version of the easy to use authoring tool and help you get started making your own games. If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, please bring it along. If you'd like to author your own games, all you need is a computer with a web browser. Old Madison West, 3rd Floor Let’s Play! Game Design with Scratch with Karen Brennan from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Side-scrollers. Quizzes. Mazes. Simulators. Young people are using Scratch to create and share a wide variety of interactive games. In the process, they learn important computational concepts (for example, using variables for keeping score and conditionals for making game decisions), while also developing general problem-solving skills and design capacities. Join us for a hands-on experience with Scratch game design. You will be introduced to Scratch, learn to create games, view examples of games created by young people, and hear how other educators are using Scratch for game design. No prior experience necessary. Please bring a laptop with Scratch installed. (Scratch is available as a free download from http://scratch.mit.edu) Inn Wisconsin West, 2nd Floor Remix and Respect: Intellectual Property, Fair Use, and Crediting Work in Digital Environments with Lora Cowell from the School District of Hartford and Jen Scott Curwood from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Rapidly changing technology has a profound impact on the evolution of digital media, both consumed and authored. New methods of producing and sharing knowledge call for a paradigm shift, not only in teaching and learning, but also in how we exercise intellectual responsibility. This workshop will revisit the concepts of intellectual property and fair use as they apply in today’s remix culture. Participants will take away tips and hands-on experience in crediting work in a variety of digital environments, beyond the academic bibliography, that can be immediately implemented into classroom media projects. Participants are asked to bring along their laptops and their “fair use” dilemmas.
4:00	–	4:15	Break
4:15	–	6:30	Tripp Commons, 2nd Floor Happy Hour in Game Arcade