Can games be used to change social behavior? Can games be used to create a shift in people's thinking? How does one go about producing a 'game for change.'
These were some of the questions kicking around in my brain when I walked in through the doors of the Parsons New School of Design in Greenwich village ready for G4C 101.
The G4C 101 workshop was designed to introduce newbies like myself to the entire process of creating a game for change from design and development to pitching and distribution.
I had a little (OK, more than a little) trepidation about entering into a space that was so new to me. I needn't have worried. I've never been in a room where so many people with similar interests in technology, education and design appeared so committed to "change".
I had chosen Youth Empowerment as my 'topic of the day' for the 'grow-a-game' session but something drew me towards the "Global Conflict" group. I had no experience designing a game that explored this topic. My only claim to fame (or shame if you choose to look at it that way) was that I AM a product of Global Conflict!
My story about Sri Lanka for some reason became the 'urge' for the group's game prototype. While if we had just one more hour we could have probably come up with a game that was slightly more defined, "Kandy - the Last Hat Kingdom" ended up winning 3rd place in the pitching session to the judges. Better than, I think, we all expected.
My key take-a-way from the day:
"Designing a game is hard - designing a good game is even harder."
I left the room with a book filled with notes and my head buzzing with ideas...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Moving Windmills
I just received this via the UNESCO-OER list serve. He's not a slumdog nor is he a millionaire but he's certainly something...
As Cliff Missen, Director, of the WiderNet Project at the University of Iowa states:
"I love William Kamkwamba's story because it represents the best of what we are trying to accomplish.
The right information in the right hands at the right time makes a world of difference."
As Cliff Missen, Director, of the WiderNet Project at the University of Iowa states:
"I love William Kamkwamba's story because it represents the best of what we are trying to accomplish.
The right information in the right hands at the right time makes a world of difference."
Friday, February 27, 2009
A Vision for K-12 Students
If you haven't seen it already, you've got to check out this video. An inspiring and challenging call to educators (and parents) about the need to reach out to children through technology.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
FOWA Miami
So I'm going to start back-asswards as my uncle likes to say.
FOWA Miami was pretty cool. Some of the presentations were awesome (Gary Vaynerchuck's was a complete surprise!) and others were a little over my head (as soon as they started throwing out terms like queries and stacks my eyes would glaze over).
So here's a quick recap of what I enjoyed in no particular order
Aza Raskin demoing (eventually!) the Ubiquity plug in from Mozilla - it's in Alpha but I urge all firefox fans out there to download and try this one. It's hard to explain in words but if I had to I'd say it was a really cool way to interact with all of your applications by simply using prompts (I know this sounds like we're going backwards but you have to see the demo to believe me when I say my jaw dropped ever so slightly when I saw this)
The 280North guy demoing Atlas - an amazing way to program rich user interfaces with drag and drop functionality. Again, you have to watch the demo to believe this but I think EVERYONE (even those jaded- too- cool- to- smile- developers) dropped their jaws. Spontaneous clapping erupted and they deserved it. Did we just witness a milestone making moment in history? I guess time will tell.
Kristin Halvorson from BrainTraffic ending her talk 15 mins early so she could ask "Why am I the only woman on the program?" The few of us in the audience (maybe 15% but I could be wrong) clapped. It was a difficult conversation and I could feel the bristling of some in the room but Ryan Carson and Chris Messina handled it rather well and asked the audience to help by proposing possible women speakers via twitter (#FOWASPEAK). I just sent a tweet with the URL to the article by Fast Company this past month on the most influential women in technology.
OK, it's past midnight and I think I'm running out of steam and even though I'd love to cover how all of this relates to education and kids I think I'm going to have to call it a night. I'll save some juice so I can write more quotable quotes from Jason Fried of 37signals and Gary Vaynerchuk in my next post.
FOWA Miami was pretty cool. Some of the presentations were awesome (Gary Vaynerchuck's was a complete surprise!) and others were a little over my head (as soon as they started throwing out terms like queries and stacks my eyes would glaze over).
So here's a quick recap of what I enjoyed in no particular order
Aza Raskin demoing (eventually!) the Ubiquity plug in from Mozilla - it's in Alpha but I urge all firefox fans out there to download and try this one. It's hard to explain in words but if I had to I'd say it was a really cool way to interact with all of your applications by simply using prompts (I know this sounds like we're going backwards but you have to see the demo to believe me when I say my jaw dropped ever so slightly when I saw this)
The 280North guy demoing Atlas - an amazing way to program rich user interfaces with drag and drop functionality. Again, you have to watch the demo to believe this but I think EVERYONE (even those jaded- too- cool- to- smile- developers) dropped their jaws. Spontaneous clapping erupted and they deserved it. Did we just witness a milestone making moment in history? I guess time will tell.
Kristin Halvorson from BrainTraffic ending her talk 15 mins early so she could ask "Why am I the only woman on the program?" The few of us in the audience (maybe 15% but I could be wrong) clapped. It was a difficult conversation and I could feel the bristling of some in the room but Ryan Carson and Chris Messina handled it rather well and asked the audience to help by proposing possible women speakers via twitter (#FOWASPEAK). I just sent a tweet with the URL to the article by Fast Company this past month on the most influential women in technology.
OK, it's past midnight and I think I'm running out of steam and even though I'd love to cover how all of this relates to education and kids I think I'm going to have to call it a night. I'll save some juice so I can write more quotable quotes from Jason Fried of 37signals and Gary Vaynerchuk in my next post.
Conferenced Out
In the past seven days I've been to three conferences and it shows. My boss asked me to stop with the ideas yesterday, so it must be pretty bad! :)
I meant to blog about all of them live but while I'm an excellent multi-tasker visually, I have a hard time doing multi-sensory multi-tasking (like listening and blogging at the same time). Besides, I like to be able to consolidate my notes (yes, I still use a notebook and pen).
The three conferences that I went to
I'm going to try to write up what wowed me most from each of them and what impact (if any) it may have on education, for the two and half people that actually read my blog. That would include you, Ma.
I meant to blog about all of them live but while I'm an excellent multi-tasker visually, I have a hard time doing multi-sensory multi-tasking (like listening and blogging at the same time). Besides, I like to be able to consolidate my notes (yes, I still use a notebook and pen).
The three conferences that I went to
- Mobile Learning 2009 - Washington, DC (my first mobile learning conference)
- Barcamp / WordCamp Miami - Coconut Grove, Fl (my first unconference)
- Future of Web Apps (FOWA) - Miami, Fl
I'm going to try to write up what wowed me most from each of them and what impact (if any) it may have on education, for the two and half people that actually read my blog. That would include you, Ma.
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