Game
Simulations for Educational Leadership & Visualization: Virtual U and
Beyond
With support from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on April 15-16 the Education Arcade, The Comparative
Media Studies Program at M.I.T., The Virtual U Project, and The Serious Games
Initiative will host a two-day workshop at M.I.T titled “Game Simulations
for Educational Leadership & Visualization: Virtual U and Beyond”.
This event is designed to look at the past, present, and future of
games about education and educational life.
To date,
there have been over a half-dozen entertainment and non-entertainment efforts
dealing with school management and leadership that have been produced or
planned. These games explore such topics as the future of community colleges, how
universities are managed, how rumors circulate in schools, and how social
cliques form within school environments. We want to examine these games and
their application to school management as we reflect back on the evolution of
the Virtual University Project over the past four years.
Virtual U
is recognized as a pioneer of a new class of games commonly called
"serious games". Drawing upon the lessons learned from the Virtual U
project, participants will explore the ways games and simulations can aide leaders,
students, faculty and the public-at-large to develop a better understanding of
the challenges confronting education in an era of globalization, fiscal
constraint, and technological change.
REGISTRATION
INFORMATION
Space is
limited to a total of 80 participants. Please reserve your space by sending an
email to rsvp@seriousgames.org
You may
find hotel and travel information by visiting: http://www.virtual-u.org/conferenceatmit.asp
GROUP
PARTICIPATION & CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
The
workshop is divided between traditional lectures and panels and sessions
designed for group participation. Highlights include:
- What I
Learned Building VU by Bill Massy
- What in
Educational Leadership Should Games Be Utilized For?
- What
Does it Take to Build A Serious Game?
- An
Evening Reception at the Home of Henry Jenkins
- Virtual
U: Life to Date - Lessons and Opportunities
- Inside
Instructional Design & Virtual U: How Games Actually Get Used in
Classrooms
- Serious
Games & Education - Examples to Consider
- Educational
System Design Breakouts Where Participants Are Asked to Help Design Games
Our
participatory sessions will involve all conference attendees working to
brainstorm designs, project plans, and fundraising strategies that can be used
to solicit the resources necessary to see at least one or more major new
educational leadership games under construction by mid 2006.
OPTIONAL
SUNDAY CONTENT
One
Sunday April 17, we invite those of you who can stay later to join us for an
open block of time between 9am - 2pm which will be devoted to general
discussion of the educational use of games and the serious games field more
generally. This block of time will include demos of games-for-learning by
their creators including MIT's Revolution game, and the TelecomPioneers
Project:Connect science games.
We will
also feature group discussion about Education Arcade efforts and the 2005
agenda for the Serious Games Initiative. Participants with games to demo, or
interesting short presentations related to games, learning, and
non-entertainment application will also be given some time to present their
work in an "open mic" style format.
THANK
YOU
We look
forward to seeing you in Boston this April as we work together to launch a new
generation of tools for a changing educational landscape.
