Research on games and learning have shown us that games can be powerful tools for learning–providing players with the opportunity to learn from and even celebrate failures as part of the natural learning process in a challenging environment. How can universities take advantage of the power of games and game mechanics? It’s not as simple as dropping in badges and leaderboards. Professor Liz Lawley, who teaches in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Interactive Games & Media as well as directing RIT’s Lab for Social Computing, will talk about Just Press Play, a “game layer for undergraduate engagement” that she and her colleagues have designed to enrich the learning environment for undergraduate students. After three years of iterative development and testing, her group will be releasing the software underlying Just Press Play under an open source license at the end of this academic year.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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Recorded on April 23, 2014.