2019 Games for Change Festival

There are currently few developmentally appropriate methods for engaging teens in their own social and emotional learning in educational settings. Commercial video games offer rich, mediated, interactive narrative experiences that can be integrated into the classroom to support teen students’ core academic knowledge as well as their social and emotional resilience. This panel will describe how and why educators used the award-winning video game and digital “museum,” and “What Remains of Edith Finch,” as the basis for a curricular unit to engage high school students in building literacy skills as well as key aspects of resilience including autonomy and self-awareness.

To achieve success in education gaming, developers must focus first and foremost on creating unique approaches to learning to inspire students and educators alike. In today’s landscape, that often means hyper-personalized, adaptive and measurable. With that comes a fear about data use from stakeholders who live near and far from the classroom, including parents, advocates and legislators, and that fear has been strong enough to derail even the most well-funded businesses. Learn what it takes to navigate this environment safely, building a foundation for success today, building trusting partnerships with schools and a pathway to growth in the future.

Building a great game for change is a challenge. Maximizing its impact is also a challenge! Come learn from teams about the work they've done to increase the reach, stickiness, and sustainability of their games. How can we more effectively distribute our games, maximize their audience, lengthen their lifespan, and make them more personal?

Moderator: Mark DeLoura

Clara Prieto
Designing for Inclusive Play: How to build games for everyone

Emma Cofer
Designing for Inclusive Play: How to build games for everyone

Shannon Frederick Meneses & Peter Stidwill
“Game of the Year”: Sharing Six Years of Learning

Linnette Attai
Personalization and Privacy: Innovating in the Age of Compliance

Brian Alspach
The Fundamental Equation of Games in the Classroom

The urgent, and by now familiar, call to educate youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is being matched in many quarters with an equally urgent call: to educate the “whole student” by emphasizing social and emotional learning (SEL). Increasingly SEL is seen as equally essential as STEM for students to thrive in school, career, and life. Panelists will discuss how their programs and curricula that teach game-design can advance SEL competencies such goal-setting, social engagement, cooperation, empathy, and problem solving—while also complementing STEM’s cognitive goals and inspiring interest in STEM careers.

From research applications to education outreach, government entities are leveraging science games as a powerful tool to engage a wealth of different audiences. Featuring speakers from the Smithsonian Science Education Center, the National Institutes of Health, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, this panel will showcase case examples of the development and implementation of games for good in the government.

The game industry has grown to become a $140 Billion industry and is predicted to exceed $180 Billion by 2021. Providing students with an opportunity to develop their own games takes students from player to creator while learning authentic career readiness skills. Hear from educators who have brought these opportunities into the classroom in order to create inclusive design teams allowing students to engage in the iterative design process and experience a variety of roles common to the industry. In addition you will hear from educators who have brought their love of game design into the classroom by creating game based experiences for students and training educators to do the same.  

Moderator: Elisabeth Gee

Cédric Ceulemans
Co-creating Serious Games for Peace

Matthew Farber & Kevin Miklasz
GGJ Next: A Global Game Jam for Youth

Noa Lahav
EdVenture: Enabling Educators to Create Immersive Game-Based Learning Experiences

Peggy Sheehy
Your Game is Our Textbook?

Santhosh Kumar Subramanian
Games by Children for Children

Research evidence from the science of learning reflects that games are a great way to learn. Leveraging the power of technology allows for deeply engaged, fun, interactive, multisensory, experiential  and personalized learning to occur. There is no doubt that with our future generations being digital natives, digital pedagogies and games will become increasingly adopted to teach social emotional skills, 21st century skills and even core disciplines such as maths, sciences and even language in the classrooms of the future. But here comes the challenge. If there is not some form of quality control just as we have in textbooks, the golden goose that we have can very easily kill itself.  It is in this spirit that UNESCO MGIEP organized a High level policy Forum in November 2018, in the city of Vishakhapatnam (Vizag.) to draft the first call for the need of some form of guidance that will serve to support the golden goose to nurture and be sustainable.  The outcome was the Vizag Declaration.

The Vizag Declaration calls for the need for guidelines that set some boundary conditions without infringing on creativity and guidelines that identify characteristics and parameters important for delivering active and engaging learning. These guidelines are meant to steer the industry and content developers in education technology and games for learning to align their products with principles and core values that help in building 21st century skills to foster sustainable and peaceful societies. These guidelines can help teachers, parents, school administrators, policy makers to make informed decisions about age appropriate, culturally meaningful digital learning solutions that mitigate any negative impact of such a deck of choices. …. Without such guidelines the opportunity provided by games for learning to transform education may fritter away. The golden goose must thrive.

Learn how the desire to give autistic children a safe place to play Minecraft became the topic of dozens of research studies and news stories around the world.

Children with autism from all around the world are learning how to read and write, to make friends, teamwork, and even to be leaders, all within the game of Minecraft.

I'm going to show you how we accomplished all of this and more on my server, Autcraft.

When Institute of Play opened its doors in January of 2007 it did so with a mission to change the way young people experienced learning and to help activate the next generation of engaged citizens. Created by a group of game designers, the Institute brought together game design, rigorous research practices and strong interdisciplinary partnerships to create, study and promote game-based materials, strategies and systems as critical tools for personal and social development. From developing a model for game-like learning deployed in the design of the New York City public school Quest to Learn, to an innovative game-based teacher development program, to the creation of evidence-based design resources of all types to support others in using games and play in transformative play, the Institute has been seen as a global leader in games and learning. This session brings together four of the founding members of the Institute in conversation about the most salient lessons learned from 10 years in the trenches.

Games can serve as a very powerful medium for learning, but equity and access continue to be challenges in the industry. Hear about several programs that have been developed specifically to provide opportunities for individuals in remote or otherwise under represented areas.

Amanda Armstrong
Using Formative Research to Inform Design of Serious Games

Maria Burns Ortiz
When Solving a “Small” Problem Can Have a Big Impact: How Developing Games for U.S. Tribal Communities Set Us Up for Global Expansion

Andrea Jetten
Games: Tackling the Learning Crisis for Children Affected by Conflict

Tammie Schrader
Flexhibit Carts and Game Based Learning in Science Classroom

Paul Darvasi
Grand Theft Auto Research

Lisa Castaneda & Bronwyn Stuckey
Picking the Low Hanging Fruit

Too often the conversation around games for learning focuses on their appeal and capacity for immersion. We need to take a deeper more evidence based look at the value games may (or may not) provide for learning. With the number of educators using games, we should know more about the extent to which virtual play experiences actually support learning outcomes. Even highly experienced, professional educators stay focused on student engagement. Join us for an interactive workshop where participants will reflect on, discuss and engage with research examples and contribute their own experiences to moving the conversation and assessment practices forward.

When Game Based Learning is implemented effectively, the game serves as the medium for learning. Students learn from the experiences provided through the game play. This quick take series will highlight the work of a number of outstanding educators who are using games as the primary vehicle for learning.  

Moderator: Peggy Sheehy

Vít Šisler
Stories of Nazi occupation in a classroom: Lessons learnt from Attentat 1942

Ben Spieldenner
Technical Reading & Writing Through Games

Jessica Ochoa Hendrix
A Discussion with Stakeholders of Piloting Games in Schools

Owen Gottlieb
Teaching Prosocial Religion from 12th Century Cairo: Lost & Found

Girl Scouts is a place for girls and young women to learn formative life skills in a fun and social environment that can introduce them to a range of possible career goals. In this session, two Girl Scouts from different generations talk with each other about the ways Girl Scouts supported their paths towards the art and science of game design. Tracy Fullerton is an experimental game designer, professor, and author. Her research center, the Game Innovation Lab, has produced a number of influential independent games, including Cloud, flOw, Darfur is Dying, The Night Journey and Walden, a game. Her design textbook “Game Design Workshop” is used at game programs worldwide. She is also is a former Girl Scout who learned many skills in the Girl Scouts that she uses every day as a game designer. Brielle Randall is a young artist and high school student who loves to use art, science, and technology to bring awareness to issues and promote innovative solutions for change. She brought these interests together in her Girl Scout Gold Award project in which she combined drawing, writing, psychology, coding and statistical analysis to identify problems within online fandom communities, developing web comics to disseminate awareness and impact both perpetrators and victims. Barry Joseph, VP of Digital Experience at Girl Scouts of USA, is proud to know and support both of them.

In this fireside-chat session, Jordan Shapiro (Author of The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World) and Tami Bhaumik (VP of Digital Civility at Roblox) will engage in an in-depth, and sometimes challenging, discussion about digital-play and digital play spaces. Jordan will draw on his comprehensive research about the benefits and limitations of digital play. Tami offers behind-the-scenes insights from her work keeping one of today’s most popular digital playgrounds safe and fun. Expect a playful and diverse conversation full of philosophy, business strategy, cultural history, game design, economics, ethics, and social commentary. This is about more than just games, it’s the future of childhood!        

More than ever before, parents are likely to be current or former gamers and teachers see the benefits of games. But surveys show that 55% of parents and 80% of teachers cannot find the digital learning tools they are looking for, and high-quality games lack distribution to a broad audience. Join our panelists for a discussion of lessons from the field of games for learning, including which partnerships, marketing strategies and development approaches add up to greater reach and sustainability.