Passion Driven Learning

I am excited and honored to have been asked to deliver the keynote address on August 7  at the 9th annual Games in Education Symposium at Tech Valley High School in Albany, NY.  This has grown to become one of my favorite conferences to attend.  The conference is free for educators and brings together a dynamic group of presenters who are doing amazing things in the Game-Based Learning space.  

For my keynote, I will be talking about the power of passion driven learning.  Personally, I am extremely passionate about creating learning opportunities for my students and learning with them.  Over my career I have been fortunate enough to receive the support I have needed to develop a Game Design and Development program at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ.  I love my job!  One of the most exciting things about what I do relates to the fact that it draws so well on student passion.  Kids spend a lot of time playing games.  When given the opportunity to create their own games and have choice in their learning path they certainly thrive.  

My favorite quote, by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire" speaks directly to my mission as an educator.  My goal is to help students find their passion and take ownership of their learning.  

I am passionate about Passion Driven Learning.  As I have been on my journey I have been inspired by so many people in my learning network.  Being a connected educator has put me in touch with so many amazing people and the common thread is that they all bring their passion to their work (and life) and seek to bring out the passion in their students.  

My feeling is such that large scale educational reform seems daunting, but we all have the ability to lead with and encourage passion driven learning.  We can provide opportunities for our students to find what truly excites them and use that to drive learning.  

My approach to this presentation is to bring in the great work of all those that inspire me and embody this idea of passion driven learning.  I would like to crowd-source my presentation and share the wonderful work you and your students are passionate about.  So, here's my challenge to you!

Please share information that I can include in order to represent your wonderful work in my presentation.  This could include quotes, images, short video clips, student work, etc.  I will include what I can by providing a slide dedicated to you and / or your students.  I definitely want student and teacher voice to be at the forefront of my session.  Feel free to add your ideas as comments here, email them to me (stevei2071@gmail.com) or better yet, tweet them with the hashtag #PassionEDU.  Here is a chance for us to celebrate the wonderful work we do and the ways we truly impact student learning through choice and encouraging students to find their way.

My #ISTE2015 Guide

It's that time of year!  ISTE is right around the corner.  I'm super excited about all of the activities I'll be involved with.  This post should serve two purposes.  First off, it will serve as my guide so that I know where I need to be throughout the week.  If you see my wandering around aimlessly, please send me a link to this post :)  In addition, it will provide insight to the super cool panels, meetups, and events I'll be involved with.  I hope to connect with you in Philly!

Friday, June 26
I start my pre-ISTE Experience on Friday as I will be presenting at the Tomorrow's Classrooms Today conference being put on by the Evolving Educators Group.

I'm excited to present a session on Quest Based Learning: Encouraging Passion Through Student Choice.  Providing opportunities for students to pave their learning path is at the core of my philosophy on teaching and learning.  There will be so many other great presenters at the event.  I'm excited to connect with many people from my power house PLN.

Saturday, June 27

My lovely wife, Cathy (@catc937092) and I will be settling in on Saturday as we try to charge our batteries for what's sure to be an action packed, non-stop 4 days to follow.  I'm intrigued by the fact that the Tall Ships festival is in town.  Might have to check that out.  

Sunday, June 28

6:00 - 7:00 am CoffeeEdu with Alice Keeler - Join a passionate group of educators for your morning coffee and edu-awesome conversation. CoffeeEdu is the ultimate unconference. One Hour.
Great way to start the day!
Starbucks | 1500 Market Street #465, Philadelphia, PA

11:00 am - 1:00 pm: Games4Ed Meeting
In January, the Games4Ed Initiative was officially launched. The group is comprised of stakeholders from all areas related to games in education (educators, developers, publishers, policy makers, researchers, etc.) .  The overarching goal is to overcome barriers and facilitate the process of getting games into the classroom.  You will be hearing a lot about our work in the coming months.  I am the project lead for the Pilot Programs and Research group.  If you'd like to get involved in one of the working groups, please complete the Games4Ed Interest Form.

1:30 - 3:00 pm: Opening Ignite Sessions | Philadelphia Convention Center Hall A
14 presenters | 5 minutes each | 20 slides
Looking forward to hearing from Ben Gallagher, Bill Bass, Brittany Bannister, Chris Tumbull, Christy Fennewald, Doug Timm,  Hannah Weitzer, Jonathan Spike, Akaren Lireman, Marily Carr, Michael Luetjen, Pernille Ripp, Rafranz Davis (yes, I'm a fan!),  Robert Dillon, and Shirley Campbell.

3:00 - 4:00 pm MineCraft focus group
I am excited to meet with folks to talk about the future of MineCraft in education.  It's an honor and a privilege to be part of these important discussions as Microsoft works to continue to provide (and expand upon) the great learning opportunities minecraft brings to students in and out of school.

5:45 pm - 7:00 pm Opening Keynote: Soledad O'Brien 
All I can say is that I hope her address is more relevant than Ashley Judd's (sorry, couldn't resist) was and kicks off the conference in style.

7:00 pm - ??? Barenaked Ladies, Violent Femmes, and Colin Hay at the MANN
This show happens to be in Philly on the opening night of ISTE.  Should be a good time!

Monday,  June 29

6:00 - 7:00 am CoffeeEdu with Alice Keeler - Join a passionate group of educators for your morning coffee and edu-awesome conversation.  CoffeeEdu is the ultimate unconference. One Hour.
Great way to start the day!
Starbucks | 1500 Market Street #465, Philadelphia, PA


11:00 am - 12:00 pm Integrating Commercially Successful Games in the Classroom | PCC 125
I will be presenting with Justin Eames, Paul Darvasi on the topic of using AAA titles in the classroom.  We'll certainly be talking about games like Minecraft, Portal 2, Gone Home, Little Big Planet 3, and others.

2:30 - 4:15 pm EdTekTalks | PCC Terrace Ballrooms I/II

Excited to see the mini-keynotes presented Ted Talk Style by Adam Braun, Amy O'Toole, Annie Griffiths, Hadi Partovi (yep, I'm a fan!),  Sergei Lupashin

I attended this session at #ISTE14 in Atlanta and it was probably the highlight of the conference.

5:30 - 6:45 pm Birds of a Feather Twitter Chat Moderators | PCC Level 3 Overlook
Birds of a Feather Meetup and Learning session with Twitter Chat moderators / representatives.
We will network, share tips and tricks as well as have a few guest speakers.

6:30 - 9:30 pm ISTE Games and Simulation Network LAN Party! | Marriott Room 307
Join folks from the Games and Sim Network for some gaming.  I am sure there will be some WoW, MineCraft, and so much more.  I think Matt Farber is even setting up a mobile makerspace for the event!

7:00 pm - ??? Can't wait to meet all my #BFC530 buddies face to face.  I am pretty sure there will be a lot of hugs!!!!

Tuesday, June 30

6:00 - 7:00 am CoffeeEdu with Alice Keeler - Join a passionate group of educators for your morning coffee and edu-awesome conversation. CoffeeEdu is the ultimate unconference. One Hour.
Great way to start the day!
Starbucks | 1500 Market Street #465, Philadelphia, PA

10:30 - 11:30 am Introduction to Minecraft Hands-on workshop | PCC 203

Come learn about the game your students are buzzing about!  In this hands-on workshop designed by teachers, you'll walk away with a command of basic Minecraft gameplay and inspiration from amazing Minecraft projects created around the world.  No prior experience is required.

I will be assisting with this and a number of other Microsoft sponsored Minecraft workshops.

12:30 - 2:00 pm STEM and Coding with Minecraft | PCC 203

Come learn how Minecraft can be a fun, effective way to teach STEM and coding skills.  In this hands-on workshop designed by teachers, you'l walk away with an understanding of Redstone, modding, and simple STEM lesson plans.  Basic Minecraft proficiency or completion of Intro to Minecraft workshop is required.

I will be assisting Sarah Guthals from ThoughtStem (check out http://www.learntomod.com)

2:00 - 5:30 pm ISTE Games and Simulation Network Playground | PCC Level 3 Overlook

The ISTE Games and Simulation Network has an exciting set of activities planned for the playground including tables to explore and experts to speak with about Virtual Reality, Interactive Fiction, Game Design and Coding, Minecraft, The Virtual Education Journal, The Ready, Player One Book Club, and a reading by Greg Toppo, author of "The Game Believes in You". 

5:30 - 6:30 pm Students, Teachers, and Entrepreneurs: Testing EdTech Together | PCC 111

This Birds of a Feather meetup / networking session is being hosted by my EdTechBridge partner Katya Hott.  It is a great opportunity for people interested in connecting with other edtech stakeholders to develop relationships that can lead to working partnerships.  This will be the official #ISTE2015 #EdTechBridge Meetup

Wednesday,  July 1

6:00 - 7:00 am CoffeeEdu with Alice Keeler - Join a passionate group of educators for your morning coffee and edu-awesome conversation.  CoffeeEdu is the ultimate unconference. One Hour.  Great way to start the day!
Starbucks | 1500 Market Street #465, Philadelphia, PA

8:30 - 9:30 am Breaking Down the Classroom Walls: Creating Space for Student Learning| PCC113a

When passion drives the learning, students flourish.  There are many opportunities to expand our ideas of how earning with technology can look.  From game design to an entrepreneurial club, we share multiple examples of how we've successfully redefined technology learning with our students.  

Mark Suter, Marianne Malmstrom, Lisa Castaneda, Steven Isaacs (there I am again!)

11:00 am - 12:30 pm STEM and Coding with Minecraft | PCC 203

Come learn how Minecraft can be a fun, effective way to teach STEM and coding skills.  In this hands-on workshop designed by teachers, you'l walk away with an understanding of Redstone, modding, and simple STEM lesson plans.  Basic Minecraft proficiency or completion of Intro to Minecraft workshop is required.

I will be assisting Sarah Guthals from ThoughtStem (check out http://www.learntomod.com)

1:15 - 2:15 pm Games and Learning: Filling Gaps in Education | PCC 110

Brigning games into the classroom can help fulfill many educational needs like new types of assessment, socio-emotional learning, System thinking, and STEM skills.  In this session, Chris Avilles, Erik Martin, Joel Levin, Deirdre Quarnstrom and Steve Isaacs (that's me!) will be sharing thoughts on this timely topic.

So, as you can see I'll be pretty busy at #ISTE2015.  I am so excited to connect with people at my panels, minecraft sessions, meetups, etc.  Please follow me and #FindMeAtISTE - The best part about conferences is the interactions with people.  I hope we can connect.

CHI 2015: Seoul, South Korea

Last week I was in Seoul for CHI 2015, where overall UCLIC had a really good year and some great talks. With respect to my own work, I presented my paper with Anna Cox on "Moving Beyond Fun: Evaluating Serious Experience in Digital Games" on how we evaluated the games that were entered into our persuasive game design competition for students. Not much work has been done around this sort of thing, so we developed a method that involved expert judging, play-testing with interviews and post-play emails to establish which of the entries was most likely to lead to reflection on human error and blame culture within the context of healthcare. In the paper we argue that our methods allowed for a consideration of domain relevance and potential to lead to reflection (expert judging), gameplay experience and engagement with competition themes (play-testing and interviews) and longer term resonance (follow-up emails). While you can find the games entered into the competition here, the winner, Nurse's Dilemma serves as a great example of how a one-off uncomfortable gaming experience can lead to reflection on previously taken for granted assumptions about responsibility and blame within healthcare. 

I also went to the workshop on diverse perspectives on players which was a great opportunity to talk about player research, methods in the area (including case studies), and challenges the area is facing, such as ecological validity, conceptions of gameplay, plus the need to operationalise key terms and to agree on definitions! We ended up drawing a road map of our discussions - see pic below, where we really did end up with karaoke :-)

There were quite a few games sessions at CHI, though I was a little annoyed that one of them clashed with the session I was in, plus I missed the alt.chi talk on Games Against Health but I guess that just means there is more to add to my reading list! I'm also going to have to add the work-in-progress paper It Was Sad But Still Good: Gratifications of Emotionally Moving Game Experiences by Julia Ayumi Bopp and colleagues as it sounds intriguing. Of the talks I did go to, there was a lot of interesting work presented including Alena Denisova on 1st vs. 3rd person perspectives and immersion, Rodrigo Vicencio-Moreira on techniques for player balancing in FPS games, Daniel Johnson and Lennart Nacke on characteristics of MOBA gameplay, Peta Wyeth on differences between playing cooperative games with avatars (people) and agents (AI characters) and Sauvik Das on comparing linear and open world game structures.

I particularly enjoyed Melodie Vidal's talk about The Royal Corgi, a game that uses eye tracking as a mechanic (see video below). Basically, you play a character in medieval England who wants to gain favour in the royal court by becoming a trainer to the King's corgi and you have to convince other characters in the game that you are worthy of the job - and where you look will matter as some want you to look them in the eye (but not at their wife) and others expect deference and a lowered gaze... The idea seemed quite novel, where eye tracking was able offer an additional channel of communication and I was particularly interested in some of the strong reactions the game provoked.

Chris Preist also gave a really good talk on using gameplay as an extrinsic motivator for learning, in this case as a way to encourage teenagers to revise for their Mathematics GCSE exams. They adopted an approach based on free-to-play games in a game that was like Clash of Clans where instead of having to make micro-payments to get resources and speed up the game, the students had to take a revision test. The students were allowed to play the game when they liked over three weeks and the findings indicated that those in the game condition improved significantly more those in the quiz only and control conditions - plus, the game condition students spent more time on the revision quiz than the quiz only group. Further, the qualitative data suggested it was at the expense of their normal gaming time. While there are some potential issues to consider - it could be argued that revision is not the same as having to learn new content, and it's not clear whether an intrinsic game could lead to larger learning gains or whether this approach would sustain revision over longer periods of time (see below) - but all in all it came across as a relatively simple way to get students to do more revision, which, in the authors words, is already "associated with the extrinsic motivation of passing an exam"!

With respect to the rest of the conference, the game competition has got me thinking a lot more about reflection so I made sure to go along to other talks that I thought might be relevant. Some of the highlights include Geraldine Fitzpatrick considering reflection in relation to food waste and highlighting the emotional dimension of the process (something which I'm not sure if always discussed), Eric Baumer introducing conceptual dimension of reflective informatics (relating to breakdown, inquiry, and transformation), and Jeffrey Bardzell highlighting how research through design can contribute to knowledge (through invoking experiences rather than representing reality). I'm getting quite intrigued by critical design but I do feel like I haven't quite got my head around it yet, so while I missed the talk, so I've put Pierce et al's paper on Expanding and Refining Design and Criticality in HCI on my reading list as well. 

I also enjoyed Ben Kirman and Shaun Lawson's talk that presented the quantification of pets as a case study that, through speculative design fiction, was essentially a critique of the quantified tracking movement. Besides getting a man in a dog suit to walk on stage, they presented a number of speculative design fictions, such as a dog collar that can tell you whether your dog is happy or sad and a way to track cat movements in gardens through their microchips (see quantifiedpet.com for more details!), which they presented to focus groups consisting of pet owners an animal behaviour experts. While the owners mostly really liked the ideas behind the designs as they wanted to understand their pets more, the experts raised important concerns about the scientific basis of these technologies and how they might actually undermine the bond between animals and humans - particularly since that bond at least partially relies on human beings being able to interpret complex animal behaviour. So there was lots of food for thought here in relation to both trying to quantify pretty much everything but also in terms of using design fictions within research. 


To close the conference we had Psy as the final keynote speaker but while he gave a rather humble, honest and engaging talk about the explosion of Gangnam Style, and the conference centre was in the Gangnam district, I'm not entirely sure it had much to do with HCI... In general though CHI gave me lots to think about (and to read up on!) and Seoul was a great city to visit - I'm glad I made sure I had a little extra time to explore :-)

 View from the National Museum of Korea

Beta Testing Eco: Design Thinking in Action

Screenshot of the gameplay in Eco.  Here the player is trying to hunt a wolf that is wandering the land.

My students were invited to beta test the game Eco, currently in development by StrangeLoop Games.  Eco is a sandbox game with some definite similarities to Minecraft, but with a definite focus on maintaining a sustainable environment.  Players hunt for meat, chop trees for wood, and plant and harvest crops.  All activity is tracked and players can quickly generate graphs to show the impact of their actions in the game.  Resources are clearly limited and maintaining the proper balance takes collaboration and cooperation.  Essentially, everyone in the game is playing together in an attempt to meet the winning condition based on challenges posed by the game.  A very interesting mechanic in the game is that players can propose and vote on laws.  Once laws are adopted, the gameplay adjusts to the laws.  For instance, if a deforestation law were put in place to limit the amount of trees that can be chopped down in a given timeframe, this will be reflected in the game, limiting players actions.

Here is a screenshot that provides an idea of the winning scenario:

This served as a great discussion starter in class today.  If you notice, there are 4.8 days left to complete the goals outlined and win the game.  Marked by the red arrow is the fact that in order to win we can only allow 1 animal to become extinct but currently we have 2 extinct animals.  When I realized this, I asked my students what this meant for the current game.  After a little thought they realized that we could no longer meet the winning conditions.  The students are in my game design and development course. I asked them to comment on this from a game design standpoint.  Students realized that it would present a problem for players who are playing the game as they realize there is no way that they could win.  So the discussion began.  Since we are beta testing the game, one of the activities my students have is to provide bug reports and suggestions for the further development of the game.  I asked students to start to think of possible suggestions based on the dilemma we were now faced with.  Here are some ideas that students came up with:

• Breed a new species of animal. This is an interesting idea, but even if this were possible in the game, we still exceeded the number of extinct animals so this wouldn't help the current issue.
• Reproduce animals that were extinct - well, this brought us to an interesting discussion of what extinction meant.
• Set something up in the game where it automatically resets if the game cannot be won.

This led to further discussion of how this issue could have been averted.  Students (as well as myself and a co-teacher) came up with additional ideas which would be exciting additions to the game:

• Pose warning when animals get close to extinction.
• Add a news feed to the game that provided headlines and articles about the declining population of certain species and the impact this would have.
• Include a visible estimate (it was brought up that providing a number of remaining animals of a particular species is not realistic) of how many of a particular animal remain in existence so players can act accordingly.
• Include an economy of sorts where prices fluctuate based on availability of resources - that sure would alter the moral aspect of gameplay!

The discussion quickly branched off to the discussion of what should happen related to the laws in the game.  Currently, if there is a law that you can only chop a certain number of trees, the player becomes unable to chop trees once the threshold is met.  This raised the discussion about how realistic it is to go up to a tree and try to chop it but not be able simply because of a law.  We started to discuss how this should be handled in the game.  Students came up with some great suggestions:

• When a player is in violation of a law their name shows in the game in red so that other players can turn them in.
• Include a system of consequences for breaking laws.

The discussion continued and will certainly continue.  As a teacher of game design and development this served a very valuable purpose.  My students participated actively in the brainstorming of ideas to incorporate in this game which got their mind going in terms of game mechanics, game design elements, etc. in a very authentic manner.  We will continue to play Eco and I hope that our contributions are valuable to the development team.  I already see how valuable the learning has been for my students.

PhD Journal Articles

I'm pleased to announce I now have two more papers published on my PhD research. The first article, "Game-Play Breakdowns and Breakthroughs: Exploring the Relationship Between Action, Understanding and Involvement" is in Human Computer Interaction and focuses on the case studies I carried out how they resulted in a theory of the relationship between learning and involvement within the context of games. The theory is represented as a set of 14 claims that relate to: micro and macro involvement; breakdowns and breakthroughs in action, understanding and involvement; progress; and agency, meaning and compelling game-play. In particular, the paper emphasises the ways in which players experience learning via breakthroughs in understanding, where involvement is increased when the player feels responsible for progress. We also argue that supporting the relationship between learning and involvement is vital for ensuring the success of commercial and educational games. (You can also find out a bit more about the methods I used in my 2013 DiGRA journal paper: "Making sense of game-play: How can we examine learning and involvement").

The second article, "The Gaming Involvement and Informal Learning Framework" is in Simulation & Gaming and provides a good overview of the three studies I carried out in and also presents the GIIL framework as the culmination of all my findings. Essentially, the framework is able to account for both how and what people learn from gaming while also highlighting the influence of player identity. Further, the iterative relationship between identity, involvement and learning is emphasised: the more strongly someone identifies themselves as a gamer, the greater their micro and macro-level involvement and the more likely they are to learn from their gaming experiences. This is represented in the figure below (taken from my PhD thesis and also reprinted within the article).

Technically these articles are still in press but both journals have put them up online before print. It's great to have them out there and see all that hard work come together :-)