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Educational Gaming Initiative

How can we make activities that bring people together around knowledge and the exchange of ideas more engaging? How might we also remove or lessen barriers of time, distance, and culture?

Under the umbrella of this initiative, the NMC sponsors research and projects that focus on ways the engagement of games and virtual spaces can be applied to learning and online interactions, and on activities that stimulate the use and experimentation of these technologies. Examples include the design of virtual learning experiences and spaces; traditional and experimental meetings, symposia and conferences, in both online and face-to-face contexts; experimental and proof-of-concept events hosted in the virtual world of Second Life; and NMC Virtual Worlds, a suite of development services that support the development of and educational uses for virtual worlds.


  • Focus on: how the engagement of games and virtual spaces applies to learning and interactions
  • Stimulate: use and experimentation

Build Community
engage people

Contribute
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The content below is related to this initiative and comes from various places across the NMC web site. Items are listed in reverse chronological order.

Educational Gaming Initiative

NMC Announces $100,000 in Virtual Learning Prizes

Posted May 15th, 2008 by NMC
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The New Media Consortium (NMC) announced today the call for proposals for the 2008-09 NMC Virtual Learning Prize, a $100,000 competitive program of awards intended to create a collection of innovative open-source learning experiences that make use of the unique attributes of a virtual learning environment. (See the press release.)

As many as 20 NMC Virtual Learning Prizes will be awarded in 2008. Each of the US$5,000 awards will provide a cash incentive paid to the awardee of $500 as well as $4,500 in expert development assistance from the NMC Virtual Worlds team to create the learning experience. The range of inworld services available to awardees to actualize the proposed ideas includes professional building, scripting, design, animation, avatar design, and/or related services.

NMC Virtual Learning Prize

Posted May 14th, 2008 by NMC
in

The NMC Virtual Learning Prize is a $100,000 competitive program of awards intended to create a collection of innovative open-source learning experiences that make use of the unique attributes of a virtual learning environment. As many as 20 NMC Virtual Learning Prizes will be awarded in 2008. (See Press Release )

Each of the US$5,000 awards will provide a cash incentive paid to the awardee of $500 as well as $4,500 in expert development assistance from the NMC Virtual Worlds team to create the learning experience. The range of in-world services available to awardees to actualize the proposed ideas includes professional building, scripting, design, animation, avatar design, and/or related services.

NMC CEO Larry Johnson Metanomics Interview

Posted May 5th, 2008 by Alan Levine
in
larry-johnson-metamonics-sm.jpg

On Friday April 25, NMC CEO Larry Johnson was a guest interviewee for the Metanomics series, the weekly live show that takes place in, and is broadcast live from Second Life.

As part of an event atClever Zebra's vBusiness Expo, in this interview, Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield asked Larry about the NMC's Virtual worlds programs and then discussed more on Larry's recent experience testifying before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the US Congress.

metanomics-lj_006.jpg

You can also find an audio recording of this interview plus soon a transcript, at http://metanomics.net/larry-johnson

See Also: http://metanomics.net/larry-johnson

Symposium on Creativity Photo Stream

Posted August 30th, 2007 by Alan Levine
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During the August 12-18 NMC Symposium on Creativity in Second Life we asked participants to share any of their event photos stored in flickr by marking them wit the tag slcreativity.

We had a large amount of cooperation, as there are more than 1000 phots tagged with slcreativity on flickr . In celebration, we used some free software and those images to generate a series of photomosaics- taking one photo from the collection

we can recast it as a mosaic made of hundreds of thumbnails of all the images:

Mosaic of Symposium photos

The Role of Play and Preparing for a Changing Student Population - An Interview with Rachel Smith

Posted August 29th, 2007 by Alan Levine
in
Rachel Smith, 2007 Seminars On Academic Computing Conference
Play Now

In this 9 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Rachel Smith, Vice President of NMC Services for the New Media Consortium. The interview was recorded at the 2007 Seminars On Academic Computing Conference where Rachel Smith presented two session, "Games for Learning" and "The Role of Play and Preparing for a Changing Student Population".

Students are arriving on campus with a set of expectations and behaviors that differ from those of previous generations, including the faculty, who are faced with engaging them in the process of learning. Students' experience with new kinds of games and media has shaped their view of what learning is and how it occurs.

See Also: http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcasttheroleofplay/44985

ZeroG SkyDancer Performance

Posted August 28th, 2007 by Alan Levine
in
zerog-mov.jpg

It’s been more than a week since the end of the NMC Symposium on Creativity on Second Life, yet we continue to find thing to share!

As noted, from the Friday highlights, we ended that day with 3 performances of DanCoyote Antonelli’s ZeroG SkyDancers, one of the most unique and demonstratively creative art forms in Second Life (learn more about DC’s concepts of hyperformalism…)

View Quicktime: ZeroG SkyDancers Video
See Also: http://sl.nmc.org/2007/08/28/zerog-video/

NMC Second Life Web Video Jukebox

Posted July 27th, 2007 by Alan Levine
in

This NMC Second Life video "jukebox" uses a new web tool called vodpod to assemble a dynamic collection of related videos:

Symposium on Creativity in Second Life

Posted July 2nd, 2007 by NMC
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Sculpture Garden

In August 2007, the NMC held a very special, one-of-a-kind event -- a week-long online symposium on the topic of creativity called the Symposium on Creativity in Second Life. The first in a series of conferences and events exploring virtual worlds of all kinds, the symposium was intended to redefine the way we think about online conferences.

learn more...

Leveraging the Affordances, Minimizing the Barriers of Virtual Worlds

Posted June 21st, 2007 by NMC
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2007 NMC Summer Conference

It is not yet possible for us to duplicate the richness amd complexity of the real world in a virtual world. What instructional deisgn elements can we use to simulate real world experiences? What affordances do these virtual spaces offer that the real world does not and what are the barriers to success?

At the 2007 NMC Summer Conference, a panel of educators tackled these and other complex issues in an exploration in the use of virtual worlds in the classroom.

View From Second Life Trenches: Are You a Pioneer or a Settler?

Posted June 21st, 2007 by NMC
in
Cynthia Calongne, 2007 NMC Summer Conference
Play Now

A featured session at the 2007 NMC Summer Conference

Cynthia Calongne photo Cynthia Calongne, (also known as Lyr Lobo in Second Life) joined the Computer Science Department at Colorado Technical University (CTU) in 1996. She develops and teaches undergraduate and graduate software engineering courses that benefit from activities and projects in Second Life. For over thirteen years, she worked as a software engineer in support of Air Force Space Command and on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Her doctoral research included designing and building a PC-based immersive virtual reality system and a new user interface for it.

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