Creating Passionate Learners

Posted June 11th, 2009 by Alan Levine

Kathy Sierra, 2009 NMC Summer Conference

Kathy Sierra provided the opening keynote for the 2009 NMC Summer Conference in Monterey, California.

Kathy has been interested in the brain and artificial intelligence since her days as a game developer (Virgin, Amblin', MGM). She is the co-creator of the bestselling Head First Series (finalist for a Jolt Software Development award in 2003, and named to the Amazon Top Ten Editors Choice Computer Books for 2003 and 2004). She is also the founder of one of the largest community web sites in the world, javaranch.com. Kathy's passions are skiing, running, her Icelandic horse, gravity, and her latest favorite thing--Dance Dance Revolution.

Her keynote presentation was on Creating Passionate Users:

Is there one thing that you really wanted to be good at but didn’t get there? Everyone wants to be better at something, but in this fast paced 2.0 world, who has the time? With a little help from science, entertainment and technology, we can help ourselves and our learners survive the "I am no good at this" phase, break out of intermediate ruts, and get to the deeper, richer, high-res experiences that come with being really GOOD at something.

As educators, we want to take better advantage of how the brain works to reach our learners at a deep emotional level that inspires their enthusiasm and participation. We will look at the lessons learned from the organizations and individuals who've succeeded at turning on the hearts and brains of their users and pinpoint how these techniques can work in higher education.

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