Having worked with the Center for Games & Impact since its inception, Dr. Elisabeth Gee, Ph.D., takes on a new role as Associate Director this month.
Photo Credit: Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
Tempe, Ariz. — The Center for Games & Impact (CGI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Elisabeth Gee, Ph.D., to the position of Associate Director. Gee, who has worked with the Center since its inception, will be involved in moving forward the Center’s mission of investigating, innovating, and cultivating game-infused solutions for positive social impact across interdisciplinary projects around the university, within the ASU Teacher’s College, and nationally and internationally with corporate and foundation partners.
“With the addition of Betty in a leadership position at the Center, we will be able to broaden our scope of work while enhancing the reputation and potential impact more nationally,” said Sasha Barab, executive director. “I see her as having the collaborative spirit and commitment to innovation and impact that lies at the core of our Center ethos. Her thinking about affinity groups and women in games more generally, are key to unlocking the power of games for impact, so it is with great enthusiasm that I welcome her collaboration.”
Gee cites her involvement with the Center as having connected her with other researchers with common interests and helping her to grow her vision for game studies classes at ASU. Over the last year and a half, Gee connected with Dr. Sinem Siyahhan, also a fellow at the Center, and together they created the Play2Connect intergenerational play research project. Gee also played an integral part in creating and securing approval for the Games & Impact Certificate program administered by the Center.
“In my new role, I am looking forward to getting to know the staff and projects better so that I can also help the rest of the world also get to know what we are doing with games and social impact,” said Gee. “Part of my charge as associate director is to support the staff in working toward the Center’s vision as well as maintaining alignment with the ASU Teacher’s College and larger university goals.”
Gee says in addition to maintaining and growing these strategic alignments, she also looks forward to the launch of the Center’s game-infused learning platform as part of the Games & Impact Certificate program experience, connecting researchers with like interests in games and social impact, and expanding the opportunities for graduate students to teach and research with the Center.
For more about Gee’s work visit:
- Elisabeth Gee, Delbert & Jewell Lewis Chair in Reading & Literacy and Professor (ASU Teachers College)
- Move over, Monopoly: ASU researchers find families bond over video game play (ASU News)
- Video games as teaching tool (ASU Teachers College)
- Play2Connect Project
The Center for Games & Impact (CGI) mission is to investigate, innovate, and cultivate game-infused solutions to society’s biggest challenges with the goal of unleashing the unique power of videogames to create sustainable solutions for society’s biggest social, cultural, scientific, economic and educational challenges.
Executive Director Sasha Barab talks codeathon participants through principles for designing technology social impact.
The Center for Games & Impact, last week, prepared participants for a two-day coding for social impact event at Arizona State University. The Clinton Foundation Codeathon, also sponsored by Microsoft Youthspark, took place before the start of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) 2014 at ASU. Titled “Code for Impact” (#codeforimpact), the event preceded the kickoff of CGI U and participants where challenged to spend 48 hours building unique digital prototypes inspired by CGI U Commitments to Action.
A team from the Center, along with Executive Director, Sasha Barab, and Director of Innovations, Adam Ingram-Goble, primed participants for their objective with an intensive, applied introduction to designing games for social impact.
“It was an honor to be invited to kick off the codeathon with the Clinton Foundation and Microsoft. At the Center we are passionately committed to empowering the next generation of our world’s leaders with the tools they need to create powerful social impact technology solutions,” said Barab, “Games are a powerful medium for igniting positive change in our world and the principles of impact game design can apply across interactive technology solutions.”
After a presentation from Director Barab, participants played through a paper-prototyped game design to practice identifying a message and refining game mechanics to contribute to that message.
Adam Ingram-Goble, director for innovations at the Center for Games & Impact, guides codeathon participants through a game design exercise.
“When we teach students game design we focus on a few key things to get them started. First, we want them to clearly define the learning or social impact objective for their game because this will inform the initial design and the subsequent iteration as things develop,” said Ingram-Goble, “Then, we want them to consider which game mechanic might lend itself to playing their message quickly so they can jump right into making and playtesting their games. The same ideas apply here and at game jams, hackathons, and codeathons when working under a tight deadline to test technology ideas for social impact.”
After the introductory exercise with the Center teams spent the rest of their time working on design concepts in the areas of water quality, medicine, and education. Day two of the event culminated with presentations from each team pitching and demoing their concepts to a panel of judges including Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. The winning team, MediText chose the medical focus area and pitched a design for helping doctors support patient adherence to following medication guidelines. The concept included a doctor dashboard, the use of a “virtual friend” to gently remind patients about these guidelines for the medications they take, and could even engage the patients friends and family if necessary.
Read the highlights from all the CGI U 2014 events at and around Arizona State University here.
Visit our Codeathon Facebook Album for pictures from the event:
About the Center for Games & Impact
The Center for Games & Impact (CGI) mission is to investigate, innovate, and cultivate game-infused solutions to society’s biggest challenges with the goal of unleashing the unique power of videogames to create sustainable solutions for society’s biggest social, cultural, scientific, economic and educational challenges.
Impact Games & Middle School Curriculum
At the Center for Games & Impact we envision a world where we understand and optimize the unique power of games for learning and social impact. One of the central ways we work to make our vision a reality is through innovative games and game-infused solutions for education. Together with our studio partner, E-Line Media, we are building middle school cross-curriculum, game-based curricula and community packages that make Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, along with 21st Century and social-emotional learning objectives engaging, relevant and empowering for both teachers and students. Our suite of games provides multiple storylines and entry points to contextualize the value of these standards and skillsets in terms of engaging and relevant research and impact projects.
Recently, we have become more interested in the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) as central to children’s success in school and beyond. Our partners at E-Line Media connected the Center with another organization committed to changing children’s education and lives through programs for preschool through grade 8. A team from Committee for Children, whose mission is “to foster the social and emotional development, safety, and well-being of children through education and advocacy,” visited the Center and taught us about their programs and research-based social-emotional learning materials to help children succeed in school and in life.
The Impact of SEL in Schools
Through SEL, students develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to recognize and manage their emotions, demonstrate care and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle challenging situations constructively. Recent analyses of SEL studies in schools indicate that it can have a positive impact on school climate and promote a host of academic, social, and emotional benefits for students, including:
- better academic performance (achievement scores an average of 11 percentile points higher than students who did not receive SEL instruction),
- improved attitudes and behaviors (greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behavior), fewer negative behaviors (decreased disruptive class behavior, noncompliance, aggression, delinquent acts, and disciplinary referrals), and
- reduced emotional distress (fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal).
Putting SEL Together With Games for Impact
Committee for Children’s core program, Second Step, teaches skills for learning and social-emotional skills such as empathy, emotion management, problem solving, and self regulation. These skills empower children to protect themselves, work through problems with empathy and reason, and respect others’ points of view. Schools become safer and calmer places where teachers can teach and children can learn. Currently, Second Step is widely used around the world. ..
“We are increasingly interested in new ways to structure and deliver our programs and materials,” said Brian Smith, a Committee for Children research scientist. “There is a lot of interest in game-infused learning and moving more of what we do online, but it has been kind of a puzzle to us because we don’t come from that world. When we had the chance to talk to the teams at E-Line Media and the Center for Games & Impact, it opened our eyes to a lot of possibilities.”
“It is easy to see how our visions for a better future overlap,” said Sasha Barab, executive director for the Center for Games & Impact. “I can already see how we might create learning journeys for middle school students where players work through missions that teach Committee for Children’s Second Step program content, but our orientation to game-infused solutions means we don’t just leave the learning there. The idea that the roles a player takes on in-game are meaningful and transformative in our greater world is central to our program designs. We also can see the possibilities for exciting peripheral experiences where, as students master social emotional skills in-game, teachers are able to use hub areas and classroom dashboards to acknowledge the real-life practice of these skills in the classroom and around the school. Parents can get involved remotely in ways that might not have happened before. Classes, schools, and districts can all be connected to each other to set and track, validate, and inspire social change goals important to their communities. These are just a few of the ideas that come to mind and the possibilities are quite exciting.”
For more information:
###
The Center for Games & Impact (CGI) mission is to investigate, innovate, and cultivate game-infused solutions to society’s biggest challenges with the goal of unleashing the unique power of videogames to create sustainable solutions for society’s biggest social, cultural, scientific, economic and educational challenges.
E-Line Media is a publisher of game-based learning products and services that engage, educate and empower, helping to prepare youth for lives and careers in the 21st century. E-Line works with leading foundations, academics, nonprofits and government agencies to harness the power of games for learning, health and social impact.
News Release
Oct. 24, 2013
‘Taiga’ Wins International Game Competition
CGI/E-Line Media 3D scientific investigation game a leader in games for learning around the world
Tempe, Ariz. — The Mystery of Taiga River, created by the Center for Games & Impact and studio partner, E-Line Media, was selected as international winner for the Best Game at the 7th European Conference on Game Based Learning (ECGBL 2013) game competition earlier this month in Porto, Portugal.
“During the competition and throughout our time at the ECGBL 2013 conference we received so much positive feedback on our work with the two games we presented. It is such an honor for our team to win this award and to hear that our research implementing these games was the most compelling data some have seen at the conference,” said Dr. Sasha Barab, executive director for the Center for Games & Impact. “Our team works hard to produce a solid 3D game that includes deep learning science principles, is a beautiful and fun play experience, and offers extensive support to teachers implementing these games in their classroom.”
The Mystery of Taiga River is part of the Atlantis Remixed (ARX) international learning and teaching initiative that uses 3D multi-user environments to immerse students in educational narratives. The Taiga River story is a game-based science curriculum that uses a water quality mystery to teach students, aged 10-14, concepts like scientific investigation and water quality indicators to solve the problem of dying fish in Taiga River and restore the health of the environment while balancing the needs of the community stakeholders like loggers, fishers and farmers.
“This award is a huge honor, as there were a large number of compelling and sophisticated games submitted to the competition,” said Dr. Anna Arici, senior researcher for the Center for Games & Impact and director of the Quest2Teach Project. “People were impressed with the diversity of learning, engagement, and transactive experiences that take place in our learning games. Not only are they beautiful and captivating, but the data and personal stories from students are wonderfully compelling. Students are working harder, solving complex and real scientific challenges, and feeling a huge sense of accomplishment. Where else can a 12-year-old be taken seriously as a water quality expert and get to decide the fate of a national park? It’s really empowering.”
Dr. Barab and Dr. Arici traveled to Portugal to present the Mystery of Taiga River in the games competition and give talks on their research from The Doctor’s Cure, another ARX game, which teaches children to write persuasively and build logic models as they explore the role that ethics play in science and technology, set within a 3D world and interactive narrative based on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
Links to more information:
Atlantis Remixed
The Mystery of Taiga River
The Doctor’s Cure
###