Online Presentation: Designing Coursework as a Game with Lee Sheldon

Date/Time:	Tuesday, 07 Apr 2015 from 1:10 pm to 2:10 pm
Location:	2030 Morrill Hall
Cost:	Free
URL:	http://www.celt.iastate.edu/celt-resources/events/
Contact:
Phone:	515-294-5357
Channel:	Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Categories:	Training, development
Actions:	Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder

Everywhere educators from K-12 to university professors are attempting to negotiate the widening gap between decades-old teaching methods and the parallel-processing and social-networking students of today. They recognize that students seem more focused on video game challenges than their classes, but literal efforts to use video games to teach have met with uncertain success.

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A Game-Based Learning Community online discussion with Lee Sheldon, Associate Professor, the Communication and Media Department and Co-Director of the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York
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Registration is required for this event.

LIVE EVENT
This event will be STREAMED live in 2030 Morrill on Tuesday, Apr. 7 hosted by Wei Wang, and Dennis Culver our Game-Based Learning FLC Co-Facilitators

ONLINE SYNCHRONOUSLY
If you are unable to attend in-person - you may login via ZOOM:
Please click this URL to start or join. https://iastate.zoom.us/j/962507406

Or, go to https://iastate.zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID: 962 507 406

AVAILABLE AFTER THE EVENT
In addition, the presentation will be recorded via Zoom and available at a later date CELT's YouTube channel.


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About Lee Sheldon
Lee Sheldon is Associate Professor in the Games and Simulation Arts and Sciences program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has written and designed over thirty commercial and applied video games and MMOs.

In June 2011 Lee's bestselling book, The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game was published by Cengage Learning. The Facebook page for his method of teaching classes as multiplayer games is now followed by close to 1200 people in 45 countries. His book Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Second Edition, 2013) is the standard text in the field.

Lee is a contributor to many books on video games including Well-Played 2.0, Writing for Video Game Genres from the IGDA, Game Design: An Interactive Experience and Second Person. Upcoming: Learning and Education Games, Volume Two: Bringing Games into Educational Contexts. He is cited in many publications, most recently: Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning. He is a regular lecturer and consultant on game design and writing in the US and abroad.

Before his career in video games Lee wrote and produced over 200 popular television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Charlie's Angels, and Cagney and Lacey. As head writer of the daytime serial Edge of Night he received a nomination for best writing from the Writers Guild of America. Lee has been twice nominated for Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America. His first mystery novel, Impossible Bliss, was re-issued in 2004.

Lee began his academic career in 2006 at Indiana University where he taught game design and screenwriting. At IU Lee first instituted the practice of designing classes as multiplayer games; worked on the applied games Quest Atlantis and Virtual Congress; and wrote and designed the alternate reality games The Skeleton Chase and Skeleton Chase 2: The Psychic funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Skeleton Chase 3: Warp Speed funded by Coca-Cola.

He is head of the team building the Emergent Reality Lab at Rensselaer, a massive mixed-reality space for research and education; and is creative director on the sequel to his alternate reality game teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture that is the first project of the lab. Also at Rensselaer Lee is creative director on These Far Hills, a game teaching engineering by following the adventures of an extended Irish family emigrating to Mars.

Recent applied game credits include Crimson Dilemma, a business ethics video game for Indiana University that debuted this fall; and Secrets: A Cyberculture Mystery Game, an online game teaching culture and identity on the Internet for Excelsior College that goes live Fall 2015. He was lead writer and design consultant on The Lost Function, a video game teaching pre-algebra for AT&LT.

Lee's most recent commercial game credits include design consultant and lead writer on Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, a KInect game based on the classic Disney film, released in October 2014; lead writer on Zynga's social Facebook game, Indiana Jones Adventure World; and design consultant and lead writer on the casual MMO, Star Trek: Infinite Space. He is currently writing the reboot of another social Facebook game, Suburbia.

ABOUT GAME-BASED LEARNING - LEARNING COMMUNITY
These interactive discussions will examine how game based learning may guide our students' learning processes and enhance your curriculum. We will also explore how gamification is changing society, and its impact on education. Facilitators: Dennis Culver, Instructional Support Specialist, CTLT; and Wei Wang, Instructional Support Specialist, CELT.

Meets monthly from 12:10 - 1:00 p.m.
Next meeting: Apr. 21 (Tues.), 2030 Morrill Hall

Members of Faculty and Staff Teaching and Learning Communities are multidisciplinary faculty and professionals who attend monthly or bi-weekly meetings to engage in a topic related to the scholarship of teaching and learning.