Workshop on Connected Learning and Games for Learning

LUDIS DOCTRINA

Workshop on Connected Learning and Games for Learning

May 8-9th, 2014

Centro de Informática, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

Recife, Brazil

SCOPE

The main concerns in education have been in optimizing the transfer of knowledge generated for students. However, with the advancement of digital technologies, our knowledge about the world is moving extremely fast and is in fact in a state of constant flux. This means that most of the knowledge that is created is tacit, because there is little time to distill, code, and communicate before the next change happens. This represents an enormous challenge to the relevance of education strategies. To borrow from John Seely Brown's "Learning in and for the 21st Century", the Cartesian view of learning is all about individual learning, generally adopted by conventional education. The idea translated into "I think therefore I am" has led schools to frame learning as the mere transfer of knowledge to the head of the individual. However, this same Cartesian seems insufficient to explain how new developments raise new issues that require their own answers, which means that knowledge starts to have a very short shelf life. The Cartesian view is also misleading, because, it seems, all the learning that happens at a deep level occurs through interaction and participation. The social view of learning - "we participate, therefore we are" - seems the most appropriate perspective in the era of digital communication technologies. Hence the need to adopt an approach to learning anchored in research, robust learning theories, and the best of traditional standards, but also designed to explore the great potential for learning in the field of new digital and social media. 

Here comes "Connected Learning", "an educational approach designed for our ever-changing world. It makes learning relevant to all populations, to real life and real work, and to the realities of the digital age, where the demand for learning never stops." "We harness the advances and innovations of our connected age to serve learning: Just as earlier generations tapped the tools of their time to improve learning, we must do the same in the digital age." "We connect three critical spheres of learning: academics, a learner’s interests, inspiring mentors and peers."

Enter games. According to the Institute of Play, a New York based nonprofit founded in 2007 by game designer Katie Salen, "many experts believe that success in the twenty-first century depends on education that treats higher order skills, like the ability to think, solve complex problems or interact critically through language and media. Games naturally support this form of education. They are designed to create a compelling complex problem space or world, which players come to understand through self-directed exploration. They are scaffolded to deliver just-in-time learning and to use data to help players understand how they are doing, what they need to work on and where to go next. Games create a compelling need to know, a need to ask, examine, assimilate and master certain skills and content areas. There are experts that argue that games are essentially learning systems, and that this accounts for the sense of engagement and entertainment players experience."

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Claudio Midolo (Quest to Learn & Institute of Play)

(more TBC)

VIDEOCONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Constance Steinkuehler (University of Wisconsin–Madison)

Stela Piconez (Universidade de São Paulo)
Zoran Popović (University of Washington)

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Brazilian agency for the scientific and technological development CNPq, through the Project "Um Estudo Sobre Aprendizagem na Era Digital e o Uso Efetivo das Tecnologias na Escola", grant 486307/2013-1.

ORGANISATION

Centro de Informática, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Ruy de Queiroz

Lays Rosiene

Ivson Santos

Pasqueline Scaico

SHORT BIOS OF SPEAKERS

Claudio Midolo is a Senior Game Designer at the Institute of Play, a not-for-profit design studio working at the intersection of games and learning. Claudio works on the Quest To Learn project, a public school in New York City, where he is responsible for leading the design and successful implementation of game-based learning materials and experiences. Born in Italy, Claudio has led or participated in many projects in the fields of digital technology, creativity and communication around the world. He presented his work in numerous conferences and venues, such as the 2013 AERA annual meeting, DML and GLS. Claudio lives in Brooklyn with his wife Clio and four cats and keeps following his passions.

Constance Steinkuehler is an Associate Professor in Digital Media at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and co-directs the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) center at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery and chairs their annual GLS Conference. Her research is on cognition and learning in commercial entertainment games and games designed for impact. In 2011-2012, she served as Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) where she advised on national initiatives related to games. Policy work there included the coordination of cross-agency efforts to leverage games toward national priority areas (e.g. childhood obesity, early literacy, STEM education) and the creation of new partnerships to support an ecosystem for more diversified innovation in commercial and non-commercial games. She also played a central role in recent meetings through the Vice President’s office on videogames and violence.

Zoran Popović joined the CSE faculty of University of Washington in the summer of 1999. He received a Sc.B. with Honors in Computer Science from Brown University in 1991, M.S. in Computer Science in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1999 from Carnegie Mellon University. His Ph.D. dissertation research focused on the automatic synthesis and transformation of realistic character animation. His thesis also involved numerous performances of embarrassing acts.  He has also held research positions at Sun Microsystems and Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center and University of California at Berkeley.  Zoran's research interests lie primarily in computer graphics, especially in character animation, motion editing, physically based modeling and modeling/simulation of natural phenomena. He is also interested in nonlinearly constrained optimization, motion planning and biomechanics.

REGISTRATION
http://even.tc/ludisdoctrina

FURTHER INFORMATION
Contact: Ivson Santos santosivson@hotmail.com