Category Archives: Conferences and Community Events

Earlier this spring, the Communication, Computing, and Technology in Education Program at Columbia University Teachers College held theEducational Technology Conference to bring together emerging scholars working in the field of educational technology. The two-day event featured themes of learning with mobile technologies, social media and games as well as focused discussions about designing instructional media to reach and empower diverse learners. Guest speakers included Andrew Gardner of BrainPOP and a group of educators from Quest to Learn, the innovative “game school” for digital kids here in New York…

The 9th Annual Games for Change Festival is less than two weeks away! We are thrilled that our own Research Consultant Jessica Millstone and BrainPOP’s Senior Director, Educators Experience, Allisyn Levy, will present the findings of the first national survey on teacher attitudes towards games in the classroom. Their presentation will take place on Wednesday, June 20 at 12:10 in the Tishman Auditorium at NYU. Jeff Ramos of Games for Change took this opportunity to ask her a few questions about the research and its…

Still buzzing from the exciting events of the previous evening, many participants from the STEM Video Game Challenge‘s Celebration of Success attended The Atlantic’s second annual Technologies in Education Forum on May 22 in Washington, D.C.  The Forum continued a lively discussion around the role that games play in STEM learning, with editorial staff from The Atlantic asking probing (often skeptical) questions and speakers generally offering optimistic answers. A panel on “Framing the Role Games Will Play in Future Learning” addressed whether there is a danger that…

The 9th Annual Games for Change Festival will be taking place on June 18 – 20 in New York City. There is less than a month to register, so be sure to get your tickets now to catch the following featured keynote speakers: the legendary Nolan Bushnell, “father of the video game industry” and founder of Atari Corporation, leading games for change evangelist Jane McGonigal (Author of the New York Times best seller Reality Is Broken and Chief Creative Officer for SuperBetter Labs), linguist…

“Radical change” and “storm the Bastille” were the rallying cries of the inspirational opening keynote of the 2nd Annual New School Venture Fund Summit, held on May 2, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.   This invite-only conference attracts big names from the education reform movement, including:  school chancellors from Newark and Washington DC, representatives from the US Department of Education, charter school network leaders, educational technology entrepreneurs and of course the venture capital managers who invest in them. The Joan Ganz Cooney…

Film.  It’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about.  Television is, of course, part of our daily lexicon here at the Cooney Center given our Sesame Workshop roots, but movies — not so much.  Last week I had the chance to head out to TIFF Kids (the children’s version of the famous Toronto International Film Festival), where I moderated a panel on transmedia and presented our latest work in the app space. In preparation for a busy few days, I sort of…

Two weeks ago, I had the exciting opportunity to go to the AERA (American Educational Research Association) Annual Meeting for the first time! For those of us in educational research, there is probably not a larger or more comprehensive event for researchers to come together and share their work. And from my fellow graduate students to faculty members and company executives, the atmosphere was definitely one of enthusiasm and passion for promoting excellence in education through research. Vancouver, British Columbia was taken…

This year’s Sandbox Summit, hosted by MIT on April 17th and 18th, ranged from the very low tech (a live action card game) to very high tech FlickerLab’s new live (animation studio).  Despite the diversity of participants, there was one recurring theme: kids need and expect experiences rather than products.  And for producers and developers, that requires new ways of synthesizing ideas. The first keynote speaker and CEO of Callaway Digital Arts, Rex Ishibashi, argued that while the ecosystem of…

Through case studies, roundtables, lectures and demos, the Games for Change Festival (June 18­-20, NYC) highlights models for collaboration on game development and distribution, bridging the gap between commercial and issue driven games. Featured presentations include game designer and author of Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal, leading researcher, Dr. James Paul Gee, Valve Software, Navid Khonsari (Grand Theft Auto, Alan Wake), and Chris Bell (WAY, Journey). Highlighting the discussions on Games in Cultural Spaces will be representatives from the TATE, Smithsonian, California Academy of Sciences, and more. New features…

Through case studies, roundtables, lectures and demos, the Games for Change Festival (June 18­-20, NYC) highlights models for collaboration on game development and distribution, bridging the gap between commercial and issue driven games. Featured presentations include game designer and author of Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal, leading researcher, Dr. James Paul Gee, Valve Software, Navid Khonsari (Grand Theft Auto, Alan Wake), and Chris Bell (WAY, Journey). Highlighting the discussions on Games in Cultural Spaces will be representatives from the TATE,…