Lee Sheldon and ATLAS Speaker Series 4/9
Todd Bernhard
Today at 5 in ATLAS 100, Lee Sheldon is giving a talk about his book The Multiplayer Classroom. More info is below, but it sounds really cool. Peter and I are both in class during the talk, but I'd love to hear a report at the next Club meeting! Check it out
- Todd
From: Stephanie Wanek <stephan...@colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 3:27 PM
Subject: RE: Lee Sheldon and ATLAS Speaker Series 4/9
To: "bernha...@gmail.com" <bernha...@gmail.com>
Bernhard:
Thanks for swinging by today and I hope you’re able to visit with Lee Sheldon while he’s on campus.
His talk on the Multiplayer Classroom will be at ATLAS on this coming Monday, April 9 from 5:00-6:00pm in ATLAS 100.
Please feel free to share this information. Note that his lecture is expected to be popular and I suggest folks arrive early to secure a seat.
Speaker Series Abstract
· 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.
· The Multiplayer Classroom is the first attempt to attack the problem on its own ground: to create a new way of teaching that not only re-engages students, but teaches them more efficiently than the standard lecture and exam grind. In this presentation we will take a revealing look at the remarkable synergy between video game design and education occurring when students come to class to play and learn.
Bio
· Lee Sheldon is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Games and Simulation Arts program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has written and designed over two dozen commercial and serious video games and MMOs. In June, Lee's book, The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game, was published. His book, Character Development and Storytelling for Games, is required reading at many game developers and in game design programs at some of the world's most distinguished universities. A new edition will be published in 2012. Lee is a contributor to several 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.
· 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. Lee began his academic career at Indiana University where he first instituted the practice of designing classes as multiplayer games; worked on the serious 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 continues as creative director of the narrative-driven MMO Londontown; is head of the team working to build the Emergent Reality Lab at Rensselaer, an augmented reality space for research and education; and has just completed an alternate reality game teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture.
Regards, Stephanie
Stephanie Wanek
Program Manager
ATLAS Institute
University of Colorado-Boulder
ATLAS 207-B
