Lee Sheldon is a writer, game
designer, television producer and scriptwriter.
He's utilized many various mediums including Television, novels, and
video games.
In his talk “Designing
Coursework as a Game,” Sheldon was sure to mention his time working
on Star Trek: the Next Generation. He also trash talked Zynga games
for a bit. Since
he is also the author
of the non-fiction books The
Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game
and Character
Development and Storytelling for Games, one
could almost consider him a contemporary Renaissance-man.
The
majority of the talk is about his experimental academia. Each of his
students start with zero experience points (XP), and they build up XP
by finishing tasks or “quests” similar to RPG (or role-playing
game). As the student gains more XP, he or she gains more levels
when they reach a particular amount. For example, level 5 = 555 and
level 6 = 666. He explained different instances of using this
approach. Sheldon showed various images students doing cartwheels,
high-fiving each other, and generally running around having a good
time. He seems to believe that positivity and fun in the classroom
lead to more engaged, or at least enthusiastic, students. I'm a fan
of RPGs myself and think this model has a lot of potential.
The
most interesting part of the talk for me was the bit about the
“emergent reality lab” being built at the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in New York. Its essentially a large virtual
reality space that ditches the goggles and gloves for screens and
projectors. Sheldon says that space can fit a smaller sized class,
and mentions the surround sound. He has dreams of projecting on and
manipulating the contours of the ground. It appears to be the
world's most elaborate and expensive classroom, but it has way more potential than that. I would love to use that space for an Art installation.
The
link to Sheldon's talk can be found here:
http://www.colorado.edu/atlas/newatlas/mainphoto/photo103.html.
