Game Education Summit North America

Paper Abstract:

At the 2010 DICE Summit in Las Vegas Professor Jesse Schell's acclaimed talk Beyond Facebook highlighted a unique class at Indiana University designed as a multiplayer game. Soon after his presentation I have been deluged with emails for details on the class. That class was the beta test. Having repeated the process with another class this spring, adjusting and polishing the concept of "class as game," this talk will reveal all: from the detailed preparation of the design to the look on students faces on the first day when I announced they all had F's; watching the students learn to teach themselves; what worked, what didn't, both from my perspective and from the students themselves.

What's more this talk itself will be designed as a multiplayer game that the audience will play--stepping into a classroom where the gamer-social networked student feels at home and empowered--and discover what it's like to be immersed in an experience where real learning takes place thanks to warriors and mages instead of sages on stages. Play along. Experience the promise that designing classes as games holds for the future.