LiveVibe TV, "Opening Minds: People Who Make Video Games"

I had to the opportunity to work “Opening Minds: People Who Make Video Games.” Throughout the week, we helped to set up cameras, audio, and the switcher board to make sure the show ran smoothly. I was able to assist with audio, video, stage set-up, lighting, and synchronization of picture and sound (clapperboard) during the show. There was a nice crowd and the show was a success. One thing that I learned from this show is that you must have many different elements to keep an audience immersed. The house band and interaction kept the audience engaged. Instead of there being down time while the audience had to sit and wait for the next guest, the house band kept them entertained. Also, during the show, there were many different components exhibited.  Samuel Sewall, Next-generation game programmer and developer, displayed his game on the panel screen during his presentation. If that was not enough to excite the crowd, Diana Reichenbach and Hyuk Jang invited audience members to “Explore Ancient Egypt” and actually get a chance to test out their game.

Marko Suvajdzic, owner of Organic to Digital, spoke about his five key elements of interactive gaming: Gammification, Flow Theory, Educational Games, Data Collection, and Adaptive Learning. Gammification is using the incentives that we use in video games to help kids to learn. Kids are always willing to learn if the method of learning is fun. The flow theory is a description of how to be fully engaged in what we do. Suvajdzic proposed the question, “Video games fully immerse you, but how do we do that for learning?” There are many distractions in the world that cause kids to stray from learning in school. But, if we create more educational games where students can have fun while learning, they will be fully engaged while acquiring knowledge. Data collection is important to tracking the success of educational games and what areas can be improved. Suvajdzic stated “collecting data is useful because it stores information that teaches us how to make education more efficient and make it better.” The last concept was adaptive learning. Adaptive learning uses technology, more specifically computers, to help teach students. Suvajdzic thought this concept still had at least five years to develop before it is fully accepted and teachers begin to use technology more for educational purposes.

I was not able to take specific notes for Samuel Sewall, Diana Reichenbach and Hyuk Jang, but they spoke about some very interesting topics. It amazed me that Sewall was so young and heavily involved within his field. Similar to Suvajdzic, he spoke about trying to find a way to make education more fun through gaming. His expertise was coding and he explained some of his methods when creating a game. He stated that at times his group would create a concept and idea and finish creating a game within 24 hours. Reichenbach and Jang introduced a game created for the South Florida Science Center. This was an interactive game that used the Xbox Kinect to take students through Egypt and into the Afterlife. They explained each step from the proposal and initial concept to body recognition and creating characters.