Games in Education 2019

Badgers! Shelter is a commercial computer game in which you play as a mother badger leading her young through an often hostile environment. During this session we will play the game and see how it can be used in the living environment classroom to foster student engagement, reflection, and critical thinking. Connections will be made to NYSSLS and NGSS. You will be given access to materials and act as participants in the lesson. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback at the end.

SEATING CAPACITY: 100

The high interest level and educational benefits of Gamification in a school setting  has been researched and trusted. I share tips and my 20 year experience of utilizing this classroom environment while marrying the concept of Teamification along! This has ramped up the metacognitive skill acquisition and social emotional learning naturally for students. There is more to a collaborative gamified experience than meets the eye...Let’s Share !

SEATING CAPACITY: 30

In this session, we will look at how artificial Intelligence is changing the workplace and how we can better prepare our students with the skills that they need to be relevant in the future of work.

SEATING CAPACITY: 1100

Stories provide context and also motivate students to learn more about the subjects being explored. Learn how to use interactive stories to captivate your students while creating a memorable educational adventure that will be talked about for years to come.  We will look at story-based educational adventures such as Mission to Mars, Wizards & Warriors, and Zombie Invasions for teaching kids about STEM and how you can integrate these into your own classes.

SEATING CAPACITY:100

Learn about how games, big and small, can enhance your Project-Based Learning instruction.  From mini-games that build up iteration and collaboration skills to over-arching class structures that can frame out any class--we'll tour options for leveling-up your teaching!

SEATING CAPACITY: 50

The Museum of Me curricular unit leverages a rich interactive narrative to support teens on a journey of self-inquiry by fostering social and emotional learning (SEL) within the framework of a high school English class. A sense of emotional wellbeing is predictive of improved academic performance, but there are currently few appealing, developmentally appropriate methods to engage teens in their own social and emotional development. The presenter will demonstrate how the award-winning game, What Remains of Edith Finch, was used to support SEL, resilience, media literacy, ELA standards, and universal design for learning (UDL). These principles support efforts to meet teens where they are developmentally, to engage them deeply in a learning experience driven by their own interests, and to provide equitable opportunities for teens of diverse backgrounds to contribute and learn meaningfully by offering multiple entry points and engagement strategies. Attendees will leave with a roadmap for how to integrate existing digital games into classroom instruction to support teens’ holistic development, and how to design game-based curriculum using universal design and social and emotional learning as guiding principles.

SEATING CAPACITY: 100

Discussing my experiences running D&D games for 8-14 year old gamers

Learn about how games, big and small, can enhance your Project-Based Learning instruction.  From mini-games that build up iteration and collaboration skills to over-arching class structures that can frame out any class--we'll tour options for leveling-up your teaching!

SEATING CAPACITY: 30

In Coxsackie-Athens Schools we believe in order to inspire we must engage, enable and empower both students and teachers. During this session participants will explore the digital badge program taking place at C-A for teachers and students. Lessons learned so far over our three year journey will be shared and participants will understand why implementing a digital badge program can inspire both adult and student learners. We will explore how providing personalized professional learning for teachers and staff has resulted in over 6100 badges earned to date and by challenging students at their own pace to demonstrate mastery in coding, financial literacy and life-ready skills has helped us redefine what ready is in our district.  Audience members will have opportunities  to engage in collaborative discussion, ask questions, and develop their own implementation plan for redefining how learning takes place in their schools, inspiring both adults and students to achieve extraordinary success.  

SEATING CAPACITY: 40

The sports science and analytics revolution has made the study of sports performance just as technologically advanced as university medical labs. Sports are the ideal venue to engage youth with the STEM disciplines within an activity that they love. Unfortunately, the equipment and analytical techniques used at elite levels are often too complicated and expensive for coaches, players, and teachers to access. This missed opportunity is especially pernicious because there is a well-documented interest gap in STEM among female, African American, and Latino youth, many of whom participate in sports. The democratization of sports science and analytics through the development of low-cost training tools has potential to reach these youths to provide an authentic introduction to STEM. As the STEM Director for 4th Family Inc., I have developed a suite of low-cost sport science and analytics tools to train youth athletes. We introduce STEM as a tool for athletic improvement which empowers youth athletes to use STEM techniques to collect and analyze their own performance data. We have used to this approach in partnership with NBA franchises, elite universities, and urban schools to broaden access to the STEM pipeline for students who would not typically sign up for traditional STEM activities. In this talk I will describe my journey from hosting an after-school STEM program at an urban high school to running STEM outreach at the NBA Summer League as well as sharing best practices for using sport science to engage students in STEM in and out of the classroom.  

In Coxsackie-Athens Schools we believe in order to inspire we must engage, enable and empower both students and teachers. During this session participants will explore the digital badge program taking place at C-A for teachers and students. Lessons learned so far over our three year journey will be shared and participants will understand why implementing a digital badge program can inspire both adult and student learners. We will explore how providing personalized professional learning for teachers and staff has resulted in over 6100 badges earned to date and by challenging students at their own pace to demonstrate mastery in coding, financial literacy and life-ready skills has helped us redefine what ready is in our district.  Audience members will have opportunities  to engage in collaborative discussion, ask questions, and develop their own implementation plan for redefining how learning takes place in their schools, inspiring both adults and students to achieve extraordinary success.  

This presentation is a case study of the use of two "empathy games" in a Women & Culture course to demonstrate the transgender experience for students. The presenter paired two games, Lim and dys4ia, with readings and a video on the trans experience, and framed the games with specific questions for her students. The goal of the assignment was twofold: for the students, to give them multimodal "experience" with the transgender perspective, through readings by trans authors, a video created by a trans woman, and games developed by trans women. For the presenter (and the students), there was a research question of whether or not presenting a more "holistic" view of the trans experience would solve the problem developer ana anthropy put forth about empathy games - that they are "a kind of shortcut to allyship" and are not "a substitute for truly educating [oneself] on issues surrounding trans women's lives." The presenter hopes that by using a multimodal approach, she can help get students started on a path to a truer type of allyship.

SEATING CAPACITY: 30

Despite the recent of explosion of interest and innovation in games in education, most learning game resources continue to relegate educators to the role of scorekeeper or referee at best. This session will comprise a presentation and discussion of ways for educators to become more directly involved in meaningful play with their students, using the role of the Dungeon Master (DM) from traditional tabletop roleplaying games as a model for the mentor/co-player role that educators must adopt to truly take advantage of the learning opportunities afforded by games. As part of the session, participants will roleplay as students in a gamified classroom to explore the outcomes of several different practical game-based interventions, from individual lessons to group projects to gamified syllabi. There will also be an opportunity to sign up for future collaboration with doctoral research into classroom gamification through the University of Albany.  

SEATING CAPACITY: 30

See how Minecraft was used in the Troy City School District and Wynantskill UFSD to teach 4th and 5th grade students math, chemistry, computer programming, and team work.

SEATING CAPACITY: 40

I will discuss how course design can be used to incorporate games into course design.  I will focus on a Macroeconomics course I designed, but discuss how the basic principles could apply to High School economics and to other grades in courses in principal.  

Try out this free, online drag-and-drop game building software from Microsoft and introduce your students to classic 8-bit game play and design! Designed to work with small inexpensive programmable handheld game consoles like Adafruit PyBadge. 

Students love playing games, so let's use that to our advantage.  Set up an interactive game show activity that promotes critical thinking and strategy.  Design a differentiated digital board game for students to navigate.  Both activities can be set up in a matter of minutes and provide rich data about your student's progress.  During this session, you will experience an example of these activities as a student.  Time will also be given to begin designing your own activities.

SEATING CAPACITY: 50

Learn about a new lineup of exciting and free Stressless tech tools for 2019. Leave with over 50 game-changing tech tools for all grades and curriculum. Engage, empower, and motivate students using proven tech tools focusing on the current tech trends to bolster your curriculum. Synth, Video Notes, Gimkit, Nearpod, Simulations, Assessments, Memes, Gamification, Twitter, Podcasts, collaborations, and more. All the tools discussed are free and can easily be incorporated into your classroom within minutes.

SEATING CAPACITY: 30