Alex Games (GAHM-ez) moved to East Lansing six weeks ago to take his position at Michigan State University (MSU) teaching game theory.
The 33-year-old software engineer is already designing a game curriculum that will be tested after school at Otto Middle School in Lansing in October. He has met with the folks at Impression 5 Science Center to pursue after-school programs for kids, and with the team at the Information Technology Empowerment Center.
“I’m doing a lot of networking,” he says.
MSU is investing in Games' position to teach the community the newest way to snag middle schoolers’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
“We have to concentrate on the middle school ages because they either get excited with technology by then, or they are completely turned off to the relationship of technology and learning,” says Games.
Games is fresh out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) with a doctorate in curriculum and instruction/learning sciences. He grew up in Mexico where he worked for five years as a middle school computer science teacher and designed a game-based learning curriculum.
He spent three years at UW researching Gamestar Mechanic under a grant from the Macarthur Foundation. Gamestar is a computer-based role-playing game where children learn through play to design their own games.
Much of what he is doing is experimental. Educators tend to either ignore or fight gaming, thinking of it as play.
But games are just another form of literacy, he says. The learning is no different than learning through a traditional book.
Gaming is a $20 billion industry worldwide. It’s a cultural phenomenon. If school is going to be relevant to children, then it has to be related to what and how they learn outside of school, Games says.
Source: Alex Games, MSU
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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