simSchool in Upcoming Conferences

AACTE Symposium
“Playing to Learn: Creating, Practicing, and Assessing Preservice Work Samples Through Online Cases and Simulations”

New technology applications for teaching and assessment show promise as vehicles for authentic performance that can produce more comprehensive, finer grained data and evidence than many current performance-based assessment initiatives. Online case methods and simulations are beginning to emerge as powerful new teaching and assessment tools. These tools assist in the creation of products and evidence of growth as part of a vision of improving teacher education through increasingly authentic performance opportunities using technology. For example, the new tools can provide opportunities for experimentation, play, rehearsal, simulation, practice guided by feedback, and support and validation from experts and peers. Learning through practice and playing to learn are vital to expertise development and are well supported by emerging technologies. This symposium will address the question of how the emerging technologies and processes help support the creation of products and evidence of what a new teacher knows and can do and suggest theories and pose current questions to address this challenge.

AACTE Poster Session
Please stop by the booth and we will give you a tour and tell you about simSchool’s features.

SITE2005 Symposium
“Let’s Play: The Role and Value of Games and Simulations in Education”

SITE2005 for the first time is premiering simulations and games for educators by hosting this symposium. Mike Searson of Kean University and BIll Halverson of simSchool are moderators. A diverse group of educators will present a variety of perspectives to address the role and value of games and simulations as educational tools. This symposium will open with a powerful digital story depicting the profound impact that a games-based curriculum had on the life of one learner. It will be followed rich and diverse presentations by a graphic designer, a gaming expert, a professor of English, an educational technologist, developers of an educational-based simulation, and a journal editor. Each presenter is a multifaceted and renown in his/her field. They come together to provide provocative insights into the potential role and value of games and simulations as powerful educational tools. The symposium will conclude with a discussion of a possible research and advocacy agenda that can advance the role of games and simulations in education.

Papers and presenters for this new symposium on simulations are:

1. Characteristics and Functions of Games by Calin Cazan a Graphic Designer from Romania
2. What Educators Can Learn from Game Developers? by Ann DeMarle, professor at Champlain College
3. What a Leading Edge Instructional Videogame Looks Like! By Joel Foreman, professor at George Mason University