Session Information
| Title | Building a Company from the Ground Up Developing Serious Games |
| Presenter(s) | Casey O'Donnell, Tom Robertson, Jared Jackson, Stephen Borden and David Ducrest |
| Time | Thursday, October 18, 1:30p-2:30p |
| Location | Gold A |
| Format | Panel |
| Description | This panel explores the relatively short history of a company based around the design and development of Serious Games for education. IS3D was founded in 2010 to commercialize a handful of learning technologies developed as part of an National Institute of Health (NIH) Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA). Aided by the University of Georgia's VentureLab and a subsequent NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant IS3D is working to bring new forms of fun and engaging technologies into the classroom. Participants in the panel will discuss various aspects of building a company around making and distributing serious games.
Dr. Robertson will present the barriers that exist in establishing a commercial entity based on intellectual property developed at a State University that was funded by a federal research grant. This will include details of how efficient public-private partnerships can play a central role in the development and commercialization of serious games for use in science classrooms. Jared Jackson will discuss his experiences in moving from a digital artist, to technical artist to a project director on a Federally-funded small business grant. He will also discuss the wide variety of disciplines required to perform such a project. Stephen Borden will discuss how attitudes towards gaming in the classroom can be improved by iterative development in school classrooms, and the importance of student and teacher feedback in the development process. He will discuss how an abstract game can engage students in their learning that can lead into authentic role-playing games that are based on real world scenarios David Ducrest will present how the abstraction of ideas and implementation can improve your understanding of your project and improve the resulting project and improve your repeatability. The discussion will specifically relate topics to the redevelopment of IS3D's Osmosis Case Study. We were able to separate our content from our solutions, which has allowed us to develop interactive ebooks, case studies and full games with the same content knowledge. Dr. O'Donnell will talk about the different learning tools that IS3D develops, the different modes of engagement they provide, and how they converge to help foster higher-order thinking skills in students. This will include a discussion of the importance of "teacher buy-in" to serious games, and IS3D's approach of using serious games to raise standards in science education. |