Thirst for Learning Games at FETC
We just wrapped up a week at FETC, the largest annual edtech conference that convenes each January in sunny Orlando. We put the spotlight on After the Storm: The Daily Byte at three different sessions.
Christina Oliver, vice president of partnerships, and Anne Richards, vice president of product development, started the week by participating in the Playful Learning workshop, led by BrainPOP and Learning Games Network—a free day of professional development around integrating games in the classroom. Christina compared the experience to last year’s FETC; she noted that there is a significant increase in the thirst for digital content in the form of learning games. (You don’t have to just take our word for it, read more about the growing movement in the Games & Learning Publishing Council’s Level Up Learning report.) And while we know there is such potential for game-based learning to transform instruction, teachers need help understanding how games: improve engagement; provide a level of personalization for each student; provide useable, actionable data; reinforce the content being taught; and save precious time, especially around differentiating content.
Later in the week, Christina led a session about After the Storm: The Daily Byte to show how a literacy learning game can both engage and educate students. On the last day of the conference, Anne partnered with our friends at BrainPOP, FableVision Studios, and the Learning Games Network to explain the process of creating After the Storm from development to dissemination.
FETC was an important reminder that we can help all students experience (as opposed to receive) learning in completely new ways. As an organization, we are particularly excited because we sit at the intersection of merging the power of games with formative assessment, while helping students make connections to the real world beyond the classroom.
For more on how FETC helped spotlight the innovative ways edtech is being used in schools, take a read of SmartBlog’s recap.
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