2016 NMC Summer Conference

Bryan Alexander closes the 2016 NMC Summer Conference with his keynote - Surviving the Renaissance: Flourishing in an Age of Chaos and Disruption. We are living through a remarkable time with revolutions ripping through traditional education. Thanks to the digital revolution, an unprecedented boom in human creativity is returning to storytelling around the world. Powerful changes in economics, demographics, and globalization, in addition to technology, are reshaping education. Schooling as we know it might not survive the decade. That’s all in the medium term. What’s happening in the long-range horizon is truly disruptive. We’re seeing grand challenges loom like science fiction plot lines. The specter of automation threatens to radically reformat the world of work and society, changing the world our students will inhabit while supplanting teaching and learning. And that’s just for starters. How can we anticipate and act strategically in the face of such potential transformation? Alexander’s keynote will address this burning question.

Constance Steinkuehler (University of Wisconsin - Madison) opens the 2016 NMC Summer Conference with her keynote - Games, Learning, and Society: The Intellectual Life of Digital Play. For video games to be considered a serious medium of expression, they must demonstrate the capacity to communicate serious ideas or operate with serious intention. This does not mean that they should be flat-footed, pedantic, or artless. Rather, the games must demonstrate themselves capable of expressing and inflecting cultural understandings and values in some way. They must create great art, and they must also be great tools for thinking. In this presentation, Steinkuehler reviews research on the intellectual life of commercial entertainment video games and highlights the ways in which the culture of play functions as a critique of schooling, highlighting the downfalls of standardization in the United States, evidenced in both the substance of what we teach and metrics we use to assess children. She details research on the communities that games inspire and the culture they encourage against the backdrop of status quo in education, explains how and where games might serve as a vehicle for American domestic policy, and suggests key advances needed to help usher in a new golden age of games.

Al Biles of the Rochester Institute of Technology presents GenJam’s Got Talent? during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. GenJam applies genetic algorithms to improvise jazz by breeding its own ideas with licks it hears the presenter play on trumpet. Last October, a casting associate at America’s Got Talent invited the presenter to audition for the upcoming season. This presentation describes the experience and reveals the outcome, which will not be public until 2017.

Lisa Stephens of Open Suny Center for Online Teaching Excellence presents "FLEXspace: A Long Way from the Shark Tank!" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. Flexible Learning Environment eXchange (FLEXspace), a highly searchable, open repository of learning spaces, is now available in over 28 countries and full of detailed technology classroom examples. Learn how to showcase examples of the best classrooms and to use FLEXspace and the Learning Space Rating System in edtech strategic planning.

Jared Bendis of Case Western Reserve University presents "Emotion-Match: A Game for Learning Emotional Intelligence," during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. How can emotional intelligence be gamified? “Emotion-Match” is an iPad app that encourages players to match faces based on one of 16 different emotional effects while ignoring gender and race. This presentation demonstrated the game and how it was developed.

Michael Berman, NMC Board Chair, welcomes the 2016 NMC Summer Conference attendees and invites NMCers to share views and perspectives of the future of the NMC at http://www.nmc.org/nmcnext/.

Fernando Valenzuela of a Cengage Learning presents "The Global Edupreneurship Ecosystem" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. Around the world, there is a need to inspire and develop a spirit of entrepreneurship, but education has unique roadblocks. There are new clusters focusing on cultivating edupreneurship. Who are they? What do they do? Why is it relevant? How can everyone be part of this?

Amanda Lai of the University of Rochester presents "Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths: A 3D Modeling Study of an Historical Forensic Artifact" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference. University of Rochester has been using data collected to create virtual reconstructions of Frances Glessner Lee’s Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, dioramas of crime scenes for forensic training. Currently housed in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore, these 19 dioramas have been used to train numerous crime scene investigators.

Owen Gottlieb of Rochester Institute of Technology presents "Learning while Making Games… for Learning" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference. Students develop varied knowledge and skills while participating in the dual design tasks of creating a compelling game and a pedagogical tool. The game featured in this rapid case study teaches aspects of comparative religion; students dig deeply into history, culture, and literature to make the game a reality.

Anthony Helm of Dartmouth College presents "Slingin’ Pi: How the Jones Media Center Uses Raspberry Pi to Deliver Student-Created Content to Digital Signage" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. As part of a recent major renovation project, the Jones Media Center at Dartmouth went from managing one screen of digital content to nine screens. The presenter will describe how Raspberry Pi devices are used as a cost-efficient and easy way to deliver student-produced media to screens throughout the Center.

Sarah Schauss and Matt Mervis present "Tools for Inspired Learning" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference. Over the years, Skills21 have created projects that have stood the test of time. Moving towards the future and expanding the market is no scary venture for the Skills21 team. They are finally ready for the big stage, with five great products to pitch in five short minutes. Challenge accepted!

Lorenzo Vallone of Mirum Learning shares "It’s Alive! 2016 NMC Horizon Report App Demo" during Five Minutes of Fame at the 2016 NMC Summer Conference in Rochester, NY. The NMC and Mirum Learning recently released a mobile app to better inform Higher Ed professionals of the developments poised to disrupt the field. The app is an interactive version of the NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition. Explore the app and learn about the design approaches taken to maximize engagement.

The NMC has awarded the 2016 Center of Excellence award to the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). Situated in the Denver metropolitan area near the Rocky Mountains, University of Colorado Denver is home to teaching, research, and patient care facilities. The institution is celebrating 20 years of CU Online, where thousands of students have harnessed flexible options to achieve academic and career goals. The highly-skilled, enthusiastic faculty use fun, creative methods to connect with students and breathe fresh air into content delivery. Through its professional development programs, innovative pedagogical approaches, and unique marketing efforts, CU Denver has earned a reputation as a powerhouse institution.

The NMC has awarded the 2016 Center of Excellence award to the University of Central Florida (UCF). Located in Orlando, Florida, the University of Central Florida is the second-largest university in the US. Many students experience the institution in blended and online formats through the Center for Distributed Learning. The institution’s instructional design team creates high-quality online courses that employ a mastery learning approach, personalized assessments, and real-time feedback. UCF prides itself on technology-based innovation and instills those values in its students.