Liemandt Foundation's "Hidden Agenda" Contest
The potential of "Stealth Education" in video
games is realized by college students!
About a year ago, I was asked by the Liemandt
Foundation (a private family nonprofit run by Trilogy CEO Joe Liemandt's mom) to
take on a project. The foundation, already involved in education, was
interested in furthering education through technology. As a perfect
intersection of technology and education, Joe had convinced his family to invest
in building video games that were every bit as fun as the most popular ones
today, but that also taught K-12 kids real school subjects. At that point,
"edutainment" games had failed miserably, mainly because they focused too much
on education and not enough on
entertainment.
After doing a bunch of research and learning about similar initiatives, I knew we had a challenge in front of us. Other related projects had failed for many reasons -- opposing personal agendas (education v. gameplay), budget issues, lack of commercial interest, etc. Since I didn't yet know anything about the space, I knew I needed help but I also knew I needed to keep my group of potential advisors/partners/involved parties small, nimble and open-minded. And I needed cheap labor!
So I proposed an idea to Joe -- we'd get a few leaders in the field (of education, video games, and the combination of the two) to act as sponsors for a college student (read: cheap labor) video game contest. I suggested a $25,000 prize for the winning game that "stealthily" educated middle school students while providing endless fun.
After countless iterations and tons of help from many generous people, Hidden Agenda was born in September. By December, we had 20 entries from schools all over the country (about 65 students total). By May after working hard with all of the teams and testing initial game entries, we had chosen 5 finalists, and this past week I flew them all down, along with judges such as Marc Prensky (author of the book "Digital Game-Based Learning"), Richard "Lord British" Garriott (game celebrity -- creator of the world's first online game when he was 19 years old), representatives from U. Texas's Digital Media Collaboratory , a middle school teacher, and some middle school students.
Monday started with all of the judges playing all of the games. Afterwards, they met up with the students and all other advisors, colleagues and Foundation board members at Richard Garriott's mansion. This place was INCREDIBLE! It's built around an actual observatory:
and has one of the most beautiful views I've seen of Austin (even on a crummy, rainy day):
Inside, Marc was sold once he saw the dinosaur (this is a veloceraptor -- actual size):
But I was even more impressed by the fact that Richard is the only private owner of land beyond planet earth (he owns a spot on the moon):
I was also amazed by the fact that he'd been down to the bottom of the sea -- even explored the Titanic! Here's me with one of his diving souvenirs:
There are so many picture we could show -- the house had everything from real shrunken heads and human skeletons, to the innerworkings of antique clocks and mechanical dolls, countless puzzle boxes, bizarre inventions from throughout time (predecessors to calculators and energy generators), tribal masks, meteors, medical antiques, vampire-hunting kits, knights in shining armor,... the list goes on. And that's only the stuff we saw based on the secret passages Richard showed us! Most importantly, Richard was an incredible person and gracious host, and everyone from the students to the board members were beside themselves with him, his house and the whole experience. Here is Richard (in the blue collared shirt) with the finalist teams:
Judging the next day was intense -- each team had a half hour to present their games, 15 minutes for questions and 15 minutes to leave the room while our judges discussed. We saw an addictive tetris-like puzzle game that taught the periodic table, a shooter adventure game that taught Newton's laws, a Texas Hold'em poker game that taught probability and percentages, a game where you shift fault lines to learn about natural disasters, and the winner -- a robot building & battling game that teaches all about elements and compounds and their physical and chemical properties.
By the end of the day, all of the judges and board members were extremely impressed with the students and their games! Even I had no idea how good the games had gotten since the last time I'd seen them... once we all saw just how much thought and effort had gone into everything, it was difficult to pick a winner (for a while, the judges were at a standstill between the shooter Newtonian physics game, the periodic table tetris game and the winner) but a pleasure to hand out the big check (the team wanted their "big check" picture to have Richard in it too):
I was especially excited to get written up the Austin-American Statesman (you may have to quickly register to read it).
Best part of the whole day was hearing the judges' and advisors' excitement at the outcome in the contest -- and their shared interest in doing it all over again next year! The Liemandt board agreed -- and told me they were up for running the contest as long as I was interested in running it for them! So it looks like I've secured the Foundation job for another year -- hurray!
After doing a bunch of research and learning about similar initiatives, I knew we had a challenge in front of us. Other related projects had failed for many reasons -- opposing personal agendas (education v. gameplay), budget issues, lack of commercial interest, etc. Since I didn't yet know anything about the space, I knew I needed help but I also knew I needed to keep my group of potential advisors/partners/involved parties small, nimble and open-minded. And I needed cheap labor!
So I proposed an idea to Joe -- we'd get a few leaders in the field (of education, video games, and the combination of the two) to act as sponsors for a college student (read: cheap labor) video game contest. I suggested a $25,000 prize for the winning game that "stealthily" educated middle school students while providing endless fun.
After countless iterations and tons of help from many generous people, Hidden Agenda was born in September. By December, we had 20 entries from schools all over the country (about 65 students total). By May after working hard with all of the teams and testing initial game entries, we had chosen 5 finalists, and this past week I flew them all down, along with judges such as Marc Prensky (author of the book "Digital Game-Based Learning"), Richard "Lord British" Garriott (game celebrity -- creator of the world's first online game when he was 19 years old), representatives from U. Texas's Digital Media Collaboratory , a middle school teacher, and some middle school students.
Monday started with all of the judges playing all of the games. Afterwards, they met up with the students and all other advisors, colleagues and Foundation board members at Richard Garriott's mansion. This place was INCREDIBLE! It's built around an actual observatory:
and has one of the most beautiful views I've seen of Austin (even on a crummy, rainy day):
Inside, Marc was sold once he saw the dinosaur (this is a veloceraptor -- actual size):
But I was even more impressed by the fact that Richard is the only private owner of land beyond planet earth (he owns a spot on the moon):
I was also amazed by the fact that he'd been down to the bottom of the sea -- even explored the Titanic! Here's me with one of his diving souvenirs:
There are so many picture we could show -- the house had everything from real shrunken heads and human skeletons, to the innerworkings of antique clocks and mechanical dolls, countless puzzle boxes, bizarre inventions from throughout time (predecessors to calculators and energy generators), tribal masks, meteors, medical antiques, vampire-hunting kits, knights in shining armor,... the list goes on. And that's only the stuff we saw based on the secret passages Richard showed us! Most importantly, Richard was an incredible person and gracious host, and everyone from the students to the board members were beside themselves with him, his house and the whole experience. Here is Richard (in the blue collared shirt) with the finalist teams:
Judging the next day was intense -- each team had a half hour to present their games, 15 minutes for questions and 15 minutes to leave the room while our judges discussed. We saw an addictive tetris-like puzzle game that taught the periodic table, a shooter adventure game that taught Newton's laws, a Texas Hold'em poker game that taught probability and percentages, a game where you shift fault lines to learn about natural disasters, and the winner -- a robot building & battling game that teaches all about elements and compounds and their physical and chemical properties.
By the end of the day, all of the judges and board members were extremely impressed with the students and their games! Even I had no idea how good the games had gotten since the last time I'd seen them... once we all saw just how much thought and effort had gone into everything, it was difficult to pick a winner (for a while, the judges were at a standstill between the shooter Newtonian physics game, the periodic table tetris game and the winner) but a pleasure to hand out the big check (the team wanted their "big check" picture to have Richard in it too):
I was especially excited to get written up the Austin-American Statesman (you may have to quickly register to read it).
Best part of the whole day was hearing the judges' and advisors' excitement at the outcome in the contest -- and their shared interest in doing it all over again next year! The Liemandt board agreed -- and told me they were up for running the contest as long as I was interested in running it for them! So it looks like I've secured the Foundation job for another year -- hurray!
Posted: Tue - June 29, 2004 at 01:10 AM
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Published On: Jul 01, 2004 01:21 AM
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Published On: Jul 01, 2004 01:21 AM