The EMC's first official LAN Party!

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What do you get when you combine:

• 40+ Students...
  
• 7 Large Pizza's from Papa Franks in Winooski...
  
• 96 cans of soda, 4 pounds of candy, 100 mini bags of chips, 36 bottles of water, 72 cookies...
• The Emergent Media Center Lab computers loaded with the America's Army Game...
• America's Army Game Schwag...
• ...And 2 Champlain College Student maps that have been released through America's Army Game website?

A HUGE LAN Party celebration! :o)

Screen Shot of "District" AA Map

Screen Shot of "Canyon" AA Map

This was a big deal for the two teams who invested 2500+ hours in creating two, well-designed, official America's Army Maps which were released on Thursday, December 11th! Even prior to that, there was information floating around from America's Army that got forums buzzing with interest. Some of the students followed the forums and game servers around the globe playing their maps and by the next day, there were 9 servers playing "District" and 16 playing "Canyon". During this post (two days later), 23 servers are playing "District" and 29 are playing "Canyon". May not sound like a lot, but these maps are gaining ground in TWO days! All Thursday and Friday, I had both teams intermittently informing me about their news updates via the web... It was as if I accidentally subscribed to a cool RSS news feed: I was getting updates every half hour!

I couldn't help, but be proud of them for accomplishing what they did. The party was to honor the hours and accomplishment all of them made. It wasn't an easy task that they took on, but it definitely is now a rewarding one. In fact, we played the two maps beyond the two hours originally planned for the party. We went from 5pm to 1am in the early morning! Best yet, no student playing ever got bored playing the maps.

On a personal level, I know what it's like to have someone admire your work, but I don't think I could imagine how they've been feeling, all week and through today, at this type of scale.

Talking about admiration, apparently someone posted a YouTube video with a fly-through of the student's map just yesterday and at this time of me typing this post; it had a total of 95 hits.

And to give those reading this post some more content found on the web (Google brings up 9,000+ hits), here are just a few other spots about both maps:

• America's Army Game Intel
  
• America's Army Game Official Forums' News
• IGN Entertainment Games Article
• Champlain College's News Article
  
• ArmyOps Tracker - Serverlist for Canyon
• ArmyOps Tracker - Serverlist for District

I'm looking forward to another couple of sessions playing these maps in the future. Even more so, I'm looking forward to what these students, and others at the EMC, will accomplish next...

More Learning in 2008

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I knew that being involved in the Emergent Media Center was going to be an excellent opportunity to get involved in a creative and technical field with greater, social purpose that feeds my soul.  I’m not the only one as 60+ students who work at the center feel the same way during the time I interview them for positions prior to hiring them. Being part of a young generation who can have the opportunity to work in areas rarely explored is incredible and, knowing all of them, they would agree with me.

As an example, Saturday morning, October 25, Ann DeMarle, 6 Students and I, flew out to Orlando, Florida for the Learning 2008 conference.

Once again, the Emergent Media Center was offered another amazing opportunity by Elliott Masie to have a group of students create a game within a 3-day period on the topic of “Teleworking”.  This year’s stellar team consisted of Chris Rolfs, Kate Baxter, Max Nichols, Auston Montville, Dan Peavey, and Vanessa Blockland.

I must say, the audience, and even I, was impressed with what they pulled off in the short amount of time they had to research, design and program the game.

I view my job at the center as to not only act as the Project Director and to manage projects, but to also help students manage their lives in many cases.  At the conference, the students were working non-stop.

Almost ironically, some of the topics brought up in the game this past week revolved around the idea of balancing out work and life.  Their time awake over the short period was about 60 hours and all of it was worth the effort from their point of view.  They barely slept, needed to cut loose to release their stress and take a breather, but it was not easy.

It took me a little finessing with the help of some attendees and literally closing a laptop of a student to pry them away the last night so they could have some fun by dancing on the dance floor.

Later at probably around 4am, they started sprinting up and down the long, empty corridors to have a little more enjoyment… There’s nothing wrong with that, right?  I’m glad they had some freedom to have fun, which should be part of the whole experience of having a job in my mind.

When they took the stage the final day, they impressed.

Their game is called “Teletrust” and focuses on how employees of a company need to gain each other’s trust while working from home to complete important individual and team tasks with distractions getting in their way.

My eyes swelled as they presented and showed off the game on stage to the 1,800+ attendees.  They spoke well with confidence.

People laughed and applauded as the game mechanics and in-game jokes worked well.  It proved how the team did their research, listened and created the content based on the Learning 2008 participants’ input, feedback and contributions.  Even Tony O'Driscoll had blogged a bit about it!  People filled the halls after the closing session, while we were packing up and getting to ready for the bus to the airport, telling the students how awesome they are and how much fun they had as participants in the game process.  I believe we even had some “groupies” who hung out during every day to talk and catch a glimpse of what was to come.

The game at this point works and is fully functional, however, the students want to spend this weekend to fix a few game play/balancing issues and minor bugs.  In addition to this, they want to continue developing a side component to the game that makes it modular and modifiable. It is not critical to the deliverable people were expecting, but they thought it would vital for the companies who want to use this tool to easily modify game components, without delving into the open source code, to fit in line better with the companies’ training goals.  Who does or thinks this way other than professionals with a large amount of time?!?!

What a great experience it was to be involved in this great process and event.  Unfortunately, Ann had to bow out as she hopped a plane to Boston on Tuesday, a day and a half before the conference ended, to attend the CIMIT Innovation Conference.  She’s definitely a busy woman… Maybe she’ll read this post to get the update on what happened when she’s back.  ;o)

Emergent Media Center Open House Celebration

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Yesterday we celebrated all the work of our marvelous students, staff and faculty with an Open House Event!

News coverage has been incredible and I would like to share it with you. Wonderful is that, in the varying publications and video coverage, you can hear and see many of our students and our team.

It was great for the students to connect up with industry, government and community to share their projects. Here are blog posts by students Heather Conover and another by Robert Witbeck before and after the event which illustrates the depth of their commitment to their work: http://theseethroughmirror.blogspot.com/2008/10/craziness.html

http://growingngaming.blogspot.com/2008/10/busy-life.html

Below are the press links that I can find at present.

Newspapers:

Seven Days:

• Student Blog by James Kleimann: http://whatsgood.7dvt.com/2008/10/champlains-emer.html
  
• Video Games Help Cystic Fibrosis Patients Breathe Easier. by Alice Levitt http://www.7dvt.com/2008video-games-help-cystic-fibrosis-patients-breathe-easier
  
• Minding the Gap: Are schools preparing students for Vermont’s 21^st Century jobs? By Ken Picard http://www.7dvt.com/2008minding-gap

The Burlington Free Press:

• The Serious Side of Video Games. by Tim Johnson: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200881020012
  

Television News:

WCAX TV news:

• Old Mill, New Opportunity: http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?s=9216253
  
• Video Gamers Tackle Powerful Project: http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9100693

You can see photos of the event courtesy Steve Mease, three of which are in this post, at: http://picasaweb.google.com/steve.mease/EMCOpenHouse#

It's in the Air

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It is fall in New England. There couldn't be a more beautiful experience. The entire world explodes into flaming oranges, reds and golds before going quietly to sleep. Change and intensity are in the air—life at Champlain is fully awake from the summer's slumber and all is aflame on the learning fronts. I wonder if the students sleep at all during this time. It is insightful to read the student blogs and listen to their creative roar as they attack the myriad of learning instances that involve them.

Likewise the Center is in almost over its head. This month is our busiest to date. The new facility is still being adjusted but we are firmly "in" evidenced by the new set of doors that grace our entry. 

Aminata's visit was all we could hope for. The students connected to their sponsor sharing their discoveries. Aminata directed us all to reach broader and empowered us with her deep intellect. Wonderfully, news coverage highlighted our project. Here are two links to coverage:

1. To Public Radio station WAMC: 
   
2. To WCAX TV coverage with both a written description AND video clip

Coming up next week is the Center's official Open House. All are invited to meet our students, test drive their projects, partake in conversation, food and emergent media from 4:00-6:30. Vermont Governor James Douglas will hold a press conference at 4:30 to discuss his hopes for Vermont in this sphere. Our friends from around the globe are invited to a post-opening dinner exploring collaborative opportunities in the emergent media sphere.

Speaking of Governors, I just received very big personal news. I have been elected to a three year term as an IEEE Computer Society Board of Governor! It is an incredible honor with potential to connect youth to an esteemed organization. Last month IEEE Computer Magazine published an article I wrote entitled "Standards: Innovation and Value" on the place for standards in game development.

Two weeks from now student teams will be participating in two major external events all about innovation:

1. Elliott Masie's Learning 2008 in Orlando where once again a student team will be challenged to create games on site with participation from attendees. I will be conducting workshops on developing games.
   
2. CIMIT's Innovation Congress where students will act as docents guiding attendees through games supporting medicine and health to include two of our own projects - the Cystic Fibrosis project with Dr. Peter Bingham and CIMIT's RIPS project with Ryan Scott Bardsley.

By the end of the month, as the trees lose their splendor, we will be more than ready to take in the night air and celebrate Halloween. Students have been deciding what EMC staff and faculty, Ray, Sarah, Heather, Ken and myself shall come costumed as. All great fun!

Aminata Toure to speak at Champlain College, Tuesday, Sept. 30

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This is an invite to all our readers. Next week, Aminata Toure, our UN sponsor will be speaking at Champlain College, Burlington, VT in the Hauke Conference Room at 5pm September 30. 

Furthermore an exhibiton of photos we took while in South Africa is on display at the Emergent Media Center's new home in Winooski, VT—the Champlain Mill. Please stop in and visit during office hours. Below is the official news release:

BURLINGTON, Vt. (Sept. 26, 2008)  – Aminate Toure, an internationally-known leader in human rights, will spend two days meeting with Champlain College students and faculty to work on a United Nations’ funded project aimed at reducing gender violence in developing nations. 

The Emergent Media Center at Champlain College and Population Media Center were awarded a grant from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to carry out the project, which consists of creating an electronic game for young boys in developing nations aimed at preventing violence against women. The game will evolve into a global initiative, with an initial focus on South Africa.

Aminate Toure, chief of the Gender, Human Rights and Culture Branch of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), will speak about international women’s health challenges in a community lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 5 pm at Hauke Family Campus Center’s Conference Room at Champlain College. A question and answer session follow her talk. This event is free and open to the public.

You are invited!

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Robben Island, S.A.: site where ANC prisoners did hard labor and yet undermined the system. Referred to now as their "university" and place of triumph. 

Most of the blogging I have done recently is captured in our blog: EMC: Games Take On Violence Against Women . We returned from South Africa just three weeks ago. Exhausted, exhilarated, and needing time to readjust. Instead we jumped right into the midst of everything!

South End Art Hop: a mix of traditional and emergent—Champlain College and current EMC projects.

1. Classes for the students,
   
2. campus commitments for faculty and staff,
   
3. an exhibition at the Burlington South End Art Hop (thank you Sarah, EMC students and all the support of Champlainers such as Toni Lee Sangiastino and Richard Terricciano),
   
4. and most exhausting for Ray, Sarah and myself a huge move into a new space for the center. 

Renovation

It is 3700 beautiful, functional, funky, brick and sunlight bathed, cool square feet! Many thank you's due here but to start Michel George, Penny Miller, Mark Sammut and team. We are now located in the Champlain Mill in Winooski, Vermont. For the students we are directly across from the Spinner Place student residences. For the rest of campus, it is a short Champlain College bus ride down the hill and across the river. Students often walk it in 20 minutes.

Off and running, we are working on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Cystic Fibrosis game, completing the Information Literacy games, moving ahead on Burlington 3D, finishing for an Oct. 15 release date America's Army, and transcribing dialogue for the UN Violence Against Women project.

This in-spite of construction work, painting, wiring, and unpacking!

Heather Kelley, Ray McCarthy-Bergeron and Sarah Jerger getting work done despite building chaos

With all of this—or perhaps due to it, I want to issue two major invites: 

1. Come hear! Next Tuesday, September 30, we are honored that Aminata Toure, our UN sponsor is coming to Champlain!!!! She will be presenting to the community on her work for the UNFPA. I can promise that you will find her impressive. We are finalizing the time so if you are interested in attending, please contact me and I will send you the time and location. Did you know that this year 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international campaign runs from November 25 to December 10.  The campaign will run in conjunction with the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is celebrated on December 10^th. 
   
2. Come see! The EMC is having a major grand opening celebration, Oct. 21st from 4:00-6:30 and all are invited! There will be a very official ribbon cutting, hands on demos of our projects, students will be on hand to discuss their work, free food, etc. Please contact us if you need info on parking, etc. I will try to post ahead of time.
   

Hopefully I will see you all soon!

View from our windows