"There's more to the game than just playing soccer..."

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We are excited to share with you a news clip about BREAKAWAY, produced by Channel One News.  Channel One is the leading television news network for teens nationwide. Their mission is to "inform, educate and inspire by making news relevant and engaging for young people and sparking discussion around the important issues impacting youth today."


Chapter 2 of BREAKAWAY is now live!  Don't worry, if you haven't played Chapter 1 yet, you'll play that first so you don't miss any of the story.  Head on over and see what all the buzz is about!

Keeping Up!

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So admittedly it has been a long pause since I've posted here last. Yet it has also been a long time since I've gotten serious friend, vacation, or exercise time (not a habit I recommend). Which in some sort of internet way means, I wish I had been sharing all that has been going on at the Emergent Media Center with our EMC followers!

Often these days, I wonder if it would be simpler if I just put a stop to our collective creative thinking—then keeping up would get so much simpler. But truthfully there is much that needs doing, so many that can benefit by what we do, and so much that is worth doing! If we hold our collective breathe then the speed of change will make us obsolete. Likewise the value of the education we are creating would be less so.

Our EMC students (over 200 in two years) such as Kate Baxter walk out the door with classroom learning but also a fuller understanding of how their classroom knowledge applies to the world and with the skills to make visions reality.

It has been a very busy semester.

We progressed forward on or concluded a long list of projects this semester:

• Google Earth mapping of Burlington and the campus (which continues on this summer) driven by Ray McCarthy-Bergeron and Alex Keyes,
• the Virtual Vermont Archeology Museum project with star student now grad Mike Fowler,
• two projects driven by amazingly creative teams of students: 1) conversion of the Information Literacy game for the iPhone and 2) the movement of data from our Polhemus Motion Capture device to Maya and our game engines,
• and moving the United Nations game to end violence against women from concept into beta Breakaway.

Overwhelmingly the students reported that these projects were among the most valuable of their educational experiences—providing portfolio experiences, tying together classroom learning with real world outcomes, providing relevance that they could recognize, and pushing them beyond their comfort zones into accountability onto a formerly unknown scale.

We traveled to Saint Lucia, New York City, and Milan, Italy presenting, testing, and recording with the poorest of poor and with some of the most influential. We brainstormed with groups and thinkers such as the likes of Ben Cohen on concepts that could impact ways of viewing actions. We built upon classroom learning and applied it to sponsors' projects with real world goals—projects where failing or non-complete's were simply not an option.

And among ourselves we struggled with: our ideals of leadership and transparency; balancing productivity and insight in a learning/productivity structure; pipelines for production; continually changing teams/workforce; cohesively managing and producing as a cohort of millennials, next gens, and baby boomers; and producing work with professionals and world leaders on world impacting projects.

So it was a very busy 4 months. The summer looks even busier.

Our game, Breakaway, with the UN has found an international soccer star, Samuel Eto'o as its champion and launches in three weeks for the FIFA World Cup, the Google Earth project continues with the city of Burlington, other projects are in the pipeline to include internal Champlain College web projects, projects such as the Governor's Institute of Vermont in Information Technology for teens,

and the launch of the MFA in Emergent Media—bringing an entirely new dimension to learning within this real world, multi-dimensional format.

So much to look forward to—and if I'm lucky I will keep our readers informed and I'll schedule in some friend and exercise time!

Job Openings on Empowering Play Project

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Join our team!  The Emergent Media Center is hiring for late Spring/Summer 2010 positions on the UNFPA/Empowering Play project.  You MUST be a Champlain College student in order to apply.

Click HERE for a listing of open positions.

Hurry!  Resume, cover letter, and deliverables (if required) are due by Friday, April 16th!

Come do a little thing that’s powering BIG change!

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Empowering Play: Helping End Violence Against Women

is holding a fundraising

R A F F L E

THIS WEEK! Wednesday – Friday, November 4-6

11 am – 2pm

IDX Atrium, outside the dining hall on Champlain College campus

Come do a little thing that’s powering BIG change!

(And get some holiday shopping done while you’re at it!)

YOU could win: Scott Sheela Skis, Prizes from the Flynn Center, Vermont Stage Company, Petra Cliffs, Discover Jazz Festival, Stowe Mountain Resort, epicPlanet, Lake Champlain International Fishing Derby, Green Mountain Coffee, Lake Champlain Chocolates, University Mall, Junior’s Italian, Coca Cola, American Flatbread, August First, Body Le Bronze, Shaws, and MUCH MORE!

Raffle ticket pricing:

Top-level prizes, tickets cost: $5 for 1 ticket or $20 for 5 tickets

Other prizes, tickets cost: $1 for 1 ticket or $5 for 10 tickets.

… And for $0.25, you can have a spin on our PRIZE WHEEL and win:

• Movie tickets

• Pizza Putt Passes for laser tag, mini golf, and pizza

• Jazzman’s gift certificates

• Free raffle tickets

For pictures of prizes and more information, please visit our Facebook event.

Follow us on Twitter for updates!

Empowering Play is a project of the Emergent Media Center, with collaboration from Population Media Center and the United Nations Population Fund. This innovative project is aimed at preventing violence against women and girls. Violence against women and girls is a pervasive global problem, often deeply rooted in cultural stereotypes. More information on the project and the Emergent Media Center can be found at http://www.emergentmediacenter.com/unvaw/

Also, check out our newest video (10 minutes) on the status of the project.

Shhh! We're Working Here!

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Shhhh! Its been busily quiet here at the EMC this afternoon. Ray and Ken are out, Lauren's not here today either, leaving just Sarah and myself behind the "glass".
There have been about 15 students silently, thoughtfully working away. It's a funny thing —I'm so fond of each one of them. I can recognize their hopes, their anxieties, their passions, and most importantly their spirits and bright shining intelligence.
I am remembering those likewise who worked so diligently and played so hard here. I was first prompted by a college meeting about our grads and their employment out of EMC.

To note is that to date we’ve worked with roughly 130 students since start-up (2 years). This summer we had a full house with approximately 30 students working on 6 projects all summer long. This Fall many of those projects will end but we have a number of others that will continue.
So here's our grads:

• Kate Baxter, ’09 Software Engineering, is a Junior Programmer at 2K Boston and recently returned from doing a “sea-mester” abroad sailing the Caribbean for 40 days in a program focused on leadership, communication and experiential education. Kate began with the original IBM project, joined the second IBM project, and then our UN team. She was also a Governor's Institue of Vermont in Information Technology (GIV IT)resident advisor.
• Emily Benton, '09 Game Art & Animation is working freelance on art for Disney. Emily was the artist on the original Masie Learning 2007 conference and then the MPI: Meet Different conference. She was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Dan Bergeron, ’09 Marketing, is working as an Account Manager at 800response. Dan was on our UN project as a market researcher and first identified soccer as the unifying cultural theme!
• Corey Cunha, ’09 Software Engineering, is working as a Developer at EF Educational Tours in Boston. Corey programmed on our CIMIT and Cystic Fibrosis projects.
• Casey Hopkins, ’09 E-Business, is a SEO Analyst at Dealer.com . Casey was on our UN project as a researcher traveling with us to South Africa.
• Wes Knee, ’09 Game Art & Animation, is interning as a 3D Infographiste at Mistic Software in Montreal working on art for Nintendo DS games. Wes was on almost everything to include America's Army, Info Lit, CIMIT, the various Masie, CIMIT and MPI conferences, and the UN project to include presenting at MIGS last year on the UN project - that's where his current employer saw him first. He was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Lauren Nishikawa, '09 Game Design, both ourselves and Amanda Crispel (Hoozinga) scooped her up. She's the Junior Creative Director for our Empowering Play (UN) Project. Lauren just was on EVERYTHING and was the first recipient of our EMC Interstellar Award. She was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Iain Bissett, ’08 Game Design, is working at 3DVIA in Boston and has a great blog documenting his professional life: http://www.iainbissett.com/. Iain was our writer/designer on the first IBM interactive project.
• Renee Gillett, ’08 Game Design is an interactive designer at the Museum of Science in Boston – creating games for the museum’s exhibits. Renee participated in many demonstrations - to include the original Game Change Summit in Kingbridge where she first met her future employers.
• Tim Hamel, ’08 Game Design and 3D Art & Animation, is working as a Level Designer at Vicarious Visions and has worked on the Transformers games among others. Tim worked on various projects to include the original IBM interactive and was first leader of our student chapter of the IGDA.
• Nick Malatuma, '08 Game Art & Animation, is working as an artist at the EMC on our UN project to End Violence Against Women. That's him below with some of his incredible artwork!

So here's to our students - past and present. They have built the EMC right along with us. They are our bright future!

Summer—a Time for Knowledge Sharing

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There can be long stretches when life is too frantic there is no time to write. There are other times like today, when so much is happening that one has to record at least the main points. Today is such a day. It was fully a "meeting day" today and tomorrow promises to be much the same. Meetings can be soooo frustrating as there seems to be stacks of work that NEEDS to be done and meetings threaten to upend. The important piece about a good meeting, as I've learned from experience, is that is it can raise the bar. Voices of many can cut the work load by slicing through to the "best" solution. Properly delegated much can then be accomplished OR many can be reached. Today was such a day at the EMC. 

At the very end of the day, Brian and Jeremy presented to Ken and myself on their plan for the Masie iPhone application. Their challenge is to become proficient at developing the code behind the application so that at the October conference they can create an app in 3 days with  a community of advisors and two other Champlain students: a designer and an artist. This summer they are working to learn but they also are working creating on an innovate app to profile pre-conference.

Today Sarah, Ken, Ray and myself were involved in two interviews one for newspaper, the other for community radio. One interview focused on the Cystic Fibrosis project now in completion of the concept and testing of the games by patients. They are quite wonderful to play. It was good to share where they started, what they are, and likewise how we've come to appreciate that community.

The other was an interview was on the Violence Against Women game project. Let's hope it can raise awareness and bring new support to the project. The good news is that in the last few weeks, thank in part to the a generous donation by Population Media Center, we've raised $30,000 to bring the project out from under hiatus!!!!We will need much more to complete the project so we've begun a campaign - we're calling it the "It's a little thing" campaign in reference to the email that began it. To each donor, no matter the size of the gift they can give, we will bring them in on the creation process, presenting to them art assets, scripts, test results, etc. so they can follow and become part of our team.  

But back to today and this week the team presents work to date to the UNFPA tomorrow. We will share the video presentation with you through our web site Empowering Play  For over a year now, I've been writing about how incredible our students our, their creativity and their talent. In this video, it shines through clearly!

Last but not least, Thursday the team working on our Virtual Museum web presence project with VT. State Archeologist Giovanna Peebles share their concepts to the board of advisors for the project. Wish them luck—their idea(s) move way beyond the boxes of artifacts stored, way beyond museum exhibits, and into global knowledge sharing. And isn't that waht this is ALL about—global knowledge sharing?

Ok big breath, smile - as my friend Pat says -it's all good.