Nicole Lazzaro, world-renowned game designer and researcher, founder of XEODesign, and one of Fast Company’s 100 most influential women in high-tech, and Dr. Michael Evans, associate professor and program area leader in instructional design and technology at Virginia Tech, will anchor the closing keynote panel at ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio, October 13-16, hosted by COSI. The closing panel on cyberlearning and gaming will be held Tuesday, October 16, and additional panel participants will be announced shortly.

Nicole Lazzaro discovered the Four Keys to Fun in 2004, a model used by hundreds of thousands of game developers worldwide. She used this model to design the iPhone’s first accelerometer game in 2007, now called Tilt World. One of the top 20 women working in video games, and top 10 women in gamification, Nicole’s work has been widely cited by global news media such as Wired, Fast Company, CNN, CNET, The Hollywood Reporter, and Red Herring. She has advised the White House and the U.S. State Department on the use of games to unlock human potential to improve our world. For the past two decades as the CEO of XEODesign she has improved hundreds of millions of player experiences for companies such as Ubisoft, EA, Disney, and Cartoon Network, as well as worked on best selling franchises such as Myst, Diner Dash, Pogo, and The Sims. One of the pioneers in applying game design outside of games, she designed game-inspired UI for Oracle, Cisco, Kaiser, Sun, Roxio, and others as early as 1992.

Dr. Michael Evans received a B.A. and M.A. in psychology from the University of West Florida and a PhD in instructional systems technology from Indiana University. His work focuses on the effects of multimedia methods and technologies on instruction and learning. Current research focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of instructional multimedia for interactive surfaces (personal media devices, smart phones, tablets, tables, and whiteboards) to support collaborative learning as well as the adoption of video game elements for instructional design, particularly for informal settings. Currently, he is Principal Investigator on two current NSF-sponsored projects. The GAMES Project (DRL 1118571) proposes to develop serious mathematical games for tablets and other mobile devices, focusing on pre-algebra readiness and states of engagement. The Studio STEM Project (DRL 1029756) proposes to engage middle school students in science and engineering in an after school setting. Guided by engineering teaching kits, participants work with undergraduate mentors to explore the science of energy as they build-test-rebuild dwellings to protect penguins from climate change. Evans teaches graduate courses in the learning sciences and interactive media design and development. He has published in Educational Technology Research and Development, the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, and the Journal of Educational Computing Research. More information on projects can be found at the GAMES and Studio STEM websites.

For more information on ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference, visit conference.astc.org.

ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference, which will be held October 13-16 in Columbus, Ohio, and hosted by COSI, will take a step into the future, when Intel futurist Brian David Johnson delivers the opening keynote presentation on Saturday, October 13. Johnson is Intel’s Director, Future Casting and a Principal Engineer.

The future is Brian David Johnson’s business. As a futurist at Intel Corporation, his charter is to develop an actionable vision for computing in 2020. His work is called “future casting”—using ethnographic field studies, technology research, trend data, and even science fiction to provide Intel with a pragmatic vision of consumers and computing. Along with reinventing TV, Johnson has been pioneering development in artificial intelligence, robotics, and using science fiction as a design tool. He speaks and writes extensively about future technologies in articles and scientific papers as well as science fiction short stories and novels (Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment Computing and the Devices we Love, Fake Plastic Love, and Nebulous Mechanisms: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories). He has directed two feature films and is an illustrator and commissioned painter.
Johnson recently did an interview for ASTC’s award-winning Dimensions magazine.
For more information on ASTC’s Annual Conference, visit conference.astc.org.

Believe it or not, ASTC’s 2012 Annual Conference, which will be held October 13-16 in Columbus, Ohio, hosted by COSI, is less than eight months away.

Registration will be open in mid-March, and be sure to keep your eye on the conference blog and the conference website (conference.astc.org) for all of the details on keynote speakers, educational sessions, pre- and post-conference workshops, and more.

If you’re interested in participating in ASTC 2012 as an exhibitor, sponsor, and/or advertiser, visit ASTC’s Integrated Marketing Prospectus to learn about the myriad opportunities available.

In the meantime, to get you in the spirit, check out COSI’s conference preview video.

See you in Columbus!!

At first, you can’t believe your eyes. Is the magnet really levitating, you wonder?

But while this demonstration of quantum levitation by Tel-Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group, shot during the recent ASTC Annual Conference in Baltimore looks like something that Harry or Hermione may have conjured up, there is true physics behind it. To date, this video has gotten more than 5 million hits on YouTube and been featured in media outlets all across the globe.

Watch the video below, and for an explanation of how quantum levitation works, visit www.quantumlevitation.com/QuantumLevitation/The_physics.html. For more information on Tel-Aviv University’s Superconductivity Group, contact Dr. Boaz Almog at boazal@gmail.com.

It may be merely minutes after the official closing of the 2011 ASTC Annual Conference in Baltimore, but it’s never too early to start thinking about next year!

ASTC 2012 will be hosted by COSI in Columbus, Ohio, and held October 13-16, 2012.

What’s in store for 2012? Check out COSI’s preview video!

And to get a jump on next year, you can submit a session proposal for 2012 completely online. Check out the Call for Proposals!

See you in Columbus!

Photo courtesy COSI