science
I've posted information about the recent Games for Health conference, inluding a link to my pre-conference presentation slides, on the TechPsych blog. My talk focused on game accessibility for games and applications in K-12 settings. (The two pre-conference strands were Virtual Worlds and Game Accessibility.)
The first day of panels was quite fascinating. Educators had the stage for panels dealing with problems and technologies in higher education, students & children, and scholarly production and publishing. How is public life different now for teens? What do internet technologies mean for students today? Schools need to radically change in order to prepare kids for college and life. (Citizenship was not discussed nor was the commercial nature of many of these online social networks). While educators were on some of the panels, many of them were composed of consultants or company representatives.
Adults are always trying to understand kids, and yet the answer is always just around the corner. The panels all carried a similar theme in the belief that supporting thoughtful changes in our education and social systems (not just investing in teachers but also guidance counselors, social workers and the like) are more important than limiting technology access in addressing critical issues in our society.
