Participate and share: Interactive session 
A team of educators and students from Chesapeake High School will share the development and implementation of several educational video games that have been built from the ground up:
Participants will engage in the process of empowering educators and students to build serious games directly aligned to class content and schoolwide data trends, including critical tenets of pedagogy, culture and morale, and connections to the school progress plan. Using an AVID strategy to poll participants, this real-time data will lead to rich discussion on the power of building unique games in their schools and districts.
Participants will explore tools, workflow, and various approaches to teacher collaboration to ensure they leave with an action step and concrete ideas of how to gamify their way to increased student achievement.
Participants interested in developing games either as professionals or with their students will analyze the in-classroom process, options for free and subscription based image and engine software (most specifically Illustrator/Inkscape, Photoshop/Gimp, Visual Studio/Dreamweaver/Notepad++, Unity, Max/Maya/Blender, Animate/FlipaClip) and best practices for graphics, 3D modeling, and scripting code. This will include possible infrastructure challenges that our school system has encountered regarding installation, rendering/compiling, networking, and deployment.
Artifacts presented and/or made available via links will be taken directly from key moments in each game's creation cycle and will include: hand written meeting notes and plans, development guides with curricular alignment, prototype footage, and behind the scenes footage with student and educator interviews.
Participants will have the opportunity to play games including Defenders Day (a game built around Maryland's Fort McHenry that focuses on Science, Forensics, and Business), Mind Palace (a virtual puzzle centered on decreasing momentary anxiety\ depression), and Bayhawk Block Party (a simulation for introducing middle school students to high school magnet pathways).
At the conclusion of the session, the audience will leave with the basic components required to produce a fully functioning video game.
Games Demos Available to Play for Early Attendees
Introductions and Defender's Day Game Demo (5 Minutes)
Poll w/ Real-Time Data/Discussion on Building Unique Games (10 Minutes)
Workflow for Teacher Collaboration on Student Needs/Goals (20 Minutes)
Strategies and Resources for Successful Game Development (20 Minutes)
Concept to Final Build: Mind Palace and Bayhawk Block Party (10 Minutes)
Questions and Answers (5 Minutes)
Games Demos Available to Play (if Time Permits Attendees)
Reality is Broken - Jane McGonigal
What Video Games Can Teach Us About Literacy and Learning - James Paul Gee
Exploding the Castle: Rethinking how Video Games and Game Mechanics Can Shape the Future of Education - Michael Young & Stephan Slota
Gamify: How Gamification Motivates People to Do Extraordinary Things - Brian Burke
Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age - Kurt Squire
Superbetter - Jane McGonigal
Imaginable - Jane McGonigal
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