Karen+Schrier


 * CS44. Karen Schrier ** – //Teaching Values through Play?: Developing Games for Ethical Thinking//

May 26 Thursday 2:45-3:30 PM HM 150

How do we design games to foster ethical thinking? This question motivates this interactive workshop, where we will prototype and test paper-based games to support ethical thinking and play. We will also do some creative and collaborative exercises to help us brainstorm new ways to think about ethics and play.

Affiliation/Bio: Teachers College, Columbia University, doctoral student, Kschrier@gmail.com. Karen Schrier is a leading scholar and designer of games for learning. She has spoken and published extensively on how to better design games for educational purposes, and is currently completing her dissertation on games, learning and ethics at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also teaches game design at Hunter College in New York City, and has worked at a number of media companies as an executive, designer, strategist, and researcher. She was a lead designer at ESI Design, an experience design firm in New York City; a Program Portfolio Manager at Scholastic, where she led strategy and production on communications projects; the lead producer at Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect; a content director at BrainPOP, and an editor at SparkNotes. Her work with WNET/Channel 13 led to the development of Mission U.S., a series of history games for middle school students. Karen has spoken internationally on video games, including conferences such as Siggraph, GDC, AERA, AoIR, and Games for Change. Her expertise is routinely sought in the areas of games, ethics, learning, transmedia and interactive media. Karen's digital and non-digital games have been featured in the Come Out and Play Festival and magazines such as //Time Out New York//. Her co-edited book, //Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play// was published in 2010 and her new book, //Designing Games for Ethics: Models, Techniques, and Frameworks// will be published in 2011.