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May/June 2007 Games and Their MIT MakersContinued from page 1 By Nancy Duvergne Smith
Early Game Days Another educational-gaming pioneer was Seymour Papert, a mathematician and artificial-intelligence researcher who, in the late 1960s, broke new ground in computer-based learning with Logo, the first programming language for children. At the Media Lab in the mid-1980s, Papert and Idit Harel Caperton, PhD '88, both theorists of hands-on or constructionist learning, demonstrated how the act of creating new software games helps children learn. "Children--and grown-ups--learn best when they actively engage in playful explorations of ideas," says Harel Caperton. She acted on that theory in 1995 by creating MaMaMedia, the first website to invite young children to create their own animated media and games. "My primary goal for MaMaMedia was to create an Internet business for teaching kids the three Xes--exploring, expressing, and exchanging ideas by using and sharing new digital media--through the first generation of participatory technology," she says. Industry Leaders Game writer, producer, and consultant Sande Chen '92 is the coauthor of Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform, published in 2005. She also leads Girls in Games, a nonprofit that encourages girls and women to enter the industry. In 2006, Next-Gen.Biz named her one of the industry's "Top 100 Most Influential Women." And recent graduates are using MIT as a springboard into the industry. "I've known that I wanted to work in the games industry since I was 10," says Nick Hunter '06, a feature producer in Electronic Arts' Sims Division. "When I came to MIT I was very focused on that goal." At MIT, Hunter studied economics and literature and worked on Education Arcade projects. He also spent a summer interning at Electronic Arts. Do-It-Yourself Games What's next? MIT's message about the value of engagement and learning is echoing throughout the industry. According to Sansoy, GSN will soon provide software modules that people can use to create and publish their own games. "That's what you'll see in the future--the YouTube of games," he says. "People will be creating their own." Connect with MIT Game Creators: Subscribe to an alumni e-mail list for the industry, mitgamealums, at alum.mit.edu/. |









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