Let the Games Begin!

This week, we’re pleased to post news from Chris Luchs, Associate Dean of Career & Technical Education:

While the world gets ready for the XXX Olympics Games in London, CCCS is also embarking on its own challenge with games. On May 9th, Dr. McCallin announced the funding of fifteen Immersive and Game-Based Learning Faculty Challenge grants. So fifteen teams of dedicated educators will begin the development of games based learning projects on July 1, 2012.

So, what is games based learning? It is simply the application of gaming principles and practices to education to increase student engagement, retention and performance.
Many games require players to improve their literacy skills to complete assignments and questions as well as to utilize math skills to optimize player performance in game. Games also introduce players to probability and critical thinking as they select what attributes will improve their character and identify and plan strategies for overcoming obstacles and in certain cases defeating the villain.

One of the most powerful attribute of games is the idea of die and do over. This concept refers to the fact that failure is a common experience in most games. However, these failures allow the player to learn and experiment. Players are allowed repeated low cost attempts at defeating the monster. Many popular games foster a fail fast environment that allows players to engage in rapid prototyping and implementation of strategies and tactics until they are successful.

Would you like to learn more about this type of learning environment? It is expected that there will be another round of Immersive and Games-based Learning Faculty Challenge grants announced in the fall semester. You could start by adding some interesting books to your summer reading list. Some of the popular authors of games based learning are Clark Aldrich (Learning by Doing), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken), Henry Jenkins (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture), James Gee (What Video Games have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy) and Lee Sheldon (The Multiplayer Classroom).

Or if you prefer to learn more about game based learning as part of a course, please sign up for the Games-based Learning MOOC, which was funded as part of the Faculty Challenge Grant. This massively open online course (MOOC) is open to all CCCS faculty, instructors and staff and is free of charge. To find out more, please go here. http://gamesmooc.wordpress.com/

Meet the CCCOnline CTE Team

This week, we’re pleased to present your Career & Technical Education (CTE) Team!

Chris Luchs, Associate Dean of Career & Technical Education
Chris Luchs is an experienced instructor and business professional. He has taught Accounting, Business, and Multimedia Graphic Design for CCCOnline, and he has been sharing his talents with the Colorado Community College System since 2005. Chris started as an Agribusiness instructor at Otero Junior College, where he taught ranchers and farmers how to set up accounting systems, use computers and develop marketing and production plans. Then, he moved to Front Range Community College to serve as the Director of the North Metro Small Business Development Center. In this role, he very successfully assisted area entrepreneurs and existing businesses, and he remains a volunteer counselor at the Colorado SBDC.

A self-proclaimed geek, Chris spends his free time investigating new technologies and collaborating internationally with other educators on evaluating and exploring virtual worlds and games-based educational applications. His current happy place is analytics and data visualization tools. In addition, he is a foodie who enjoys finding new restaurants and wines.

Diane Van Os, Criminal Justice and Paralegal Program Chair
I was born in Seattle, but grew up in California and worked in Silicon Valley in the Semiconductor field. That led to an interest in intellectual property law so I earned my Doctorate, a minor in Biology, and went into patent law. I love to ski, but hate the cold. My four cats keep me entertained as do my daughter and son (both grown). I am an admitted wine snob, and love to eat just about every cuisine there is.

My teaching philosophy is that less can be more in an online forum. My goal is to have students leave every one of my classes remembering the material, and how to apply it in “real world” situations. Thus, I tend to have items open from day one, but with solid due dates, and don’t use the old single term paper model. I don’t want students to be so stressed about a percentile dip in their grade that they don’t absorb the material. I also use humor without crossing the line from instructor to buddy, and make sure that students are very aware there is a human behind the screen.

Kate Hagerty, Computer Science Program Chair
Kate has been teaching for five years. She began teaching Multimedia Graphic Design courses during the final semester of earning her BFA in Multimedia from CU Denver. For the first three years of teaching only face-to-face classes for Front Range Community College, she relied heavily on the available learning management system, Blackboard, to help her deliver supporting material and to gather assignments from her students. Because of her heavy use of Blackboard, she was chosen to be a pilot instructor during the changeover to Desire2Learn in 2009 at FRCC.

After graduating from CU Denver in 2006, she opened her own freelance design business in 2007 and began teaching at FRCC. In 2010, she began teaching for CCCOnline and finally, in July of 2011, she accepted the position of Program Chair for CCCOnline’s Computer Science division.

Kate is a leader in the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference that takes place in Second Life, and she participates in groups that discuss and promote learning using various virtual environments including OpenSim, Second Life and World of Warcraft.

However, even with all of these technical interests, Kate still places high value on foundational skills and concepts such as student engagement, information literacy, and good communication. We can’t lose sight of the fact that, no matter how pretty and shiny our tech toys might be, it all boils down to helping students learn as well as possible!

Annie Moats, Business Program Chair
Annie Moats has been with CCCOnline for approximately seven years, and she brings us 20 years of diverse leadership experience within a corporate and academic structure. Annie has been a business owner for the past 17 years, providing training and consulting for all types of organizations involving management development, hiring and recruiting, implementing teams in the work environment, customer service, leadership, communication and human resource issues impacting the work environment.

As an instructor, Annie is committed to the students she teaches, both personally and professionally. She believes students want to feel valued, respected and given confidence in the classroom. Her style reflects that students have ideas, opinions and experience that can be woven into all of the lessons that are taught in any type of classroom.

Annie believes that progressively identifying new techniques that are innovative and inviting assures that students will grasp key learning concepts while enjoying the learning process. Overall, Annie focuses on the value of the student and makes sure that everything she does demonstrates this value.

Donna Welschmeyer, Education Program Chair
Donna is a valued member of the CCCOnline Academic Team, having joined in 2001 as an instructional designer and, since then, having served as Director of Online Program Development, Accounting Department Chair, and Associate Academic Dean. Donna also is an experienced instructor: she began her career teaching at Morgan Community College in 1985, and since that time has taught in Business, Multimedia, Accounting, and Management. She currently teaches Accounting and developmental Math for CCCOnline and Business and Computer Information Systems classes at Community College of Aurora, in addition to providing consulting services in instructional design, safety, business process/management, and leadership.

In their spare time, Donna and her family fix and flip houses, play pool, ride motorcycles, country dance, target shoot, spend time with family and friends, and play with the new granddaughter.