21st century learning through Coding, Game-Design and

Tinkering SXSWed Panel Proposal 2016

Summary

As the shift in education moves towards 21st century learning focusing on problem solving, design thinking and collaboration, games have become effective systems to address these skills. Makerspaces provide hands-on learning environment where students can design, invent, build and create, but for some, they are expensive and complex. Alternatively games are being leveraged to teach kids to these skills.This panel brings together entrepreneurs developing learning games that explicitly teach coding, game-design and implicitly teach 21st century skills our children need to be successful. This group will explore the unique role games play in the maker movement to promote 21st century learning.

Learning ObjectivesLearning Objective 1Assess how coding and game-design games help kids gain 21st century skills.

Learning Objective 2Analyze how coding and game design games provide contextualized learning environments and allow kids to learn by doing.

Learning Objective 3Understanding what the barriers are to bring 21st century learning games into the classroom and home.

Grant Hosford, codespark (speaker)

Grant is the CEO and co-founder of codeSpark, a venture backed edtech company turning programming into play for young kids around the world. codeSpark’s game, The Foos, won a 2015 Parents’ Choice Award Gold Medal and has been the #1 educational app for kids in over 20 countries.

Previously Grant was a Sr. Director at Idealab, a tech incubator that has started over 125 companies since 1996. Grant was responsible for evaluating early stage ideas so the best could be turned into companies. Prior to Idealab Grant was a senior executive at several early stage companies, including eHarmony and ZAAZ, an award-winning digital agency that was acquired by WPP in 2006.

Grant has a MA in International Economics from The Fletcher School (Tufts University) and a BA from Claremont McKenna College. He lives with his wife and three kids near Los Angeles and can generally be found playing games with his family or riding his bikes. He has lived in four continents: Africa, South America, Europe and North America.

Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Piper (speaker)

After graduating with a Molecular Biology degree from Princeton, Mark realized that he wanted to be creating with bits and atoms rather than cells and test tubes. He founded Piper to create tools to empower the next generation to see computers and electronics as a creative medium rather than black box devices. Piper's recently released Minecraft Inventor's Toolbox targets today's generation of young Minecraft lovers to allow them to build electronics and circuits to modify the game of Minecraft in real-time. The kit received overwhelming support on Kickstarter, and Steve Wozniak mentioned the similarity of Piper to the early tools that made him fascinated with electronics.

Robin Rath, PixelPress (speaker)

Robin Rath is the CEO and a co-founder of Pixel Press (projectpixelpress.com), a company building the next generation of social networks for kids ages 6-14 to create, share and play game-based content by leveraging the integrated power of toys and video games. Robin grew up playing video games and building websites. He is passionate about technology that makes sharing stories and content in creative ways accessible and fun for all ages. As a father of two, Robin is focused on exploring ways to enable our children to be the next generation of creators and to start that process when they are at their most creative developmental stage, but doing so in a safe and age appropriate way. Robin was recognized in the 2015 The Business Journals "Upstart 100" list, recognizing top inventors and visionaries driving the new economy.

Deena Minwalla, co.lab (moderator)

Deena is the Director of colab, and ed tech start up accelerator in the Bay Area. She has over 14 years of experience specializing in interactive educational products for K-12. She has worked at a variety of ed tech companies including Leapfrog, Pearson, Education.com and most recently, AltSchool. She is passionate about making innovative, fun and engaging yet effective learning experiences for kids and teachers both inside and outside the classroom. Deena graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from Boston University and an M.A in Education with a focus on Instructional Technology from San Francisco State University.