Rick Van Eck: Games as Innovative Teaching Keynote

12/30/2008 09:03:00 pm

I've had this sitting in draft for about 7 months. It goes all the back to the end of May when I had the good fortune to attend the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference held here in Winnipeg. The line up of speakers was excellent, but Rick Van Eck stood out as the highlight of the entire conference for me. (I blogged about Rick's Breakout session at the time.) He has a very down to earth, practical, honest approach to using COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) games in education. Unfortunately the question period isn't included. Rick really shined during the Q&A afterward where his direct, honest, polite replies to pointed questions impressed everyone.

Anyway, I've mentioned this talk several times in passing since I saw it and now I can point people to hear the man himself. It's short; 22 min 21 sec. Worth every minute. You can click through Rick's slides below the video as he speaks.

(Download mp3, 25.4 MB)

Slides:

You Might Also Like

3 comments

  1. Anonymous1/1/09 21:56

    Thanks for posting this, Darren. I needed to hear it again. Your timing was perfect-- I'm deciding whether to dosome games based learning in my classroom in the next couple of months.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad to oblige Kathy!

    It's amazing how relevant Rick is. I can listen to him again and again.

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6/1/09 20:42

    Hey Darren,

    I also really enjoyed hearing Dr. Van Eck's talk once again. Thanks for sharing this.

    As Kathy mentioned, you're timing couldn't be better - I'm doing a couple of upcoming presentations on the role of gaming in education and it's nice to have this audio podcast and slideshare to point people toward :-)

    And, I'm curious, have you gotten any feedback from Richard Cloutier with regard to a response from the CJOB listenership last week? My fingers are crossed that it has created a buzz among those outside the loop ;-)

    ReplyDelete