A group of Zachary Community Schools students and their teacher Margret Atkinson have had the exciting opportunity to participate in the Digital Technologies and Creative Processes Initiative Spring Intensive this past week.
3D Squared, Inc., is sponsoring a digital workforce intensive for students, parents and teachers at the LITE Center in Lafayette. Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) is a $27 million, 70,000-square-foot facility located at the Research Park of the University of Louisiana Lafayette.
The event will culminate with a capstone stakeholder conference for leaders in business and government on April 17-18. The conference will include panel discussions with industry insiders and presentations on the digital technologies and creative processes initiative, which is funded by a grant from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development.
Of the 40 students participating in this unique experience 12 are students at Northwestern Middle or Zachary High School. The students are using Metaplace platform to create games that address real Louisiana problems. They have committed to long hours and extra research and have been engaged by this unique project.
After they had an in-service about the platform Metaplace, they began to build their virtual worlds. The students are working to solve one of Louisiana's four core problems: health care, education, brain drain, and coastal erosion. The students broke into groups, and the team leaders, presented their issue, possible solutions, and the game genre they planned on using.
According to Teacher Margret Atkinson, the students are learning skills other than virtual world building. “Working on a team, they have to communicate with each other. I teach most of the students, and I have been interested to hear how they would communicate with each other outside of a classroom setting. The students certainly felt some creative tension early in the process, but they have completely worked it out, through their own means and under the guidance of the lab leader. The students are learning how to organize their thoughts and research the relevant points to support their arguments. The students are also learning how to manage time and pace themselves, as they have daily tasks they have to complete.”
The students' presentation of their work from the Digital Workforce Intensive to industry experts will begin at 2 p.m. on Friday. This will be followed with discussions with experts on a variety of topics including a presentation on The Impact of Games & Digital Media on Louisiana’s Social & Economic Future.
Saturday’s activities include more discussions with the experts and panels culminating in a keynote by Education Futurist James Brazell.
