FableVisionaries Naomi Greenfield and Sarah Ditkoff recently journeyed to Orlando for FETC (the Florida Educational Technology Conference). Naomi joined Scot Osterweil of MIT Education Arcade and Brian Alspach from E-Line Media, with Allisyn Levy of BrainPOP moderating, on a panel entitled Game-Based Learning: Serious Fun. The panel was packed, standing room only! To view some of the games we talked about on the panel, check out this game demo gallery.
Sarah and Naomi were both inspired by the FETC keynote speaker: Danny Forster, the host of "Build It Bigger" on Discovery Education. His show explores architectural structures all over the world. Danny’s insights into architecture wove nicely into FETC, which is draws thousands of teachers industry educators every year. Danny said we need to excite our students about the amazing stuff that’s inside content and curriculum. Dig behind the idea, and show students the heart of what they're learning. It’s all about context: architecture isn’t just about marking heights it symbolizes thoughts and frames of mind. It physically and metaphorically has meaning.
To wrap up the trip, Naomi and Sarah jumped at the chance to experience FETC’s Night Out at Epcot. (Our flight was delayed, can you blame us?) Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or as Italian bus driver Giovanni said: Everybody Comes Out Tired. You can check some of our photos to see everything we did, but one of our favorites was Captain EO, a 3-D film featuring Michael Jackson, produced by George Lucas, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. At the time it was most expensive film ever produced on a per-minute basis ($1.76 million/minute). It ran in Disney from 1986-1990. After Jackson’s death, fans petitioned to bring it back, so it returned to Epcot in 2010. Thematically, it good conclusion to our trip: in the film, Captain EO is on a mission that we learn is to free “The Supreme Leader,” but we then learn the Supreme Leader and her people are constrained by wires and technology. It's Captain’s EO’s passion to change the world that frees her.
