Building Worlds: Connected Camps in Minecraft with guests H Chad Lane, & Jeff Ginger

What-if Hypothetical Implementations of Minecraft (Project WHIMC) is the brainchild of Chad Lane and Jeff Ginger at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (see 3:37: Gameplay Trailer). In Episode #192 of Silver Lining for Learning, they will discuss Project WHIMC and the "Connected Camps" that they coordinate with kids in the summers. Project WHIMC takes advantage of many free and open Web resources to foster engaging and interactive learning and cultivate student interest in STEM. Utilizing Minecraft, Chad and Jeff get learners to ask what-if scientific questions such as “What if the earth were twice its current size?,” “What if the earth were twice its current size?” and “What if the earth had no moon?” Of course, they also nudge their young players of Minecraft to ask: “How do we mine asteroids?” In effect, this episode will likely touch on many topics including video game behavior, exploration, playfulness, immersive learning, and how to foster learner engagement in formal and informal educational settings. Those seeking more might listen to the podcast show in the Philippines that Chad and Jeff were recently on to kick off a 3-year collaboration with Ateneo University in Manila regarding WHIMC.

H. Chad Lane is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Associate Chair in the Department of Educational Psychology and the Director of the NSF INVITE AI Institute. Chad's research focuses on the design, use, and impacts of intelligent technologies for informal STEM learning. He has over 100 publications in a variety of areas, including intelligent tutoring, educational games, computer science education, and narrative-based learning environments. Broadly, his work involves blending techniques from the entertainment industry (that foster engagement) with those from artificial intelligence and intelligent tutoring systems (that promote learning), as well as running studies to better understand whether and how the resulting learning experiences impact learners. His PhD is in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2004), and prior to joining UIUC, he spent ten years as a research scientist and project director at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He can be reached at hclane@illinois.edu. For more on Chad, see http://hchadlane.net.

Jeff Ginger is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Educational Psychology and Adjunct Faculty in the School of Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is helping to lead Project WHIMC, What-If Hypothetical Implementations in Minecraft, an NSF-funded research collaboration between University of Illinois/Maine, PBS Nova Labs and the Fiske Planetarium. Prior to that, Jeff was the Director of the CU Community Fab Lab and adjunct faculty at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His focus on community informatics and education has led him to specialize in public engagement, teaching and research. He can be reached at ginger@illinois.edu. For more on Jeff, see https://jeffginger.com/#intro.

Episode 191 of Silver Lining for Learning featured a conversation between Yong Zhao, Chris Dede, and Curt Bonk. They discussed the rapidly evolving role of AI in education, emphasizing the importance of understanding AI's current capabilities and limitations through sources like the national AI institutes. They highlighted the potential of AI to enable truly personalized, self-directed learning experiences tailored to individual needs.

The hosts explored the concepts of self-directed learning versus personalized learning, noting self-directed learning empowers learners with more autonomy over their path. They examined how the nature of expertise is shifting, requiring continuous, self-directed lifelong learning to adapt and stay relevant.

Reflecting on national educational technology plans, the hosts acknowledged their aspirational value though they lack enforceability, while suggesting they may have more impact internationally. The episode also touched on recent campus protests at the hosts' universities, which they contextualized as smaller in scale compared to historical social movements.

Throughout, the conversation highlighted the hosts' diverse global perspectives as they discussed emerging educational trends, technologies, and the evolving role of educators in an era of rapid change.