G4C Funding

Connie Yowell – MacArthur
Games are fundamental to the paridigmatic shift in education towards social, participatory learning. MacArthur is funding a variety of games and virtual world initiatives. To promote innovation MacArthur stepped away from metrics and accountability for a while and let grantees be more creative and unconstrained by 19th century evaluation standards. Thinking hard about public-private partnerships. One of her biggest fears is encountering a set of expectations that pull them back into 20th century paradigms. Games can be used to reinforce current standards just as well as expand our ideas and progress.

Kids have to be able to think in terms of systems. They need this more than discreet skills (well… I think they need balance. Discrete skills are valuable). MacArthur is Interested in getting game developers to open their platforms or make games with level editors to allow youth game creation. They’re less interested in individual games and more in trajectories of gameplay, how kids move to different games. Very interested in game companies partnering with learning scientists to develop new metrics.

Robert Torres – Gates Foundation

Games are good platforms for kids to develop expertise. Gates is focused on implementation of the common core and creation of formative assessments that actually tell us the degree to which kids make gains towards the common core. There is a belief that digital media tools can help us with this.

Interesting areas for possible funding:
Degrees to which learning environments create communities of practice.
Degree to which students are producing media that is endemic to the subject area in which they’re involved.
Learning standards that students own as users of wikipedia own their standards.

Tessie Topol – Time Warner

TW decided their philanthropy could have more impact if they focused on one issue that’s aligned with their business. Chose STEM ed. Launched 5 year $100 million initiative called Connect a Million Minds. They want to inspire kids to learn STEM to solve problems. Partnered with Coalition for Science after School and FIRST Robotics. Chose them based on their credibility in their domains, orgs with a footprint large enough to meet their needs, and had a need they could fulfill.

Priorities:
First: increase awareness of our philanthropic efforts
Second: some other stuff
Third: another thing.

Christine Adamczyk – US AID
Interested in using games as tools to improve international development focusing on youth
Agency has begin to use mobile tech, digital tech, but has not yet gone to games–including not just digital, but board and card games
In concept stage of developing a gaming intitative–not jsut developing new games and apps, but also adapting existing game sand apps to new countries and situations
Gov funding often focused on output results not outcome results
As was mentioned yesterday, making materials culturally relevant and appropriate is key.
USAID has seed funding, in country officers, large distribution network
US gove has drastically scaled back its development funding and there is now a major opportunity for private enterprise to fill this gap.

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Next MacArthur digital learning competition will be announced late summer or early fall