Call for Post-doc/Graduate Student Scholarship applications

Academic lessons from video game learning
National Science Foundation-sponsored conference to be held at Fordham University – Lincoln Center Campus
New York, NY
October 7-10, 2010

Application Deadline: Sunday March 21, 2010

This conference is designed to bring together leading researchers and practitioners from developmental and cognitive psychology, communications, media, and game design to examine how learning transfers from video game play to the elementary and secondary school classroom. This issue remains largely unaddressed despite a growing body of literature linking video game play to improvement in spatial skills (Green & Bavelier, 2003; Greenfield, Brannon, & Lohr, 1994; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1996), problem solving and inductive reasoning (Blumberg, 1998; 2000; Greenfield, Camaioni et al., 1994; Rosas et al., 2003), and attention (Green & Bavelier, 2003; 2006a).

Invited conference attendees represent leading national and international researchers and practitioners in developmental and cognitive psychology, media, communications, and game design (See attached list of conference attendees). Talks and activities during the conference will address

> cognitive skills and content knowledge that children and adolescents acquire and refine during video game play;
> game features that captivate and promote skill development among game players; and
> evidence of skill and content knowledge transfer from video game play to the classroom context among game players of different ages.

Discussion of these issues will then provide the basis for the culminating activity of the conference: specification of the most appropriate research agenda to investigate the academic potential of video game play, particularly using those games that child and adolescent players find most compelling.

A major goal of the conference is to establish a new interdisciplinary community of researchers, practitioners who share a common interest in examining the ramifications of children’s video game play for academic learning. To facilitate participation among new scholars interested in joining this community, three scholarships designated for post-docs and graduate students will be awarded to defray costs of travel to and hotel stay during the conference.

Those interested in applying for Conference Scholarship should submit, via email only, the following by Sunday March 21, 2010:

> A letter of interest that includes 1) a general statement of how attending the conference will further your career goals and, 2) demonstration of expertise relevant to the conference goals.
> A vita that includes name, address, institution, telephone, fax, e-mail, educational background, awards, professional publications and presentations, teaching experience, and service activities relevant to the conference goals.
> A letter of recommendation from your advisor, major professor, or dissertation chair sent directly to the conference chair.

All email attachments, and general questions about the conference, should be sent to the conference chair, Fran Blumberg, (blumberg@fordham.edu).  Only complete applications will be considered by the conference chair and a review committee consisting of a subset of conference attendees representative of academic and media-industry perspectives. Priority will be given to student applications from under-represented minorities, women, and persons with disabilities.

List of Conference Participants

James Bachhuber –  Game Wise
Susan Barnett – Cornell University
John Black – Teachers College, New York
Mark Blades – University of Sheffield, UK
Fran Blumberg –  Fordham University
Sandra Calvert – Georgetown University
Derrick Cogburn – American University, Syracuse University
Mike Edwards  – Parsons, The New School
Shalom Fisch –  MediaKidz Research & Consulting
E. Anders Ericsson – Florida State University
Nick Fortugno – Playmatics
Douglas Gentile – Iowa State University
C. Shawn Green – University of Minnesota
Kathleen Kremer –  Fisher-Price, Inc.
David Klahr –  Carnegie Mellon University
Michael Levine – Sesame Workshop
H. Chad Lane – University of Southern California
Colleen Macklin – Parsons, The New School
Shelley Pasnik – EDC Center for Children & Technology
Alex Quinn – Games for Change
Ute Ritterfeld –VU University Amsterdam, NL
Katie Salen –  GameLab Institute of Play
John Sherry – Michigan State University
Corrine Zimmerman –  Illinois State University
Eric Zimmerman – Consultant