Skillpoint STEM Council among Stage One Winners of Badges for Lifelong Learning
Push for “Energy Science” Learning Programs in Austin Gaining Momentum

AUSTIN, Texas – The STEM Council at Skillpoint Alliance has been announced as a Stage 1 winner in the Badges for Lifelong Learning | HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning (DML) Competition.  The Competition is held in collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation, and is part of the 4th DML Competition funded by the MacArthur Foundation and administered by HASTAC.  The Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition is designed to encourage the creation of digital badges and badge systems that support, identify, recognize, measure, and account for new skills, competencies, knowledge, and achievements for 21st century learners wherever and whenever learning takes place.

Stage One applicants were asked to submit ideas for compelling learning content, activities, or programs for which a badge or set of badges would be useful for recognizing learning that takes place in a particular area or topic.  The Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) Council at Skillpoint Alliance, one of sixty first round winners, submitted their upcoming Solar Racers program, originally initiated by partner Applied Materials, which focuses on green energy learning through the design and construction of solar cars.  The Skillpoint STEM Council proposal includes delivering a web and tablet-based Solar Racers game product in partnership with Green Ribbon Schools and developing a badging system with Kalani Games, who will work with twenty high school interns to design, develop, and test this system in the summer of 2012 during another Skillpoint STEM program, GameOn! Velocity Prep.  The project has garnered the support of AMD, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and the Texas Film Commission, Office of the Governor. 

Gamification in Education
Ward Tisdale, Director of Global Community Affairs at AMD and Chair of the Skillpoint STEM Council, is participating in Solar Racers because “it takes gaming beyond entertainment, and inspires youth to learn.  By creating games, students learn science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills as well as problem solving, critical thinking, language skills and teamwork.  They are so engaged in the process they don’t realize how much they are learning.” 

According to the 2009 High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE) 1, a full two-thirds of American high school students report being bored in class every day.  Yet, those same students who are tuning out in school are turning on to video games outside of school.  “By leveraging kids’ interest in video games, we can help students become excited about school,” says Tisdale.  It can also help them discover a new passion or future.

“A ‘badge-based’ system could change the local approach to instruction and assessment,” said Drew Scheberle, Senior Vice President of Education and Talent Development at the Austin Chamber of Commerce.  The Texas Legislature passed legislation in June, which allows school districts to access hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase “electronic content.”  Scheberle believes that “web and tablet-based educational content will represent an increasingly larger part of the digital media market over the coming decade and Austin is poised to be the Educational Technology Capital of the World.” The Chamber is a partner in the project because Scheberle believes “the badge-based system, coupled with the Velocity Prep training module, could provide a ‘counter-factual’ model to the current K12 instructional approach and lead to disruptive innovation.”  If successful, the badging system piloted during Solar Racers can be scaled and could lead to a model for meeting the rapid job growth needed in certain occupations.

Developing the Workforce
Skillpoint Alliance was originally a project of the Austin Chamber of Commerce.  It brought together semiconductor companies and regional education leaders to create interventions to rapidly train workers in a high-need occupation.  The STEM Council at Skillpoint Alliance is a consortium of high tech executives and education leaders that address the workforce and education needs of the engineering and high-tech industries in Central Texas.  The Skillpoint STEM Council provides project-based, K-16 STEM programs in Robotics, Green Tech, and Digital Media with a focus on connecting classroom learning to industry applications and increasing the number and diversity of students on a STEM career path.

STEM Council Director, Lonny Stern, is spearheading the Solar Racers proposal because he believes “programs like Solar Racers help to address the supply-and-demand issues of Austin’s upstart Game Design industry.  While Central Texas has a large number of high-tech companies with a steady demand for skilled engineers and technicians, Game Design firms are still in their infancy.  As such, there is a huge supply of workers that want a career in gaming, but a pretty weak demand.”  By offering programs like Solar Racers, the STEM Council is helping game design studios to stake out territory in the burgeoning educational technology market.  “Essentially, this could create more demand for gaming products by identifying clients beyond the traditional home enthusiast,” said Stern.

Winners of the DML competition will be announced on March 2, 2012 and are eligible to win up to $200,000 in grants to fund their programs.  The Skillpoint STEM Council is currently completing its application for the second of the three stage process.

For more information about the DML competition, visit: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/
For more information about the Skillpoint STEM Council, visit: http://www.skillpointalliance.org/STEM