People's Choice Winners Announced

Here's the official announcement, just released yesterday!

June 16, 2010 (Los Angeles, CA)-- Four People's Choice winners of the MacArthur Foundation/HASTAC Digital Media and Learning Competition were announced today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, CA. The announcement was made by Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, to an audience of innovators in video game development, technology, and learning. The four People's Choice award winners were selected by the public at large in over twelve hundred votes submitted on the www.dmlcompetition.net in the categories of 21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.

People's Choice winners are:

21st Century Learning Lab Designers

Hole in the Wall: Activity Based E-Learning for Improving Elementary Education in India
Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited, New Delhi, India
Bridging the digital divide by reaching previously underserved youth in the developing worldurban slums and remote-rural populations, ethnic minorities, juvenile home detainees, and children with special needs Hole-in-the-Wall has installed over 700 internet-enabled public Playground Learning Stations across India, Bhutan, Cambodia and countries in the African continent. Game-activities promote experiential learning that is mapped to prescribed primary grade curricula across various subjects, Hole-in-the-Walls Activity Based E-Learning Solution imparts a playful learning environment by encouraging learning through self and group exploration beyond the classroom.

Nox No More: Connecting Travel Logs with Simulation, Gaming, and Environmental Education
Rosanna Garcia, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Nox No More is an online game that personalizes environmental education by linking learning to a players personal life to illustrate the positive impact of simple, everyday choices. Players upload real, GPS-gathered personal travel data into a competitive game. During the course of game play, players attempt to save the planet from carbon emissions and are provided with an analysis of potential fuel savings and ways they can reduce pollution by making alternative transportation choices, such as alternative fuel vehicles, public transportation, consolidation of trips, bicycling and walking. Aimed at college students, a beta version of the game will ultimately be available to middle and/or high schools as part of an environmental science curriculum.

Game Changers

Sackboys and The Mysterious Proof
Kan Yang Li, New York City, NY
In Sackboys and The Mysterious Proof, LittleBigPlanet players must escape from the
Proof family's century-old mansion by solving a series of puzzles using geometric reasoning. With puzzle mechanics driven by geometric theorems, students will convert geometric concepts from the classroom into active knowledge through collaborative play inspired by precision learning.

Mission:Evolution
Jennifer Biedler, Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, VA
In Mission: Evolution, high school students thoroughly analyze the evolutionary science driving the Spore game engine and investigate the scientific accuracy of the game. Working together to identify principles of evolutionary change that are absent from the off-the-shelf version of Spore, students collaborate to introduce these principles into their own missions in Spore Galactic Adventures.

Peoples Choice winners were chosen from the overall winners of the Digital Media and Learning Competition. Now in its third year, the Competitionfunded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and administered by the virtual network of learning institutions HASTACis an annual effort to find and to inspire the most novel uses of new media in support of learning.

This year the Competition was launched in collaboration with President Obamas Educate to Innovate campaign, challenging designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and researchers to create learning labs for the 21st century, digital environments that promote building and tinkering in new and innovative ways. Detailed information about the winning projects and the Competition is available at www.dmlcompetition.net.

E3 is the annual trade expo sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) (http://www.theESA.com/), the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet. This years convention will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 15-17, 2010
(http://www.e3expo.com/)

About the MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. More information is available at www.macfound.org.

About HASTAC
A consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists and engineers from universities and other civic institutions across the U.S. and internationally, the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) is committed to new forms of collaboration for thinking, teaching, and research across communities and disciplines fostered by creative uses of technology. The infrastructure for HASTAC has been largely provided by the John Hope
Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies and the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. More information is at www.hastac.org.

Press contacts:
HASTAC: Mandy Dailey, (919) 681-8897, mandy.dailey@duke.edu