GDC 2013 Education Summit adds curriculum 'deathmatch,' industry-academia collab panels

GDC 2013 organizers highlight three new talks for its Education Summit in the March conference, including a panel on commercial and educational collaboration, a "deathmatch" of professors arguing their curricula, and a lecture on tabletop RPGs used to teach game design. The GDC Education Summit is just one of eight Summits to be held Monday-Tuesday, March 25-26 during the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. The popular Summit is designed to "explore experimental and inventive educational approaches that established game curriculum builders can bring back to their faculty and classrooms." As one of the newest lectures, Sam Roberts will share how to teach formal elements of game design using tabletop RPGs in 'Catacombs and Curriculum: Role-Playing Games for Teaching Design.' Roberts will bring his combined experience as assistant director of the Interactive Media Division at USC and co-organizer of the IndieCade festival of independent games for the talk. In 'Beyond the Dialogue: Perspectives on Industry and Academia,' four panelists will discuss ways that those in commercial game development and academic video game education can benefit from more active cooperation. Panelists include Halo co-producer and University of Washington's Center for Game Science senior producer Matthew Burns, Zynga New York creative director and NYU Game Center director Frank Lantz, former Naughty Dog lead game designer and USC visiting associate professor Richard Lemarchand, and game industry veteran and UC Santa Cruz Center for Games and Playable Media associate director Jane Pinckard. In another panel titled 'Game Design Curriculum Deathmatch,' top game design instructors will give three, 3-minute presentations on aspects of their introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses. Panelists will have to justify their approaches in an attempt to win the audience's vote. Speakers include Critical Play author and Dartmouth College professor Mary Flanagan, USC Interactive Media Division chair and Game Innovation Lab director Tracy Fullerton, UC Santa Cruz Expressive Intelligence Studio co-director and Expressive Processing author Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and Rules of Play and the Game Design Reader co-author and NYU Game Center professor Eric Zimmerman. For more information on these lectures or others in the show's growing lineup, check out GDC 2013's official Schedule Builder, which continues to add new talks every week. GDC still offers over $100 discounts to select pass purchases made by March 20th, at 11:59pm EST, with prices increasing for onsite registration. GDC 2013 itself will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2013, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.