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The educational experts at the Center for Educational Technologies were as busy as ever presenting research findings and presenting at various conferences:

• The CyGaMEs project and its research into effective design of educational videogames was presented Nov. 4 at a showcase for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The displays and presentation highlighted the use of technology at all levels of education, from teacher development to K-12 learning. Dr. Debbie Denise Reese, senior educational researcher, represented CyGaMEs.
• Dr. Laurie Ruberg, associate director of the Center for Educational Technologies, took part in the STS-128 Pre-Launch Education Forum, Tour, and Launch Viewing Aug.23-25 at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL.
• Reese was invited this summer to attend two weeks of special training from the U.S. Department of Education. Reese was selected to participate in the Training Institute on Cluster-Randomized Trials. The purpose of the institute is to increase the national capacity of researchers to develop and conduct rigorous evaluations of the impact of education interventions.
• The chief executive officer of the software development company enhancing the Selene videogame for the Center for Educational Technologies was a featured speaker at the 2009 Games in Education Symposium held Aug. 5-6 in Troy, NY. Victoria Van Voorhis, CEO of Second Avenue Software, presented Selene as part of her talk titled, "Serious Gaming for Science: High School, Higher Education, and Beyond."
• Reese presented at the Analogy '09 conference held July 24-27 at the New Bulgarian University's Central and East European Center for Cognitive Science in Sofia, Bulgaria. She announced at the conference that the CyGaMEs videogame research has successfully identified where learning occurred during gameplay by matching CyGaMEs embedded gameplay assessments with video footage of gameplay, an important first step in generating a quantitative methodology validating how authentic assessments can measure learning while people are actively engaged in virtual learning environments.
• Reese presented "Selene Knowledge Discovery: The Interface Effect" June 10 at the Games, Learning, and Society Conference in Madison, WI.
• Reese spoke to participants in the NASA Education Sandbox 2009 about the Selene videogame, assessment, and curricular unit during the conference June 2-4 at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.
• Dr. Beverly Carter, professor in the Wheeling Jesuit University Computer Science Department, presented a paper at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2009 held in March. The paper, "Enhancing Science Education Through Instructional Games That Prepare Students for Knowledge Acquisition," was coauthored by Laura Wilbanks, a teacher whose students have taken part in the Selene game, and Reese.
• Ruberg, associate director of the Center for Educational Technologies, was selected as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation's Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) program. She reviewed the PAESMEM proposals June 15-16 in Washington, DC.
• The flowometer, an assessment tool created as part of our research into videogame learning, was at the heart of a presentation by Reese to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology conference Oct. 27-31 in Louisville, KY. Her presentation was titled "Replication Supports Flowometer: Advancing Cyberlearning through Game-based Assessment Technologies."
• Reese presented "CyGaMEs: Effective Game Design for Successful Learning and Assessment" at the Society for Applied Learning Technology conference Aug. 19-21 in Arlington, VA.
• Ruberg presented "Blending Globalization and Curriculum Analysis to Study Technology-focused Teacher Training" at the 2009 American Educational Research Association annual meeting held April 13-17 in San Diego.
• Students at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center learned about the CyGaMEs approach to instructional game design and assessment used in the creation of the Selene videogame during a presentation Feb. 11. Reese was joined by fellow CyGaMEs team members Dr. Chuck Wood and Lisa McFarland.
• Reese presented the CyGAMEs approach to instructional game design and assessment and demonstrated Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME to industry and academic leaders during IBM's first Serious Games Day on Feb. 10 at IBM's headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC.
• A poster session about the videogame created by the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future was featured at the Association for Psychological Science annual convention May 22-25 in San Francisco. "Metaphor Enhanced Instructional Video Game Causes Conceptual Gains in Lunar Science Knowledge" discussed Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME. The poster's author were Reese, Dr. Virginia A. Diehl, professor and chair of psychology at Western Illinois University; and John H. Lurquin, a graduate assistant at Western Illinois.
• Five members of the Center for Educational Technologies submitted a paper to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held March 23-27 at The Woodlands, TX. The paper detailed a simulation they are developing for NASA in the Second Life virtual world. "MoonWorld: A Virtual Fieldwork in Second Life" discusses the approach the Classroom of the Future™ team is taking in designing the MoonWorld simulation. Authors of the paper were Ruberg; Wood; Reese; Cassie Lightfritz, graphic designer; and Andrew Harrison, computer programmer.
• Seven chapters that made up a special issue of the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education in 2008 were republished in a new book, ICTs for Modern Educational and Instructional Advancement: New Approaches to Teaching. The chapters, all written by members of the Center for Educational Technologies, built on a research study—"Next Practices: 2006 Benchmarking Study of Educational Technologies—Pilot Phase"—the Classroom of the Future completed in 2006 for NASA, examining how to provide a current yardstick for the effective use of educational technologies. Here are the chapter titles and authors: Chapter 23: "Emerging educational technologies and science education: A multifaceted research approach," Bruce C. Howard, assistant director of the Center for Educational Technologies, and Lawrence Tomei of Robert Morris University; Chapter 24: "Evaluating Educational Technologies: Historical Milestones," Ruberg, curriculum writer Manetta Calinger, and Howard; Chapter 25: "Emerging Edtech: Expert Perspectives and Design Principles," former educational researcher Ching-Huei Chen, Calinger, Howard, and former educational researcher Anna Oskorus; Chapter 26: "The Best Edtech of 2007: Promising Features and Design Models," Howard; Chapter 27: "Setting Trends for Educational Technologies within the National Science Foundation," Howard and former curriculum writer Laura J. Curtis; Chapter 28: "Science for Everyone: Visions for Near-Future Educational Technology," Wood; Chapter 29: "Instructional Design, Web 2.0 Style," Howard
• Wood coauthored the chapter, "Geology and Surface Processes of Titan" in the book, Titan from Cassini-Huygens, edited by R.H. Brown, J-P Lebreton, and J.H. Waite (Springer, 2009).