Second Avenue Software CEO Features Selene in Talk
Thu Aug 13 2009
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."
Second Avenue Software of Pittsford, NY, was selected earlier this year to carry out the next iteration of Selene. The game is part of the CyGaMEs project, which stands for Cyberlearning through GaME-based, Metaphor-Enhanced Learning Objects. The videogame research began in 2006 with funding from NASA and continues today as part of a four-year grant of nearly $2 million from the National Science Foundation.
In the prototype Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME, players learn the major geologic processes scientists believe formed the modern moon. Players create their own moon and then pepper it with impact craters and flood it with lava. The online game offers a great opportunity for students to learn about lunar geology while helping researchers study some key videogame design principles, especially whether young people would learn science better if it were packaged in a videogame.
