BIOGRAPHY

Kevin Kee, Canada Research Chair in Humanities Computing at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, and adjunct professor, Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, is an historian whose research focuses on the development and use of history simulations and serious games. He has been a Director and Project Director at the National Film Board of Canada, and Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs at McGill University. He recently completed a major research project involving the design, development and testing of a non-immersive virtual reality environment that enables students to explore social and cultural history.

ABSTRACT

Digital Publics: A Research Project on Computer Games and Virtual Museums for History Education

In normal practice, academic research addresses only other academics, and game-based Education initiatives find new ways to engage students with already existing research material. In contrast, Digital Publics, a new research project addressing computer games and virtual museums for history education, will be coupled with an ongoing research project in the Humanities. As humanities researchers in leading universities collaborate on a major study of Early Modern Europe, the Digital Publics research team is building a digital archives, virtual museum and game so that both researchers and high school students can see the era of Shakespeare through new eyes. Digital Publics will provide an infrastructure that will support research into some of the central questions that concern games for education, as well as open up new avenues for exploration into how the content and practices of the long-established humanities disciplines can transform the emerging domain of educational games.