The Academic Technology department has a goal of spurring innovation at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and has come up with a grant program to motivate faculty to join the process and invest time to innovate with new teaching methodologies and tools.

This year, as part of the ENGAGE grant program, thirteen faculty were selected to brainstorm, prototype, and build a game or simulation that would enhance teaching and learning. In order to get started with a program like this, a modular approach was needed and a rapid prototyping method was employed.

During this session, both the grant program and the prototyping method will be demonstrated using examples from faculty such as Michael Connor’s Second Life environment for doing art critique and John Photenhauer’s cryogenics simulation prototype. The actual faculty involved will be determined in early May.