Programming the Illinois Map: Fostering Empathy & Digital Literacy through Collaborative Game Design

If we want digital literacy to be universal and inclusive, shouldn't programming be taught everywhere? The Illinois Map is a virtual learning environment that makes it easy to teach programming in Language Arts and Social Studies classrooms. Conceived as "Wikipedia-meets-Minecraft," the Illinois Map takes a "narrative-based computational thinking" approach. It facilitates the collaborative authoring of text-based games, chatbots, and simulations arising from Illinois' diverse racial and cultural histories, while also promoting empathy through inclusive play.

Speakers:
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Judith Pintar (Director of E-Lit & Literacies Lab, Illinois Informatics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

www.gamesforchange.org/