Alumni Voices: Ph.D. alumna Dr. Carly Kocurek named Nayar Prize finalist
Hearty congratulations to Dr. Carly Kocurek, who was named a finalist for the Illinois Institute of Technology's Nayar Prize, an award "established to encourage and challenge Illinois Tech faculty, staff, and students to develop breakthrough, innovative projects that will, within three years, produce meaningful results with a societal impact."Dr. Kocurek, along with fellow IIT faculty members Jennifer Miller, Cynthia Hood, and Matt Bauer, proposed to create a videogame designed to foster language development among young children. They were awarded $100,000 to develop their project, a description of which we've pasted below:
Inequalities in early childhood language have a lasting impact on individual success, both in academics and careers. These inequalities inflate social welfare costs and slow economic growth. Our goal is to increase language skills necessary for academic success and subsequent economic success. Our innovation would leverage serious game design to produce a research-driven, high-impact interactive game for children aged 24–36 months. Children who use the interactive game will learn more words and be better prepared to succeed in school.The American Academy of Pediatrics recently revised guidelines on screen use and suggests that media can be used constructively in children after the age of 2. Our game will combine community-based participatory research and cutting-edge understanding of language acquisition and learning. This project draws on perspectives from developmental psychology, linguistics, game design, and computer science, and our team is uniquely poised to combine insights and breakthroughs from a diversity of disciplines. Team members bring with them experience in language learning, serious game development, assessment, and other key areas.The game will engage both caregivers and children through a playful learning experience that encourages high-quality interaction and engagement. The initial goal is to develop an individual game, but in the long run this will spark widespread development and rigorous testing toward optimizing educational experiences for young children.
Announcement: AMS Pecha Kucha
UPDATE: Due to the weather, we've decided to reschedule this event for next week. More soon.Today, at 4 PM in Burdine 436A, the department of American Studies will hold its first ever Pecha Kucha. Excitingly, both members of the faculty and the graduate student body will be giving presentations of 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. The lineup is below.
Announcement: INGZ Gallery Show "In Heartbeats: The Comic Art of Jackie Ormes"
On Thursday in GWB 2.204 beginning at 5:00 PM and running until 6:30 PM, there will be a gallery talk and reception for In Heartbeats: The Comic Art of Jackie Ormes, a show curated by Rebecca Giordano on behalf of the INGZ curatorial collective, of which our own Natalie Zelt is a member. Featuring "selections from four comic series by the first African American woman cartoonist, Jackie Ormes," the show tracks the cartoonist's career "beginning in 1937 in the Pittsburgh Courier," and displays a selection of her "irreverent and witty comics tackling major cultural events in newspaper comics that centralized the experience of African American women. From the House of Unamerican Activities to segregated train cars that enabled the Great Migration, Ormes' vivacious and intellectual characters countered pervasive stereotypes with images of stylish, self-driven, and savvy women of color." We spoke to Giordano about the thoughtful and exciting show earlier this week, and will run that interview in the next few days.
Announcement: Salman Rushdie at the Harry Ransom Center, 10/28!
What an event: novelist Salman Rushdie will be at the Harry Ransom Center, delivering the keynote address for the symposium Gabriel García Márquez: His Life and Legacy.Registrants for the symposium have reserved seating, and while all other free tickets have been claimed, there will be a standby line at the Hogg Memorial Auditorium should any seats become available last minute. The event happens on Wednesday, October 28; doors will open at 5:00pm and the talk will begin at 6:00pm.