Let’s Play: Online Playbook

by | Jun 6, 2024 | Announcements

What? A new Playbook?

Yes, indeed. That’s the plan.

Last year, when we released the original Professors at Play Playbook, we responded to ongoing requests for techniques that profs could use in their classrooms. The response to the call for submissions was fantastic, and the interest in the book exceeded our hopes. With almost 9000 downloads of the free PDF and 1500 sales of ebooks and printed copies, we feel comfortable saying that people want play in their classrooms! (And in transparency, we sold the books at close to cost, so we have not made any money on the project.)

So, the Playbook was an encouraging hit. But what happens when you teach online? What happens to play then?

While the Playbook had many techniques that would either work online, or could be easily converted to work online,  many teachers said they wanted more ideas for the virtual classroom. From that insight the Online Playbook was born.

Over the summer and into the fall, we will collect your ideas and techniques to assemble the Online Playbook for publication with ETC Press in the winter of 2025. Like the original Playbook, authors will retain rights to their work, and the Playbook will be available in a free, Open Resource format and in paid print and ebook editions. 

We are excited about this iteration of the Playbook idea for several reasons. First off, it’s another chance to activate our community and see all the fun everyone is having. Second, we love the idea of focusing future editions of the Playbook on specific areas of need. Online is one of those areas. Large lecture hall is another. Eventually, we’d even like to publish a Playbook dedicated to the design of playful pedagogies.  Third, by expanding the Playbook series, we invite more professors to try play. And at the end of the day, if we are going to have a Playvolution in higher education, we will need a lot of playful allies!

Interested? Have questions? Let us know! Most of all, take some time this summer to consider typing up a technique or two and submitting it. We can’t wait to see what you have to share.

https://professorsatplay.org/professors-at-play-online-playbook/

 

David & Lisa

Playposium 20224

by | Oct 18, 2023 | Announcements

After much planning, we are happy to announce our third Professors of Play Playposium. Since we started Professors at Play it’s been our dream to bring people together face-to-face, in person to play and plan and produce the ideas that will help transform higher education. The stars have aligned and with the help of Arizona State University’s Shaping EDU team, we are happy to say that dream is coming true.

You can find all details and register on the Playposium 2024 site. 

What is most exciting to us right now is how important this event is to the Professors at Play mission. When we started the group listserv in June of 2020, we just wanted to stay in touch with what, at the time, we thought were the handful of play-oriented professors interested in what we were interested in. We quickly discovered that we were far from alone. And as the group exploded, we set about to organize the community into a form where we could find each other and start learning as much as we could from our global community. That lead to a pair of virtual Playposiums and the Professors at Play Playbook. And while we couldn’t be more proud of what we have all accomplished together, we know it’s only a start.

Higher Ed faces some strong head winds: Increasing cost, public opinion of education in decline, mental health issues on the rise, mission creep and increasing questions about the value of a formal degree from the academy, to pick some of the big issues. But where others see issues, we see opportunity. It’s a mess to be sure. But we think that play has a place in finding the soul of higher education, helping reform how we teach and howstudents learn. Thorugh play we believe we can demonstrate, once and for all, that higher education is about positive personal transformation.

Seem like a pipe dream?

Remember, a few of years ago Professors at Play was nothing more than a mail list with 6 people on it. Today we are almost 800 strong and growing every day. We are a vibrant and connected community that brings play to our classrooms, our learning designs and our departments on a regular basis. This coming February, a bunch of us are going to get together in LA to have a blast and make plans to change our institutions for the better. If we can make it this far in a little over 3 years, think what we can do in the next 10. We hope you are dreaming big, because we are too.

We hope to get to play with you at Playposium 2024!

David & Lisa
Professors at Play

To the Playposium and Beyond!

by | Nov 13, 2020 | Announcements

by Lisa Forbes

In June of 2020, David and I started a Google listserv called Professors at Play. We had 5 members. Five months later, we have 554 members. This summer, there was so much excitement about Professors at Play, we knew we had to do more – create a bigger platform. So we had a crazy idea to host a Professors at Play Virtual Playposium. 

It was a labor of playful passion and we were able to throw it together in a couple of months. We sent out a call for proposals, secured keynotes and a featured speaker, opened registration, ordered stickers for sticker packs, mailed sticker packs, created the playposium schedule, communicated with presenters and registrants, and tightened up some logistical details. 

In the end, 361 people registered for the Playposium. Like, whoa. We had 2 keynote speakers, 1 featured speaker, 9 main session presenters, and 11 Fun Club breakout sessions. It was jam-packed with fun and play! Actually, it was a bit like trying to drink from a play firehose that was shooting out fireworks! Don’t worry, if you missed the day or just didn’t soak it in because it moved so fast, we recorded all of the sessions which we will post soon.

 We knew it would be a fun chance to gather and talk about play but we had no idea exactly how great it would be. The passion and playful perspectives of the presenters/speakers in addition to the energy and interest from the participants was breathtaking. David and I worked hard to organize this event but it would have been nothing without you. Our community. Our presenters. And Play!

We received some really great constructive feedback about the Playposium and interest in future Professors at Play engagements and gatherings. Most people seemed pleased:

 Looking forward, people want more events. Shorter events. In-depth demos. Monthly workshops or discussions. A collaborative resource list. Casual meet ups. Partnerships for research and publications. Blogs or articles on tips and tricks. If you would like to help with any of these ideas, feel free to shoot us an email! We love to collaborate and highlight our members’ expertise and ideas. Perhaps the thing I am personally most excited about is the idea to have an actual in-person “play retreat” in some great beach city. (The beach is my happy place.) I’d love to meet up and have some workshop sessions but also just have some idle time (away from regular life, kids, family, friends, work duties) to be able to think, play, and implement the play ideas into our teaching practices. Who is with me?! Stupid COVID. 

Sir Ken Robinson (1950 – 2020)

by | Aug 28, 2020 | Announcements, Inspiration

Ken Robinson

Farewell

by David Thomas

The first time I saw Ken Robinson speak was at an academic tech conference–probably an eCollege gathering. 

Like the rest of the attendess, I wandered into the keynote to hear a speech by an affiable Brit that I had never heard of. Robinson took that stage and in his gentle, humorous and quite emphatic way told us how broken education was, how we squeezed out the talent and creativity in an assembly line of conformity.

Perhaps it was the ironic combination of someone who commanded so much authority on stage with such a revolutionary message. But whatever it was, I left a changed person. What Robinson said connected to everything I always thought about education but didn’t feel qualified or brave enough to articulate. 

There was more to teaching than textbooks and standardized tests. A lot more.

If you’ve seen Robinson talk or read one of his books, I am sure you know what I mean. He was a professor at play before most of us were even willing to test a game out in our classes.

If you are not familiar with Sir Ken, check out any of the ample videos of his talks. Here’s a particularly good one: 

Bring on the Learning Revolution @ TED

 Robinson passed away this week. And while the world will miss his wit and charm and tireless focus on his mission, we can all carry on a bit of his playful spirit and ensure the revolution isn’t over.

http://sirkenrobinson.com/

 

Virtual Symposium Announced!

by | Jul 29, 2020 | Announcements

Professors at Play Online Symposium

Please hold the date for a virtual Symposium on Friday, November 6th, 2020 between 8 – 4 MST (10-6 EST, 7-3 PDT).

We envision a single-track Zoom conference, with all of the sessions recorded and put on YouTube. We will set up a form soliciting presentation proposals and ideas in early fall – around the same time we open registration.

At this point, we anticipate that the Symposium will be free and open. But we may seek some sponsorship to help us purchase fun Professors at Play schwag (stickers anyone?) for those who don’t mind receiving physical mail at this time. 

The comments provided some key takeaways of what you want from the symposium:

  • Make it practical
  • Share examples
  • Talk through past courses–what worked
  • Play! (Not just presenting theory)
  • Include synchronous discussions and interactive sessions along with asynchronous materials
  • Included students perspectives, at least in relevant topics
  • Step-by-step templates or walkthroughs of techniques or software
  • Consider digital poster sessions 
  • Record the sessions

The programming will be a practice-focused mix of roundtable discussion, deep dives on techniques and approaches and, of course plenty of play! We will explore the idea of hosting one or two longer keynote style talks. But most of the sessions will be led and programmed by members of the Professors at Play community.

Do you have other ideas and feedback? Let us know! Until soon, have fun for the rest of the summer and here is to a playful Fall term!