jay laird game designer writer multimedia artist

My Life as an Educator/Researcher:

The focus of my research (and making) is finding new and improved ways of teaching and learning through fun activities. Usually I am my first guinea pig, followed by my friends and colleagues, followed by Boston area students.

I love to give talks about making games for learning and using games in organizations. I've spoken at MIT, Northeastern University, and a variety of science, health, technology, and education conferences. Want me to come talk to your organization? Check out the details here!

I have been based out of Northeastern University since 1999, first as an adjunct and then as a full-time lecturer. For the last five years, I have headed up the undergraduate Multimedia Capstone course (think of it as forming a 12-person startup company for nine months every year). For the last three years, as Assistant Director of Game Design Programs at Northeastern, I have been working on curriculum development for the Graduate Certificate in Game Design (MPS Digital Media) as well as the Game Design Undergraduate Dual Majors (coming soon!). I also co-founded Games for Learning @ NU.

  • My Academic Research:
    • Game Design for Systemic Thinking, Learning & Social Change
    • Alternative User Interfaces & User Expectations

  • University Classes I Teach:
    • Undergraduate (Visual Arts/Digital Arts/Multimedia Studies):
      • Multimedia Programming (Flash/Actionscript & Processing)
      • Hypermedia (Web design and programming: Flash/Actionscript, PHP/mySQL, CSS, HTML & JavaScript)
      • Special Topics in Multimedia: Game Design
      • Game Design Summer Discovery
      • Intro to Digital Tools
      • Time-Based Design
      • Video Basics
      • Video Production Workshop
      • Multimedia Capstone
      • Interactive Foundations (Fall 2008)
      • Games and Society (Spring 2009)
    • Graduate (Digital Media)
      • Game Design Fundamentals
      • Digital Game Design Fundamentals
      • Scripting for Multimedia (Flash/Actionscript)
      • Digital Media Narrative

  • My Personal Work
    • Electronic Music Composition & Sound Design
    • Video Production & Photography
    • 3d Modeling,Compositing & Digital Painting

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