OIT wins XBOX 360 grant....

[TheRogue]

OIT news
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PORTLAND METRO AREA CONTACT: Lita Colligan, 503.544.1195, lita.colligan@oit.edu
Nov. 8, 2007

OIT WINS MICROSOFT XBOX 360 GRANT

PORTLAND, Ore. – Many people think video games distract from a student’s studies. But, at Oregon Institute of Technology, students majoring software engineering technology will soon be able to incorporate video game development into their studies—and even receive college credit.

OIT is in a position to turn student interest in video games into an educational path thanks to an award from Microsoft. For the first time, Microsoft, through a competitive proposal process, offered funding for a package including hardware, developer support and funds.

OIT received one of six grants awarded by Microsoft for 20 Xbox 360 video game consoles, Xbox Creator’s Club memberships valued at approximately $12,000 and $10,000 of matching curriculum development funding.

The Xbox 360 is a popular video gaming system. The Creator’s Club is a method for Microsoft to manage who is developing games for the Xbox 360. It’s a requirement for student developers to join the Creators club in order to get a license key to install a game on the Xbox. Although the actual cost of the club membership is relatively inexpensive, membership is necessary to build and run a game on the Xbox. There are additional benefits to membership such as sample games and developers’ tips.

OIT has offered gaming courses as a component of the SET program at the West Portland campus for three years and can now offer a more robust experience, thanks to Microsoft’s help. The gaming courses will debut at the Klamath Falls campus this winter. The first course, CST207 – Introduction to Game Development with Xbox 360, uses Torque X game engine. Torque X is a product of Garage Games, a Eugene Oregon company.

Funds and equipment will be used for curriculum development and implementation of game courses based on Microsoft’s XNA game development platform. All resulting curriculum material will be contributed to the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) Academic Alliance Repository for sharing and distribution with other schools and universities around the world. Curricular contributions are transacted via a Microsoft Web site where many academics can post and share work and resources. The advantage to OIT is threefold: the university receives some financial support, equipment and access to Microsoft developers; OIT gains recognition within the industry, academia and other organizations; and OIT students in Portland and Klamath Falls develop skills in software engineering that are immediately relevant to employers.

OIT Professors Sherry Yang, Randy Albert, and Jay Bockelman collaborated on the grant writing process and the team was subsequently awarded a summer curriculum development grant by the university for researching the benefits of incorporating gaming and gaming-related courses into the SET program.

Other universities across the nation receiving the Xbox grant from Microsoft were: Rochester Institute of Technology, DePaul University, University of Utah, Daniel Webster College and University of Maryland at Baltimore.

For more information about OIT and any of its programs, visit www.oit.edu. For more information about the SET program in Portland, visit www.oit.edu/programs/set.

[cheyenne10]

I'm not a big fan of video games but really enjoy OITs sucesses. I have really enjoyed Novembers scholarship month with emailed bios of many receipients. That school for what they have is 2nd to none.

Go Owls.

Bob
class of 87.

[Chris61182]

Originally Posted by cheyenne10

I'm not a big fan of video games but really enjoy OITs sucesses.

The best part about video games is that when done properly can be used to teach pretty much every major and important aspect of computer science. Whether it's vector calc, physics, data structures, parallel programming, good programming practices, project planning, group work, algorithms, just to name a few. And the best part is, it gets the students excited and interested, which means they're more apt to pay attention, actually learn, not to mention explore and deepen their understanding on their own.