Speaker: Brad McLain
April 13-17, 2010
Denver, Colorado, USA

Speakers: Biography

Brad McLain

Education Associate
Space Science Institute
Education & Public Outreach
4750 Walnut St.
Ste. 205
Boulder CO
80301-2532 USA
http://www.spacescience.org

Brad McLain is a senior educational researcher at the Space Science Institute in Boulder Colorado and a fellow at the University of Colorado Denver Center for Experiential Education. He is the long-standing project PI for several National Science Foundation and NASA projects involving the communication of science to public audiences, including most recently the STEPS project (Science Theater Education Programming System), and the Polar Hydrobot Simulator. He has worked as an educational designer and evaluator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, served as the director of education for the national travelling exhibits MarsQuest, Alien Earths, Giant Worlds, and the soon-to-be released Asteroids. His research interests include learning science in informal environments, the development of professional identities for both formal and informal science educators, and digital media and learning issues involved in experiential and simulation-based virtual environments, such as cognitive transfer, virtual situated learning, and social constructivism via internet-mediated interactions.

Brad will present Web-Supported Collaborations: Building, Evaluating, and Sustaining a Museum Partnership Network. [Paper]
Brad will demonstrate In Defense of the Casual Game. [Demonstration]