Profile: Brian Davis of the LG2G Advance Team

"When I talk about playing games myself," says teacher Brian Davis, "it makes me more real to the kids. Sometimes I use video-game character names in word problems, and the kids love that. Anything having to do with games brings the students motivation."

And that's why Brian is excited about being one of several teachers from the Washington Middle School (in Cumberland, MD) who are a part of the LG2G Advance Team. While his school has limited resources, Brian says "our faculty really buys into technology." The school recently opened a new computer lab and also obtained a grant that will fund the purchase of 70 Nintendo DS's to be used for learning games.

Brian is certified to teach Math, Science and Social Science and teaches all of them in a special program within his school for at-risk students. It's his third year of teaching and he says that a big part of what makes teaching fun for him is that "there's always something new and there's always something to learn about the kids."

And when Brian talks about games with those kids, it's because he's a gamer himself. While he says that he was a little too young to have played the original "Pong," he does still have the early-model Atari system that he used as a boy. And he's always especially valued the social aspect of video games, whether it involves playing with folks in the same room or by playing on-line. And he's looking forward to being able to share that social interaction with his students via the LG2G game.

In terms of the content of the game, Brian is convinced that LG2G won't have to have the bells and whistles of the high-end commercial games in order for it to appeal to students. Citing the example of the game "Zoombinis," he says that learning games "don’t have to be hyper-realistic. They just have to offer good game play. If it's fun to do, my students will want to do it."

We expect that Brian’s continued work on the Advance Team will indeed help to bring that fun to LG2G.

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