Updated 7 p.m. Feb. 24:

Shields Library tonight hosts the first of two huddles for “Envision UC Davis,” the universitywide brainstorming exercise that began at 11 a.m. today and continues to 11 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 25). We’re asking students, faculty, staff and others to imagine the future of UC Davis, as a way to find out what’s possible.

And we’re doing it online, on a platform — developed by the Institute for the Future — that has the look and feel of a game: nearly 1,600 players so far, more than 11,000 "futures" posted, and hundreds and hundreds of comments, plus points and prizes for ideas and interaction.

“I think it's a really interesting way to engage students and get them involved in trying to build the future of UC Davis, and I think the game interface is a good way to get students engaged in the process and get interested in what's happening,” said fourth-year student Alysa McCall, a computer science major.

Hours before tonight’s huddle in the library, McCall played a game “card” with a suggestion for the Shields of the future:  "My idea that I submitted was to put more outlets on the tables in the library. A lot of times I go to the library to study with my friends and we want to have a table that has outlets so we can charge our laptops while we're working, so that's one of the things I suggested."

Other people are weighing in on hundreds of topics, including textbooks and tuition, technology and human interaction, housing and transportation, business partnerships and regenerative medicine.

The library huddles are scheduled from 8:30 to 10:30 tonight and Thursday. We’ve got a Facebook event page going, to keep you up to date on all game activities.

Day 2 of the game includes a Sacramento television station's plan for live coverage from a huddle at the Activities and Recreation Center. The segment is scheduled for the 9 o’clock hour on Channel 31’s Good Day Sacramento.

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Updated 5:15 p.m. Feb. 24:

What’s the best way to see what people are talking about in the “Envision UC Davis” game? Log in and start scrolling! Scroll down to see the newest “Positive Imaginations” and “Shadow Imaginations,” scroll right and left to see “Super Interesting” and other categories. Click on a card to see all the interaction. And, most important, chime in with your comments.

You can also check out the game blog for overviews of selected themes, for example, “Technology kills human interaction at UCD by 2026 … or so worry many players in the ‘Envision UC Davis’ game.”

As day turns to evening, we've got more than 1,500 people in the game, and they've played more than 10,000 "futures." The action continues all night and all day Thursday (Feb. 25) to 11 p.m.

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Updated 3 p.m. Feb. 24: We've posted a video of this morning's gameplay around the campus. As of now, we've got 1,291 players. Play the game, make our future!

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Updated 2:15 p.m. Feb. 24:

The campus has organized a dozen huddles, at places like the Student Community Center, Coffee House, ARC and Shields Library. We’ve got a Facebook event page going, to keep you up to date on all game activities.

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Updated 1:30 p.m. Feb. 24:

More than 1,000 players and more than 5,600 futures — and here are some of the many that are attracting attention, from academics to working here:

• “Flip the classroom models for classes; allow for more discussion and interactive learning.”
• “Research and knowledge shared in unique and innovative ways, not only through books and journals.”
• “More partnerships with companies to actively place students in quality internships and jobs.”
• “We will be more cross-generational where the alumni can not only visit but have avenues for continual participation and giving back wisdom.”
• “Outdoor, hands-on, practical learning. Move away from the traditional classroom model to spaces created for engaged learning.”
• “UCD improves its relationship with the CA state govt. to increase student advocacy and social engagement.”
• “The ‘fear’ of staff working remotely is overcome and schedules are set around actual needs, not just ‘tradition.’ Spare the Air!”
• “Allow staff members to intern in other departments for a quarter to encourage cross-training and communication across administrative units.”

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“If you want new ideas, you may need to come up with fresh ways of soliciting them. And that’s why the University of California at Davis made a game.” So says the tech news site VentureBeat, reporting on “Envision UC Davis.” It began at 11 a.m. today (Feb. 24) and runs for 36 hours straight.

By the time the game began, more than 2,600 people had preregistered. Their next step — and your next step if you did not preregister: Log on to envisionucdavis.org, create your profile and start playing!

Hundreds of people are already in the game, playing “cards” on which they’ve written “Positive Imaginations” or “Shadow Imaginations,” all visible on the game dashboard. Conversations among players start from those cards.

The dashboard also shows trending tags and top keywords, and there’s a leaderboard of the players whose “futures” are getting the most interaction.

But don’t just read about it here: Go play!

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