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Dr. Paolo Granata opened his talk with a lively introduction to the well-celebrated media scholar Marshall McLuhan\u2019s colorful life at St. Michael\u2019s College at the University of Toronto in Canada. Sparking the audience\u2019s interest about the range of issues that we as humans have to tackle when interfacing with different media, Dr. Granata dove into the growing body of work he has done and continues to do through McLuhan\u2019s media-oriented humanist scholarship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the inspiring examples from Dr. Granata\u2019s talk was about a VR for education project that he started with his students during the COVID-19 pandemic when classes were all online. Dr. Granata showed snippets to the audience of a VR world inspired by McLuhan\u2019s Coach House. Through this example, Dr. Granata exemplified the timeless importance of a co-present and creative format for student-to-teacher collaboration in learning. Just as McLuhan had done so in the past, Dr. Granata advocated for an engaged seminar format that involved learners as peers \u2014 a clear pedagogy that contributed to the development of the board game \u201cThe MediuM\u201d which was the center of the day\u2019s talk.<\/span><\/p>\n Dividing the room into teams, Dr. Granata explained the rules of \u201cThe MediuM\u201d (See more at https:\/\/www.themedium.online\/), a board game carefully made with his students in the Book and Media Studies Program at St. Michael\u2019s College in the University of Toronto. It was constituted of: a single dice labeled with the quadrants of the board, cards placed face-down at the center of the board with historic media technologies, four team pieces to move along the board, and finally, the board which was called a \u201ctertrapad\u201d, inspired by the key components of all media delineated in Marshall and Eric McLuhans\u2019 book \u201cLaws of Media\u201d (University of Toronto Press, 1992).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Each team volunteered a representative to play at the front of the room, and the representatives were each tasked to describe the mystery \u201cmedia technology\u201d they picked from the pile of cards. Representatives could only give hints to their respective teams depending on one of four \u201claws of media\u201d in the tetrapad which the rolled dice fell on. A few rounds were played with high excitement in the room, making for a challenging but highly stimulating game of guessing what historic media technology was being described according to the quadrants on the tetrapad: \u201cEnhance\u201d, \u201cObsolesce\u201d, \u201cRetrieve\u201d and \u201cFlip\u201d. Dr. Granata was the overseer, providing a walkthrough of the game rules in English (and Japanese), and giving hints to the first-time players on how to navigate the \u201cLaws of Media\u201d in a fun and interactive gamified format.<\/span><\/p>\n The interactive talk ended with very positive feedback from the participants, many of whom expressed eagerness to purchase the game for their own classrooms and personal use. The evening was closed with a reflective reception held after the event at the BAIROOM, congratulating Dr. Granata on a successful demonstration of \u201cThe MediuM\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Paolo Granata opened his talk with a lively in<\/p>\n