Bill H Ritchie

Ritchie Mined - 2020 Bill H Ritchie

Subject Matter Expert Bill Ritchie invented a game called "Emeralda: Games for the Gifts of Life." It takes place on ten islands on a great lake in a region called Emeralda. Ritchie claims to have been a Gates Prize winner since 1996. With pictures and words, he explains how each island has its own cultural focus on one of ten domains-of-expertise. The players are Gates Prize winners who bring diversity to these islands so exploration in different fields is encouraged. His contribution to the region is printmaking as his preferred means to teach, learn, research, and produce works of art. Through essays, books, and plays, residents use technologies that are suitable for learning and teaching on the Internet. Required to spend 360 days in the Emeralda Region playing the game, it may help keep their exploration, imagination, and skill-building alive. Emeralda play also has the potential of a structure for collaboration among teachers who are confronting rapid changes in their fields. The title, "Ritchie Mined," is from the metaphor of a minor digging for nuggets of gold. Instead of gold, the miner may discover nuggets of wisdom. Ritchie invites readers to pick his brain by reading what were his 360 musings in 2020 - such as his speculative Printmaking Teacher in a Box and Artiscrip.