Prestigious Peer-Recognition Industry Award for “Hate Comes Home”
Potomac, MD: WILL Interactive, Inc., the Potomac, MD-based leader in virtual experience behavior modification gaming, has been named a winner at the Software & Information Industry Association’s 21st Annual CODiE Awards for the immersive learning simulation Hate Comes Home in the category of Best Instructional Solution: Social Studies.
Hate Comes Home, created by WILL Interactive, Inc. in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, follows high school students as they navigate such issues as hate crimes, racism, bias and school violence. In use by thousands of middle and high schools across the country, Hate Comes Home gives youth the opportunity to become the lead characters in an interactive movie and make life-altering decisions as one of four high school students who hold the key to stopping a tragic hate crime before it happens.
“WILL Interactive is honored to have won this prestigious CODiE award for Hate Comes Home, particularly as the SIIA award is the only peer-recognition award of its kind in the industry,” said Sharon Sloane, President and CEO of WILL Interactive, Inc. “Hate Comes Home tackles a difficult but important subject for today’s youth who will be tomorrow’s leaders. For it to be acknowledged as the best in the field by the industry means a great deal.”
“This 21st Annual CODiE Awards continues our tradition of celebrating the best products in the software and information industry,” said Ken Wasch, President of SIIA. “….new technology and business model innovations are constantly emerging and taking root. Being recognized by your peers for getting to and staying at the head of the pack in such a dynamic environment is a major accomplishment.”
WILL Interactive pioneered and patented VEILS™ (Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulations) technology, which enables users to role-play the lead characters in live-action, research-based interactive movies that reflect real-life decisions and consequences in the safety of cyberspace. As with all of WILL Interactive’s programs, the goal is to enhance the user’s decision-making skills by creating role-play scenarios of realistic stressful situations where the user must make decisions in a slice of life context. The experiential learning provided by WILL Interactive’s programs teaches users how to think rather than what to think.
Other WILL Interactive programs for secondary students include “Just 2 Days”, which addresses school violence; “Interactive Nights Out 2”, which helps 11-17 year olds make smart choices about alcohol and other drugs, as well as family and peer relationships, “The Challenge”, which teaches teen leadership, and, scheduled for a July 2006 release, “Generation RX”, which tackles the prevention of prescription drug abuse.