Congratulations to Robin Weekley Bruce, Acton Scholar 2010, as a recipient of a Texas Business Hall of Fame scholarship!

Robin, along with 18 other outstanding students, will be accepting a $10,000 scholarship on Nov. 8, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio. Recipients come from higher education institutions across Texas. She also was one of the 2010 Acton Student of the Year Awards.

“These 2010 scholarship recipients represent the best of the young men and women of Texas. They have an entrepreneurial spirit, high integrity and a strong personal drive,” stated Foundation Chairman Amy Chronis. “We congratulate them on their success and expect them to compete, contribute and thrive in this highly connected world, making their communities better places to live.”

Past Acton Scholars who also received the TBHF scholarship include Scott Donnell, Class of 2009.

The Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation is a non-profit organization of 70 directors who are business leaders from cities throughout the state. The Organization’s mission is to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of Texas business leaders, to perpetuate and inspire the values of entrepreneurial spirit, personal integrity and community leadership in all generations of Texans. This mission is achieved by inducting honorees at an annual dinner, publicizing their accomplishments throughout the state and providing financial support for higher education in Texas. For additional information, contact the TBHF office at 713.993.9433 or visit www.texasbusiness.org.

Thanks to everyone who made Acton’s 2009-2010 school year such a stellar year. Five people particularly stood out:

This year’s Case Teacher of the Year was awarded to Jeff Sandefer. Case Teacher of the Year is the teacher students believe used the Socratic Method to its full capabilities to increase their learning and understanding.

Ed Perry was named the Highest Rated Teacher. Each week, students rate the week’s curriculum, classes, teachers, and Acton staff in a detailed survey. Perry received the highest score overall.

For the first time in Acton MBA’s history, we celebrated two Students of the Year: Robin Weekley and Joshua Epstein.  Student of the Year is awarded to the student with the highest GPA at the end of the two semesters.

Finally, the 2009 – 2010 Acton Scholar Award went to Eleanor Burkett.  The recipient is chosen by the Acton teachers and is for the student who they believe made the most remarkable progress in making the tools and spirit of Acton their own.

Photo courtesy of Bill Hornstein.

Acton receives a special honor thanks to our students.

The Acton School of Business has been given the honor of making The Princeton Review’s second annual “Student Opinions Honors for Business Schools” list. Acton is 1 of the 15 graduate schools in the General Management category. Other categories include Accounting, Finance, Global Management, Marketing and Operations.

The Princeton Review based these lists off of data provided by an 80-question survey provided to 19,000 MBA students attending 301 business schools profiled in its book Best 301 Business Schools: 2010 Edition. Students assessed how well (on a five-point scare) they felt their business school courses had prepared them to succeed in each of the six areas.

We’re thrilled with the current ranking, given that this honor is based upon student input. Thank you to the students who helped us with this achievement!

To view other schools listed in each of the categories (appearing in alphabetical order), visit www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges and www.princetonreview.com/studentopinionhonors.aspx.

Photo courtesy of Multiple Fragments of Tissue.

Ben is also a 2007 alumnus and current practitioner at Acton. Acton Publishing creates the curriculum for Acton and online courses and the online sim games.

Winners will be awarded at the Tech Innovations Awards & Networking Luncheon on Wed., Oct. 14 at the Hilton Austin Hotel. To see the entire list of nominees or if you’re interested in attending, click here to register.

Congratulations and good luck, Ben!

The article emphasizes how Acton deviates from traditional business schools around the country. These points include Acton’s entrepreneur teachers, the unique Life of Meaning course and the heavy, but healthy, competitive environment between students.

Read the article here.

Brilliant, the only luxury lifestyle magazine for the entire state of Texas, captures the way Texans affect the world and the way the world affects Texans.

Both sim games that the Acton Foundation entered, Robo-Rush! and Galactic Zappers, won bronze awards in the “best video game” category.

“The fact that our learning games are wining awards in video game and entertainment categories is extremely encouraging.  It further validates our efforts to make business education truly enjoyable,” says Ben Allen, director of learning technologies at the Acton Foundation.

Acton is honored to win such awards, especially given the stiff competition:
the contest had over 2000 entries from 32 countries.  ”The 2009 competition was an all new level for the competition,” said Mike Sauce — Founder of the Horizon Interactive Awards.  ”The overall quality of the entries was far and away the best we ever had and judging was very competitive.”

If you haven’t yet, try one of these award-winning sim games at http://www.actonsims.com.

He said he was impressed for seven reasons:

First, to understand Acton, you have to realize that they are one of the hottest business schools for Entrepreneurship.  This is in part because they are focusing on all three types of learning: learning to be, learning to do, and the traditional learning to know.  The simulations are, naturally, around learning to do, and can exist outside of the other two, but are more powerful given the “to know” and “to be” aspects.

Thing that Impressed Me Number One:  Given that, Acton decided that to deliver the best-in-the-world education that was their vision, they would need to build and use some number of educational simulations.  While so many organizations spend years just debating this, the leadership of Acton made this realization quickly and acted upon it.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Two:  Acton identified a series of areas where students routinely had trouble understanding to drive the creation of sims.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Three: They sought out developers of pure Flash-based mini-games, but then evolved to include talent from eLearning vendors as well.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Four: Acton made fully available the deep subject matter experts/practitioners in the areas they were covered to be full members of the development team.  These subject matter experts were not compliant in the sim design, they were committed.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Five: The sims were each about one hour long, with very accessible graphics but rigorous and deep computational models.  They represent a production value that is good enough to be impressive and classic, without breaking the bank of eye candy.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Six:  They have so far built six simulations, roughly two at a time, cycling back the best practices learned from each into the next.

Thing that Impressed Me Number Seven:  From the student reviews I have seen, they seem to work very well.

Acton has not just produced the right content for the right reasons, they have also role-modeled the right approach and right ambitions.

To experience the games yourself, visit www.actonsims.com.

The Communicator Awards honors creative excellence for communications professionals.  We received the Award of Distinction, which we are quite happy to receive.

For more on the awards, click here.

Click here to play the game.  Registration is free (for now)!

Thanks to everyone that helped make this game what it is today!