December 18, 2003

DiGRA, RAND, NESTA, BBC

This has been a good but crazy Nov-Dec, as I ran around to speak at and attend a variety of conferences.

DiGRA. I presented on Military Games and Corporate Games at the first DiGRA (Digital Games Reasearch Association) conference in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was better than I had expected. Lots of eager young people attending, and researchers from all over the world. Interesting info, but next time presenters should not be allowed to just read their papers - we can all do that on our own! Utrecht is a magical place - well worth visiting.

RAND. I presented at the RAND CORPORATION in DC. The premise was that digital technology, by changing young peoples' thinking and then changing their behaviors, is now changing society. Got good feedback.

NESTA. I spoke (on Games and Learning) at the NESTA FUTURELAB conference on assessment in Bristol, England. I learned a new piece of evaluation jargon: in addition to Formative (helpful) and Summative (measuring) feedback there is also "Ipsitive" (measuring agaist your own progress) feedback. The concepts are useful, but the Jar-Gon never ends!

BBC. While in England, I had two good sessions with the BBC, which is more and more concerned with learning. They have recently landed, among other things, the contract to do England's "digital curriculum." We had an excellent discussion session on games and learning with people from around the company, and I gave a presentation as well. Who ever thought I would be speaking to the BBC!

Posted by Marc at December 18, 2003 03:11 PM