How lucky am I to have such an incredible conference in my own back yard here in Madison, at the University of Wisconsin?
I first learned about the work being done with games and education at UW after discovering Dr. David Shaffer‘s work (Epistemic Games), and the work of Drs. Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire with the Games Learning Society – the group responsible for organizing this event. While my own work focuses mainly on architecture and design in virtual worlds and game environments, nearly all of my own consulting work has shifted from corporate builds into education-related, serious games, training environments and community builds. Plus, they’re not just in virtual worlds anymore, but being developed in game engines as well. This has made it doubly exciting for me to find such a passionate and rapidly growing community right here in Madison.
Mid-June is an incredible time of year in Madison, and I would encourage anyone interested in the intersection of virtual worlds, game development and education to make the trek. The Executive and Volunteer Committees are a ‘who’s who’ list of rockstars in this industry, and the speaker program is all but guaranteed to impress. Just look at the list of presenters from last year.
They just announced their Call for Papers today – check it out HERE if you’re interested. If anyone wants to team up on a paper related to the architecture, concept development and environment design of virtual or game worlds as learning environments, let me know!
