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Anyone in the world A Report on the Second Games, Learning, and Society Conference The second annual conference on “Games, Learning, and Society” was co-sponsored by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Laboratory and the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison WI The Conference, held in Madison on June 15 and 16 2006, was “sold out.” It was attended by 325 people and had a total of 24 sessions (workshops, symposia, paper sessions), plus four Fireside chats and seven Chat n’ Frags (see below). Conference organizers did not wish to exceed approximately 325 attendees in order to retain the meeting’s informal, interactive, and participatory character. Continental breakfasts, lunch, one dinner, as well as snacks and beverages during break times and reception hours were provided as part of the registration fee. ![]() In addition to individual presentations and symposia the Conference also had Fireside Chats in one corner of a room with a simulated fireplace on a large screen television set replete with a cozy fire. There were also sessions for informal discussions, Chat ‘n’ Frag sessions where game designers, researchers, and players could have hands on experience with games, a Movie Room to view web casts of sessions that were too crowded to attend live, and a Dorm Room equipped with games consoles and computers.
This brief overview of the Conference makes it impossible to delve into any single presentation in detail. Instead, general themes sounded in many of the sessions will be summarized rather than citing presenters since some themes appeared in multiple sessions and were made by different presenters. Those interested are encouraged to access the conference site, examine the titles and abstracts of the various presentations, and contact presenters, in the section dealing with their brief bios, for copies of the overheads and/or papers of the presentations
Game Playing Makes Consumers of Knowledge Producers A theme sounded in many of the sessions was that games offered the opportunity for participants to blur the lines between being consumers and producers of knowledge. Game players have to think like producers to create paths through game worlds. By participating in such worlds players have to construct versions of the game world, formulate plans, and then execute them. Such processes are more likely to be associated with producers than consumers of knowledge.
![]() Professional expertise in fields such as medicine, science, and engineering is gained in practicum experiences in which people take action on the basis of knowledge. Games offer the opportunity to create virtual practicum experiences where knowledge may be acquired and, most importantly, also applied to the solution of problems. It was also noted that a number of games offer players the opportunity to produce media that verge on professional quality productions.
Re-usability of game components was another issue addressed in several presentations. In accord with one of the central concerns of ADL more generally, developers were urged to consider the development of instructional objects that could be used and reused in multiple games and shared with other developers.
Motivation It was noted in many sessions that games tend to be highly motivating, and sometimes actually addictive. These motivational properties can be seen dramatically when the average readership of 1.8 individuals for the typical scientific article is compared to the several hundred thousand players who participate in many multi user games. Further data dealing with popularity reported at the meeting indicated that 15 million people spent $1.5 billion on fantasy sports; these data are dwarfed by the overall expenditures of $7.3 billion spent on computer and video games in the United States in 2004.
Another index of the popularity of games is the fact that many Universities are offering programs of studies dealing with computer games, and that the field is also attracting increasing attention from academic researchers. Clear indications of both the motivational properties of games and of the increasing attention they are attracting from researchers were the attentive and involved audiences in most of the sessions. In addition, the last sessions on the last day of the conference (Friday afternoon 3.30-5 pm) were well attended, and in some cases actually had packed rooms.
It was also indicated that young students report that they consider computer science classes boring, but that game experiences outside of school have been found to motivate them to feel more favorably towards computer science. At times experiences with games even led students to consider computer science as a career path. It was noted that estimates indicate that the United States will add 1.5 million jobs in the information and computer area by 2012 but that only one half that many graduates will be available to fill those positions. In view of the positive effects of game playing on improving students attitudes towards computer science it was implied that game playing may address these concerns.
Research and Evaluation ![]() Many the sessions suggested that much attention had been devoted to describing the rich opportunities afforded by games for learning and application of that learning. Less attention and energy has been allocated to research on games, or to evaluations of game playing outcomes. A call sounded in many sessions was that the time had come to devote attention, time, and resources to research and evaluation of games and their effects.
An integration of games with some of the concerns of contemporary researchers studying issues in the larger field of human learning was evident from themes addressed in many talks. For example, talks dealt, wholly or in part, with topics such as expert-novice differences, discourse analysis, metacognition, epistemology, zone of proximal development, and the effects of prior knowledge. Of course these themes are also of intense current interest in educational research and cognitive science thus offering the opportunity to incorporate research on games into the rich body of ongoing research in these fields.
Contributed by Sigmund Tobias | 
