The Not So Serious Games Session

The Not So Serious Games Session How computer games can be used and abused for learning purposes! This symposium looks at how computer gaming can be used for learning and at the skills habits and affordances that users derive from playing games. This will be handled from four different perspectives covering and presented by four prominent experts in the area of Gaming and learning: Dr. Jacob Habgood, David Squire, Eylan Ezekial, and Karl Royle. The construction of games by learners - Dr Jacob Hapgood Head of Serious games at Sumo Digital Building the killer application the game that incorporates learning without being educational - David Squire CEO desq.co.uk The use of games technologies for promoting learning with teachers and students - Eylan Ezekial Independent consultant The pedagogical underpinnings of computer games - Karl Royle Centre for Applied Research and Development in Education at the University of Wolverhampton
Dr. Jacob Habgood Jacob is Head of Serious Games at Sumo Digital, which is part of the F9 Entertainment group with over 900 development staff working at 10 studios worldwide. Jacob has spent over a decade working at the coal-face of game development for Gremlin, Infogrames and Atari, and has developed titles for most console platforms since the PlayStation 1. He did his doctoral research in games and learning at the Learning Sciences Research Institute, at The University of Nottingham, and was awarded his Ph.D. in 2007. Jacob is the co-author of a best-selling book on hobbyist game development (The Game Maker's Apprentice, APress: 2006) and has significant experience teaching children to make video games.	In his position at Sumo he manages a number of projects related to hobbyist game-development tools and learning games.
My talk will be focused on: The constructivist argument for teaching programming to children has been made since the days of LOGO in the early 80’s. The drawing turtle may have lost some of its lustre, but these days there are a whole variety of tools which give children the power to create their own video games instead. This allows children to participate in the literacy of this popular media in a way that goes beyond what can be achieved as mere consumers. So as well as supplying the game development talent of the future, such tools also provides the potential to empower the current generation of consumers. Yet children are not the only group who could benefit from the gaming literacy that comes from making the leap from consumer to producer. Indeed can the growing number of academics researching the field of games seriously expect to understand games if they have not made (and in some cases played) a game of their own? If a 7 year old can do it then there are really no excuses...
Eylan Ezekial I am an independent consultant bringing transformative technology into the education sector. Having taught in South East London for 5 years, I left the classroom to try to bring a stronger voice for teachers into publishing and find ways of bringing the innovation from gaming and other interactive forms to teachers and learners, bored by drag-and-drops. After a series of successful projects, while at OUP, I commissioned and published eQuest, developed by DESQ - one of the first genuine attempts to Bring learning resources and gaming together. I am about to launch a project seeking to bring together all the learning out there, to make something that can bring the best possible resources around gaming to teachers and children.I started gaming playing Frak on the BBC model B, I am currently playing around with homebrew on the DS, and TombRaider on the Wii. I have an MA in Social History, live in Oxford, and have never spoken at a conference before!
My talk will be focused on: lessons learnt from the being at the bleeding edge, too bleeding soon!
Karl Royle Karl is involved with Curriculum Innovation and Knowledge Transfer at the Centre for Development and Research in Education (CDaRE), University of Wolverhampton. A former teacher in inner city schooling and manager in post-16 education, Karl is a teacher educator and advocate of immersive and collaborative learning. Karl specialises in integrating active and project-based learning, literacy and language development into vocational subjects and latterly video games and digital spaces. His current interests are around the development of thinking skills in game based learning and the skills habits and affordances of ubiquitous technology and its transfer to educational contexts. His latest publication Game based learning: An Alternative Approach is here The DoomED science learning game produced with Desq Ltd is at ww.desq.co.uk/doomed	Recent research projects include: An Investigation into the Labour Market and Skills Demands of the Games and Serious Games Industries. A Review of learndirect pedagogy and practice. Research investigation into Creative, Arts and Media (CAM) provision in the Learning and Skills sector, delivery methods and engagement with digital learning.
Karl's talk is entitled: Walled gardens and dangerous forests - What video games really have to teach us about learning and will broadly touch on. And will broadly touch on... More than just blood and violence... The key pedagogies of game based learning Save the cheerleader save the world. Transformation or enhancement game based learning strategies within the curriculum
David Squire IDavid is founder and Creative Director of DESQ, a UK based learning games and e-learning developer. David founded DESQ in 1998, following a secondment with BBC Online and after pending 10 years working under various guises in community arts, media and further education. He oversees a team of producers and developers creating award winning e-learning resources and game-based learning applications for clients such as QIA, LSC, National Learning Network (NLN), Oxford University Press, Channel 4 and the BBC. DESQ is a member of Game Republic, a UK regional games developer association and an industry member of FutureLab.	David www.davidsquire.co.uk is an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, looking at theories of game design and game-based learning to inform practice, with Professor Angela McFarlane. He is a member of advisory groups for BBC and PACT and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
David will talk on: Building the killer app... the game that incorporates learning without being educational More a countryside ramble through the pros and cons of developing learning games for the classroom than a hard and fast strategy for game-based learning, David will air and share some of the ups and downs of producing games for learning, from 10 years experience, man and boy. Theories abound, but there are scarcely a handful of successful examples of games that are built for learning that still stand up as a game (that mirror the complexity, intrigue and immersion of entertainment games) whilst delivering tangible and useful learning experiences. The presentation will air debates about the death of edutainment, the inherent power of popular (gaming) culture, when a game is not a game, the 'console envy' educationalist have for the games industry, why game designers still make games that feature orcs and elves and why education has a lot of catching up to do.