Well, two days from now I'll be feasting on the words of game, media, and learning scholars from around the globe at the Games Learning Society Conference. I'm fortunate enough to be volunteering with the GLS committee, so I'll be armed and ready with my walkie talkie and official nametag.
I'll also be co-presenting with my advisor and another faculty member on cultural representations of games and short films (a.k.a. how Muslims are represented and received in games and short films in a post 9/11 world). I'm discussing the entertaining and adept "Rules of Engagement." Since I was invited after the proposal was submitted, etc., and I'm relatively new at this, I didn't even think to ask for my name and bio to be included in the conference publications. Oh, well, at least I get to help out, present, and attend this awesome conference at the beautiful Monona Terrace.
Among those I'm excited to hear, and hopefully talk to, are him, him, him, and him.
6 comments:
Any conference that puts an anime elf princess on the cover of their poster is a conference that I would like to attend. Have fun, Cblakes. Also, on your name tag, do you put your D&D name or your Wii online screen name along with your real name?
Do you play D&D? What's your name? lol. The people you linked to sounded interesting, their pictures indicate that they are artistic, academic, and "thoughtful." (You know, like pictures of people staring off into the distance.) It would be fun to be the photographer. Shockingly, I'd be interested to hear what they said about games and gender. Who was your favorite speaker? I'm glad you got to be a walkie talkie man... what did you get to do?
Sounds cool. Hope everything went well.
Kate,
Nope, no dungeons and dragons:) But guitar hero was definitely the popular game of choice.
There were a few interesting sessions on games and gender - both by women on women and games. One was called the "Sim Savvy Girls", headed by Betty Halverson, where three non-computer user girls were observed playing the SIMS over a semester or so. Really interesting - one girl, who got into creating and sharing avatar outfits online, now has a strong interest in computer programming. The other one I attended, by Samantha Blackmon, has a great title: "Pixels, Princesses and PMS: Reading Womanhood in Video Games." It was interesting to see how initial video games portrayed women as the reward and motivations for the player to win.
My favorite speaker? Henry Jenkins was amazing to listen to. He was at a fireside chat (a room with cushy chairs and a tv playing a fireplace dvd). He actually got onto the topic of Mormons, and how he thought Democratic candidates may prove hypocritical by preaching tolerance, but attacking Mormonism.
Jim Gee's opening speech was my other favorite. His main message was that games won't "save" education, but it's the attitude towards learning that video games have that should be adopted.
And I mostly helped out at the registration table, and was a liason for some sessions in case technical problems arose (none too many, though). The funniest thing was that I made an opening announcement, presented, and fixed some audio issues all in the same session. Someone said "He sings, he dances..."
It was great. I really had a good time.
Sounds like you had a great time. It sounds like these conference people also managed to hoark our fireplace-on-tv trick. I bet they didn't have romantic melodies and old-time christmas favorites playing along with the warm glow of the fire like we did.
Yeah, I know! I felt betrayed but happy when I heard they were using the fireplace-on-tv.
You're right about the music. I'll have to suggest playing "Take My Breath Away" in the background for next year.
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