[game_edu] First Four Keynotes Announced for Meaningful Play 2010

[Brian Winn]

The organizing committee is excited to announce the first four keynote speakers for Meaningful Play 2010 <http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu>, taking place October 7-9, 2010 in East Lansing, MI. The keynote speakers represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the design and study of meaningful play.

Keynote Speakers:

--->James Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University

James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Division of Curriculum and Instruction, Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University. James is a member of the National Academy of Education. His book Sociolinguistics and Literacies (1990, Third Edition 2007) was one of the founding documents in the formation of the "New Literacy Studies", an interdisciplinary field devoted to studying language, learning, and literacy in an integrated way in the full range of their cognitive, social, and cultural contexts. His book An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (1999, Second Edition 2005) brings together his work on a methodology for studying communication in its cultural settings, an approach that has been widely influential over the last two decades. Professor Gee's most recent books deal with video games, language, and learning. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003, Second Edition 2007) argues that good video games are designed to enhance learning through effective learning principles supported by research in the Learning Sciences. Situated Language and Learning (2004) places video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy and shows how they can help us in thinking about the reform of schools. His most recent book is Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays (2007). Professor Gee has published widely in journals in linguistics, psychology, the social sciences, and education.

--->Robin Hunicke, Producer & Game Designer, thatgamecompany

Robin Hunicke specializes in creating and producing new IP for new audiences. Formerly at Electronic Arts (MySims, BoomBlox) she's thrilled to have joined thatgamecompany, creators of the award-winning games flOw and Flower for PS3.

Robin co-organizes the annual Experimental Gameplay Sessions and teaches each year at the 2-day Game Design Workshop tutorial session. She has worked with the IGDA Education SIG since its inception, and is finishing a PhD in AI at Northwestern University. In all of these efforts, Robin works to promote the visibility of women, independent and international developers... and to encourage the concrete, directed analysis of games and game design.

--->Ben Sawyer, President of Digitalmill and Games for Health Founder

Ben Sawyer is president of Digitalmill, Inc. a Portland, ME based consulting he helped found in 1997. Digitalmill has worked on a number of game projects and served as producer for the Virtual U project, a serious game-simulation about university management that was an Independent Games Festival finalist in 2001. Sawyer is also the author and producer of several books on games and game development and now serves as the at-large editor on game industry book titles for Paraglyph Press. In addition Sawyer's firm produces market research on the games industry for private clients and DFC Intelligence - a well known research firm focused on the games industry. Sawyer produces the Serious Games Summit held annually at the Game Developers Conference, as well as, the annual Games for Health conference.

--->Contance Steinkeuhler, Assistance Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Constance Steinkuehler is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Communications and Technology (ECT) program in the Curriculum & Instruction department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a founding fellow of the Games, Learning, & Society (GLS) Initiative at UW-Madison and chairs their annual conference held each summer in Madison WI. Her research on cognition, learning, and literacy in massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) has been funded by the MacArthur Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Academic ADL Co-Lab – to date, including research on such commercial titles as Lineage I, Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, and, most recently, RuneScape. She earned her Ph.D. in Literacy Studies in the Curriculum & Instruction in 2005, her MS degree in Educational Psychology in 2000 and three simultaneous BAs in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies in 1993. She teaches graduate courses in Research in Online Virtual Worlds, Analyzing Online Social Interaction, Critical Instructional Practices on the Internet, and Gender and Technology, and an undergraduate course in Digital Media, Pop Culture, and Learning. She sits on the editorial board of several journals including the Journal of the Learning Sciences, the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, and Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media. She is the Chair of the AERA SIG “Media, Culture & Curriculum,” sits on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Gaming, Simulations & Education, and recently received the NAS/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

About Meaningful Play:
Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more "serious" purposes, games have the potential to impact players' beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior. 

Meaningful Play 2010 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices.   Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and improve upon games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways. The conference will include thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games and prototypes.

Call for speaking submissions (papers, panels, etc) is due June 28, 2010
Call for game exhibition and competition is due July 26, 2010

Complete details on the conference is available at: http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu