Learn more about the most important area of gaming

As regular readers will know I have said many times on here that the use of gaming in education will grow to be bigger than their use as entertainment. We consume an enormous amount of education over a lifetime and the classroom is an incredibly inefficient mechanism for learning. Already the military are significant users of educational gaming, they are more pragmatic and less hidebound than their cousins in the formal education sector. But eventually our schools will bow to the inevitable and use games as the primary mechanism for gaining knowledge and skills. It is a matter of when, not if.

Which brings us to the significant annual conference that covers this area, Game Based Learning 2010 on the 29th and 30th March at The Brewery in London. I went last year and found it massively useful. I will be there this year.

They tell me: “Our early bird registration period ends on Jan 31st and we think is excellent value at £345 + VAT given that in addition to a fully inclusive 2 day conference, there is a social networking evening with drinks and the choice of an additional workshop hosted during 2010 in London by Playgen and every early bird receives a FREE digital camcorder so that they can record parts of the conference that interest them. With the latter, I’m hoping that this will encourage some video blogging and uploads to YouTube, etc so we can collate a variety of perspectives of the event.

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for Culture and the Creative Industries
  • Siobhan Reddy, Executive Producer & Kareem Ettouney, Art Director, Media Molecule
  • Matt Mason, Author, The Pirates Dilemma
  • Alice Taylor, Commissioning Editor, Education, Channel 4
  • Michael Acton Smith, CEO, Mind Candy
  • Derek Robertson, Learning & Teaching Scotland
  • Stephen Heppell, heppell.net
  • Ewan McIntosh, CEO, NoTosh
  • Jonathan Stewart, Consultant Surgeon, Director, Hollier Medical Simulation Centre
  • Major Roy Evans, Army, Ministry of Defence
  • Dan Giove, Founder, DubSpot
  • Sean Brennan, Managing Director, Bethesda Europe

And their marketing blurb: “With themes exploring how social media, commercial off the shelf and serious game technologies are improving learning in schools, universities, healthcare, military and corporate training the conference will bring together international thought leaders, innovators and practitioners from the education, entertainment and technology sectors.”

See you there!