Gen Con 2012 Wrap-Up

It's Sunday morning, the last day of Gen Con 2012. I've been in Indianapolis since Tuesday, and I'll walk back over to the Convention Center in a few minutes for a little more gamer goodness, but the rest of today is traveling, and school starts on Tuesday, so I want to be sure to share some thoughts and fun right away.

Wednesday was Gen Con Trade Day. This was the first time I was able to attend, and I was also a presenter. It was fascinating in its variety. There were usually at least two teacher/librarian workshops and a retailer presentation running at any one time, and it was often difficult to choose. I started off with Brian Mayer's "Making Games Work in the Classroom." He advises and instructs librarians and teachers in the Buffalo, New York, area, and he explored his game library, how he selects a good educational game, and shared several fun games, which we were able to play! He is an exemplary presenter, and if you get a chance to attend one of his presentations, do, for it's quite rewarding.

Before lunch I made it to a presentation by teachers and students of Todd Academy, where they discussed and demonstrated games and role plays they use in their curriculum to explore language arts, social studies, and mathematics. The teachers and students were in attendance for the rest of the day, and I saw at least one of the kids in the Dealers Hall during the main convention. They were wonderfully engaged, sometimes in spite of a few presenters' patronizing comments. I wish I could bring a load of my own students to Gen Con and Trade Day!

The afternoon was full as well. I made it to the first hour of David Niecikowski's workshop, "Game Literacy Through Game Play and Game Design." David has provided hundreds of helpful game reviews over the years, and he continues to do fascinating theoretical and applied work in games and education. He discussed the many aspects of Gamer Literacy and what individuals bring to game experiences and then had us delve into this complex issue by designing our own genre card games along the lines of Once Upon a Time. My group chose to emulate The Lord of the Rings, and I was pained to miss the reveal of the final creations.

I had to hurry away at the last possible minute to lead my own session, "Bringing Games to Life," in which I discussed the practical questions and frameworks for creating meaningful, educational role playing games and offered some practical tools for doing so. As much as I would have liked to have included some actual game play, I only had an hour, so I elected to respect the participants' experience as teachers, librarians, and gamers and delved as far as time allowed into the complexities of game planning and implementation. Maybe I will have another chance to present someday, and I can include more game play in a longer workshop. I have posted the power point presentation and some of the templates on the Gen Con - Games ad Education Facebook page. The organizers of Trade Day asked all of the presenters to send in their digital presentation components, and when I know where they have posted those treasures, I will be sure to share that here.

The rest of the afternoon involved more jumping between presentations. I attended two talks by Al Waller of Out of the Box Publishing. Though each had a bit of the infomercial quality, they were full of great ideas. The first was "Selling to Moms," part of the retailer track. Most of his ideas applied best to stores seeking to connect with an important spending demographic, but since part of running games or any activity with young people includes explaining yourself to parents, I heard plenty of good take-aways, including offering chances to play and having a lending library. Al later discussed OTB's game day package during "Affordable Ways to Get Games into Your School or Library." He discussed the various ways such events can be implemented and the benefits they can bring. I've decided to plan my own back at Paideia!

My last workshop of the day was Joe Bisz's "What's Your Game Plan?" during which he explored how to make any topic or activity into a game. He even has a game to help you build games. You can find out lots more at The Game Crafter, which has resources galore!

Game demos came after dinner and went well into the evening, but as I live on a teacher's sleep schedule, it was soon off to bed for me to be rested for the opening of the first main day of the regular convention Thursday.

I spent most of my days trying more games, conversing with writers and publishers in the Dealers Hall, and attending a host of great seminars. I'm much less interested than I used to be in playing con games, though it would be fun to do this a couple of times at any con, and I no longer feel compelled to keep up with the latest release announcements and the-new-game hoopla. Time tests all things. Mostly I attended conversations among guests of honor, who were a more interesting lot than I've usually encountered at this sort of event. There were also some great conversations about societal issues - like gender, race, sexual orientation - and gaming. I will share more about what I heard and learned in a future blog post.

As you can see, I found lots of riches at this year's convention! Have fun!

One Week to Gen Con

I'll be flying up to Indianapolis a week from Tuesday, so Gen Con 2012 is nigh! My power point presentation is complete, my notes are complete, and the handouts will soon be back from the copier. Wednesday I will present as part of Trade Day, and then I will have four days to enjoy games, seminars, and workshops. O, and shopping! I'm looking forward to seeing the range of presentations about games and educations, a topic long dear to me, on Wednesday and then seeing what's new with games and gaming.

When I return to Atlanta, I will have thirty-six hours to complete my preparations for the new school year, which begins for me and my students on Tuesday, August 21. I hope future Gen Cons don't slide any later into the month!

iPad Possibiliites

In addition to planning for Gen Con in Indianapolis and Dragon Con here in Atlanta, the new school year will soon be here! This year my class will have a full set of iPads, one for each student. I received a class set in the middle of last school year, but this year we'll be able to implement their use much better. Earlier this week I attended iSummit 2012, where I learned about all sorts of apps and uses of iPads. The possibilities are exciting, especially having a platform for each of my students to access these opportunities.

Among the exciting ideas is to move my classroom simulations to a paperless format, providing all of the materials through each student's iPad. The original document comes to almost nine hundred pages, much of which is simply printed. This includes the six or seven pages of each character's background and a set of rules and other guides. This is easy to convert.

The tricky part is that each character has a set of cards, which students use and trade to accomplish many of their goals and machinations. These virtual cards would need to be unalterable but destructible, for when a player uses one. It would also be helpful if I could annotate them, but they should not be able to do so. I'm tech savvy enough to have a basic blog, and I've been able to do the troubleshooting for my students' iPads last spring, but I'm not sure how to make this work. I'll be planning with the school's tech people in the coming weeks. If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate hearing about them.

If you're going to be at any of the same conventions mentioned above, let me know. It would be fun to see you.

Have fun!

Planning for Gen Con 2012

I am currently developing specific plans for my presentation at this year's Trade Day at Gen Con 2012. While much of my past work, especially with GAMA, has been spread widely across many kinds of games, my real aim all along has been to promote roleplaying games as educational tools. During the workshop I am planning to discuss the various frameworks I've used or discussed with other teachers and how to implement them in the classroom, library, or homeschool environment. I will also examine the different needs and capabilities of students of various ages, and I will provide some organizing templates for games, plus resource links and possibilities for further discussion.

New, provocative ideas always come from the attendees. Does anyone want to add any meat to these plans? I'd appreciate any feedback.

Have fun!

David

Summer Plans

Greetings! The school year is coming to a close. The afterschool games ended well, and the simulation of Empress Wu's court is coming to its intrigue-laden conclusion. It looks like the empress will survive, but it's anyone's guess about everyone else. Everything is in play.

It has come together for me to attend Gen Con this year. I will be a speaker at Trade Day this Wednesday, August 15, the day before the regular convention opens. I will be at the rest of the con though the morning of Sunday, August 19, mostly taking part in various seminars. I hope to get into some games, but you never know at Gen Con. If anyone wants to meet during the weekend and discuss games and education, let's put it together.

Have fun!

Happy GM Day!

Today is the official day to celebrate the hard work of our many game masters. Of course, in today’s Internet age, any of us can create an official day of anything, but I think it is a good idea to have a day to acknowledge those that referee our many stories. For all of the people that have run games for me to enjoy, THANKS

My own games in my classroom and after school continue apace. In Tang Dynasty China, the swirl of conspiracies around Empress Wu grows stronger. My real life math game for the fifth graders has a new cupcake bakery, and after school the kids continue to explore Second Age Glorantha.

Today I mostly want to share some interesting links and possibilities I’ve come across. The Youth in Gaming column at RPG.net recently had an interesting entry aboutrecruiting people for a game. The comments are great for thinking about new young people in gaming, but they apply equally well to new gamers of all ages.

Wizards of the Coast is hosting a new site called D&D Parents. It includes several columns and blogs, resources, and photos to lend support to parents bringing their children and their children’s friends into the gaming fold. Again, while some of the discussions invoke the play of Dungeons and Dragons, many work for all kinds of RPGs and other games.

April 28 is Creative Play Day, designed to encourage getting games into the hands and minds of youngsters. It doesn’t have to be just one day each year, so do what you can to support the cause in any way you can!

Have fun!

February Updates

2012 is off to a good gaming start! I'm running three games and playing in three games.  My classroom simulation of life at the court of Empress Wu of China continues to be a soap opera of intrigue and discovery. Our empress is asserting her power a bit more, and two executions have occurred since I last wrote about the game here, both for treasonous behavior. Those students have returned as the empress' son and daughter-in-law, much to their delight and to the drama of the game. Everyone plots and plans. More than in many past years, these students are looking up information about their characters and times. They delight in both matching and defying the known facts.

After school on Fridays, I have the second term of a gaming group for kids ten to eleven. Some of them are in my regular classroom, but many are from other fifth and sixth grade classrooms. Mostly, it is the same kids as first term, but we have a couple of fun, new members. One of them is a boy that also studies Mandarin with me on other afternoons. It's fun to see his whimsical side manifest in the game group. All of the kids in the game really thrive on the activity.

I'm running a weekend afternoon game set in Glorantha, for which I've enjoyed the chance to write lots of new material. My game runs for five or six weeks, and then three other GMs run their games in succession before mine comes around again. This lets us all be players too and takes off some of the pressure of running a game every week. It has also been a wonderful opportunity for me to learn from other storytellers.

I'm making early plans to participate in some of the summer game conventions. I may have a workshop at Gen Con, and I'm hoping that I'll again be running lots of games at Dragon Con. I'd like to get back to Origins again, but that's probably asking too much of life. If you think you'll be at any of these, let me know.

Have fun!

David