The Talks...

The talk turned into two talks - each for an hour. The first was recorded. It will eventually be available for purchase on CD at www.soundword.com (fyi none of the money goes to me and I'm not certain if the conference gets a cut). The recording folks assumed the second session was the same as the first and therefore didn't need to be recorded I guess.

Both talks went very well, and the room was packed - people had to sit on the floor. I had way too much content, which is far better than the opposite problem. By popular request, I'm going to post the powerpoints here. While I was careful during the talks to point out when I was drawing information from outside sources, I'm afraid the slides aren't as clear as they could be in that regard.

I drew on James Paul Gee's "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" and Beck & Wade's "Got Game" for both talks, and Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun" toward the end of the second. The balance of the material and the glue that binds it all comes from my experience as a game developer and as a campus minister operating from a Reformed background especially in regard to the "all of life redeemed" perspective. In other words, bald, near-sighted itinerant Dutch ministers/professors who swear alot, drink and quote philosophers extensively (in no particular order) are my spiritual forefathers. It's why I even bother to wonder whether games are part of the Cultural Mandate and, probably, why I play a dwarf hunter as my main in WoW.

My next two posts will be the intro blurbs and links to the power points for the two talks. See you on the other side.