Today I am speaking in the Levels game seminar in Jyväskylä. Featured here in the picture is Marko Siitonen, who talked about teamplay and leadership, in the context of learning taking place within MMOs. More: http://www.levels08.com/
Category: events
seminars, conferences, other events
Not travelling
I have made few somewhat painful personal decisions and radically cut down the amount of international travel I do. Travelling might be something we are told we have to do, that our careers require it, and that internationalisation or globalisation even dictates that we should be flying around the globe all the time, busily collaborating with everyone else. But why? Don’t we really have any communicational tools that we could use to cut down this insane waste of time, energy — both human energy and precious reserves of natural energy, turning it into carbon dioxide? I think we can do better. I was supposed to present game studies papers in two important conferences, CHI 2008 in Italy, and Crossroads conference of cultural studies in Jamaica. It was a real pity, but I decided not to go. Continue reading “Not travelling”
Speaking in ITK
Today I am speaking in ITK (interactive technology in education) conference in Hämeenlinna. An event with nice atmosphere and idyllic location in Aulanko, it is always pleasure to visit. Topic of my speech concerns my new book of game studies (see www.gamestudiesbook.net).
Spring seminar 2008
Breaking the Magic Circle seminar is well underway, and the first three sessions take place today, more to follow tomorrow. Another intense two-day period, meeting of minds, exchange of ideas. Great! (You can see the two commentators, Simon Niedenthal and Markus Montola in the front row.) More: http://breakingmagiccircle.wordpress.com/
Edit: the seminar was an obvious success — many thanks to you all. Lets see what kind of publications will spawn out of it; meanwhile, we agreed to have presentation slides and photos available tagged with ‘breakingmagiccircle’. See: http://www.slideshare.net/tag/breakingmagiccircle
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/breakingmagiccircle/
Presenting in the AoIR conference
I just got information my abstract has been accepted, and I will be presenting my paper “Play in the Mobile Internet: Towards Contextual Gaming” in the Internet Research 9.0 conference, taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from October 15th – October 18th 2008. Link to the conference web page: http://conf.aoir.org/index.php?conference=ir&schedConf=ir9
Aki's PhD defence
Aki’s PhD defence
Originally uploaded by FransBadger
Aki is here pictured presenting his Lectio, at the start of his PhD defence today. As the official kustos, appointed by the Faculty of Humanities, prof. Mikko Lehtonen, and as the opponent, Jesper Juul. Fascinating path of a researcher, highlighted for a moment in the form of doctoral thesis, yet Aki is already heading towards new horizons, beyond game design and game system analysis, toward design of player experiences, rooted in empathy, nurturing and hope. Nice work — good travel!
Edit: here is also link to a video clip, recorded during Jesper Juul’s final statement (sorry for quiet audio and low quality, this was taken with my mobile phone, some rows back from the audience):
LanTrek talk
As you can see from the photo, LanTrek 2008 is a lan party with loads of computers and young people in a large, darkened room: something that kids at least here in Finland regularly enjoy in great numbers. I gave there an hour-long talk about the digital culture for a smaller audience.
Communicatio Academica
Today Communicatio Academica, the joint seminar of Finnish professors and researchers, takes place in University of Tampere. The main topic of discussion is the integration, unification or collaboration of Finnish universities. Deep-going, structural issues that touch the future of learning, science and scholarship in our country. Program (in Finnish, PDF): [link].
Portti Award 2007
Almost forgot to write about this: I have again been part of the award jury for Portti Science Fiction prize, which has been more than two decades a landmark in the Finnish SF landscape. This Tuesday we awarded this year’s main prize to Susi Vaasjoki, second prize to Mari Saario and third prize to two writers, Heikki Nevala and Tiina Raevaara. Congratulations! The quality of SF short stories was very high this year.
STM meeting
STM meeting
Originally uploaded by FransBadger
Today will be spent in Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, where I will be presenting views of digital culture and game studies in a working seminar on children, youth and wellbeing/malaise in contemporary society. Pictured is Minister Paula Risikko.
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