Games and Learning Indaba

Gaming is a hot topic amongst educators and parents alike, it was previously seen as intrusive and having little benefit but now games are being used for educational purposes to great effect.

Recently I was fortunate enough to attended the Games and Learning Indaba at the Shuttleworth Foundation... There was some excellent discussion around gaming and it's uses and implications on education.

Credit must go to Steve Vosloo for facilitating these discussions around the state of games and learning in SA and for organizing the excellent speakers, namely Prof Alan Amory and (hopefully soon-to be Dr) Marion Walton who gave excellent talks on Gaming.

I for one was very interested to see how online games such as World of Warcraft are areas of amazingly dynamic social interaction. Gone, I think, are the days of socially unacceptable gamers sitting in thier basements eating crisps almost hiding from the world.

There was also much discussion of mobile gaming and how this area, due to South African learners' use of their mobile phones, is possibly the way forward for games and learning in our country. There is amazing possibility for the use of mobile phones (especially with the use of geo-tagging) for learning in SA.

Thanks again to the Shuttleworth Crew for setting up this Indaba, I am really looking forward to the next installment. The conference-like idea for next year could be fantastic.