14th Sep 2012 5:30pm-9:00pm
GP Boardroom M2, Faculty of Arts, Grand Parade Campus
Could it be that games and the gamification of education, knowledge exchange and problem (re-) solving hold the key to improving the agility, resilience and employability of graduates, maximising the talent of employees and to design innovation of products, processes andservices? Can we really achieve the epic win of economic growth and prosperity through gaming?
Jane McGonigal is a game designer specialising in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games. In her recent book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Jane asserts that gamers acquire a specific and valuable skill-set which can be applied to the real world with powerful effect. The collaborative problem-solving environment of games coupled with its focus on finding solutions creates the gamer’s belief that any obstacle can be overcome. What if that same belief, problem solving skills and the ability to work cooperatively were applied to tackling real life issues?
If, as McGonigal implies, gaming can solve the biggest challenges facing the world like poverty and conflict, do we need to look a little harder at what underpins McGonigal’s argument or similarly Richard Sennett’s arguments concerning design, craft and economics and where and how we learn to identify, solve and resolve the short and the long term challenges we face. How we find new and different ways to hold a conversation and analyse these may already be embedded within much of what we do. McGonigal’s and Sennett’s visions for the future provides us with a platform from which we can challenge traditional notions of making and doing and how this might reveal new economies, places and spaces within which we can explore and test ideas and engage in new kinds of dialogue to improve the physical world and our contribution to it.
The University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts, Brighton Business School and the School of Computing Engineering and Mathematics, invite you, practitioners, students and academics, to debate the nature of reality on Jane McGonigal’s and Richard Sennett’s terms.
McGonigal will make her case virtually through her TED talk and Richard Sennett will be ably represented by Professor Anne Boddington, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, before we convert the space into a real world immersive and engaging ‘fish bowl’ to explore and debate their claims.
Timetable
Registration (with refreshments on arrival) 17:30
Main proceedings 18:00
Networking reception with drinks and nibbles 20:30
Registration
Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment.
Last Booking Date for this Event
14th September 2012
Cost £FREE
Please book your place through our online registration form.
If you have problems booking for this event or if would like further information and how you can get involved please contact Ema Findley at e.findley@brighton.ac.uk.
Image: 'Vessel: Reconfigured' by Keita Lynch, Faculty of Arts ‘Up and Beyond’ Graduate Show (Moving Image), Photograph by Andrew Weekes.
