NASAGA 2007: Games, games everywhere
Opening Sessions and Overview
North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA) held their annual conference in Atlanta Georgia Oct 10-13. It was the first time I attended the conference, and I found it to be very warm and welcoming.
Surrounded by games!
Like any conference, there were more offerings than I could begin to attend. This one had me constantly trying to chose between sessions I thought were important for my professional development, and ones that just looked really fun.
There were games everywhere. From paper to cards, board games, and games on laptops. It was hard to take it all in. You had to pay attention, there were interesting things on tables in the hall, in the center of tables in sessions and meals. I saw groups in the lobby all hours of the day and night leaning over some kind of game. I had no idea there were so many, or people who knew how to play most anything you could name.
I suspect there is a conference within the conference that happens informally in the hallways and after hours. While I like games, I am really passionate about experiential methods. I’m not sure my brain works fast enough to really be a gamer. I think I might be too reflective. So I wasn’t sure about trying to join in the informal sessions. Would I be run out of the hotel as an impostor gamer? I was so tired from just the sessions, it was easy not to even have to take the risk to find out.
The Game of Magic: The Magic of Games
Bernie DeKoven was the first speaker. He talked about the concept of half-belief. Games and simulations work when there is enough connection to other things or experiences in our lives that they can create a half-belief. We sort of know they aren’t real, but when they engage us enough to hook us in a particular way, the game moves into a new space. The potential to learn something new emerges.
Call it What You Will: A Conceptual Framework for Training Games, Simulations, and Activities.
Silasailam ‘Thiagi’ Thiagarajan came to the stage. Thiagi has a particular kind of presence so no matter where he stands, it becomes a stage. I don’t think words can really describe the magic of Thiagi, you just really need to see him in action.
The thing I find most compelling about Thiagi is not only is he incredibly prolific (He creates a game everyday), but he also thinks deeply about how and why they work. He can structure complex concepts and lay them out in a way that they suddenly become clear to who ever choses to listen carefully. It takes focus.
He named four characteristics of games.
- Conflict (the challenge)
- Control (the rules)
- Closure (the end)
- Contrivance (the half-belief)
A simulation includes the above and adds:
- Correspondence (connection to real world)
A Training Game includes all of the above and adds:
- Competency (improvement from participation)
The Thiagi Group has created a glossary of learning activities . To help us learn about them, each person got a card with an activity and its definition. We had to mill around and ask as many people as possible about the activity they had on the card. I was surprised at how many I wasn’t familiar with. It’s so easy to become attached to our favorite methods and forget how many others are out there we can use.
In the next few days
I’ll be writing about the sessions I attended on each day of the conference, as well as the session I did with Peggy Pusch on What makes simulations magic? If you attended the conference and write about your experience, let me know so I can link to you. I’d love to hear about some of the other things I missed.
Other posts about the conference:
NASAGA 2007: Pictures everywhere, NASAGA 2007: Games, games everywhere , Game night at NASAGA 07 nasaga2007
7 Responses to “NASAGA 2007: Games, games everywhere”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Leave A Comment...
Online Print Gallery
Affordable photographic prints of paintings
Christine,
So glad that you enjoyed the conference! I attended the session that you and Peggy facilitated, and it was one of the highlights of the conference for me.
You wrote:
I’m not sure my brain works fast enough to really be a gamer, I think I might be too reflective. So I wasn’t sure about trying to join in the informal sessions. Would I be run out of the hotel as an impostor gamer?
I’m one off those hunched over the late-night gaming tables in the lobby. One of the things I love about NASAGA is that the informal sessions *are* so reflective:
“Ooh, that’s an interesting twist! I could see incorporating that into my teambuilding sessions.”
“I’m not sure this part is really working. What if they….”
And sometimes just: “Hey, that was fun!”
So do join us next year for the hallway games as well. My favorite from this year: Incan Gold. Simple, quick, and instantly recognizable correspondence to risk, reward, and teamwork.
Doug Nelson
Kinection
Doug,
Yea, isn’t it amazing how different things look from the inside versus the outside? As a new person to any group I’m always trying to figure out if I am going to fit. Comparing my insides to the outside impression. Glad to know my guesses were wrong!
I will look forward to the hallway games next year.
Christine, I’m enjoying your blogs. I hadn’t thought about the metaconference concept for NASAGA…but I think it probably fits. One of the things I enjoy about NASAGA is that there are always more sessions than I can fit in, and I always have to make tough choices. Another thing is all the training games I experience as a participant. (Even when I participate in a game I’ve already experienced, the debrief pulls out some new twist or tidbit I hadn’t considered before. I have repurposed several dozen games after just this sort of experience.)
Like Doug, I was one of those people sacrificing sleep for after-session games. Let me soundly second both his excitement for those sessions and his invitation to join in after-session games next year. I agree with his observation that we shift back-and-forth between an evaluative mode (“I can use this in my next training game”) and an affective one (“WOW! That was FUN!”) Additionally, over some board game we are also comparing notes on sessions, discussing our own uses and applications of simulations and games, getting advice from others, and the like. And we tend to have a variety of games that fit a variety of playing styles, too…so if one game doesn’t go over, we just pull out another one!
Keep the blogs coming, Christine…I’m sitting on the edge of my chair waiting for the next one!
Best regards
Les Lauber
Hi Christine
sounds like a fantastic conference. As a fairly hardcore gamer myself and someone who works with technology in education, this type of conference sounds right up my alley! Wish work would send me overseas
Looking forward to reaading more posts about it.
Sue
Les, The computer monsters were eating your comment, but I wrestled it back away from them by throwing them a game to distract them. Ok, I’ll try playing with you in the lobby, but you have to promise to be nice (at least part of the time). And I probably need to watch for a while to figure it all out. I was amazed at how many people in NASAGA seemed to be able to grasp all the rules, apply them, and have strategy figured out while I was absorbing rule number one. Yikes, you gaming fanatic people are pretty amazing with your lightening fast brains.