September 2023
The annual L&T Conference took place this month, with one full day delivered in person, and a second day delivered entirely online. I delivered a 10-minute presentation on the second day: I used to be an Adventurer like you until I took an Arrow to the Knee.
Here's the blurb for my presentation:
'Video gaming is often perceived as a lonely experience involving activities of an ethically questionable nature: the antithesis to the development of wellbeing. It has also been associated with depression, aggression, and anxiety. Yet, contrary to many fears that excessive play time will lead to poor mental health, recent research suggests is a positive relation between game play and affective wellbeing.
At the end of a particularly stressful day last year, my anxiety levels were increased and my wellbeing flatlining. To distract myself, I played a favourite video Role-Playing Game (RPG) and as I played, took out my frustrations on a myriad of foes with an obsidian war axe before pausing to take in breath-taking panoramas from the top of snow-covered mountains at dawn and frozen rivers of ice at dusk. After playing, I realised that I felt demonstrably calmer, more focused, and less anxious.
These are unintended consequences of gaming - gamification by stealth- and in this story, I’d like to explore how these consequences can have an unexpected positive impact on students’ (and our own) wellbeing and problem-solving skills.'
Below is a copy of my slides, and a recording of the presentation:
I think it went well - lots of nodding and smiling from the audience, but that may be politeness. On the back of it, I'm now co-delivering a CPD workshop next May, looking at gamification and game-based learning. I'll write a post about after the event. Unless it goes disastrously wrong, in which case, I'll just try to forget about the whole thing.