2 talks (Langeroo and Motionary) plus networking

Hello Edugames Chums

After the riotous summer break, the Edugames Meetup is back in September with two talks and more networking time.

First up we have Alistair (Ali) Maggs, from Chaos Created. Ali graduated in 2005 from UWE with a first degree in Time Based Media, picking up an award for his film editing, and receiving a nomination for an artificial life game he created.

An experienced software developer, across many platforms, Ali has worked on PC games add-ons, apps for mobile platforms and educational software. His co-created Timedancer app series for Windows Phone 7 is becoming increasingly well known for the way it combines live action video with interactive gameplay. He'll talk briefly about other cross media/platform efforts with Timedancer on the Windows Phone.

Ali will also be talking about Langeroo, educational software for teaching English as an additional language: how it was developed as an educational package, the choices made and how it was localised to make it easy to roll out into additional markets. Plus, how he plans to expand the portfolio to other platforms and with additional content to drive users to the web-based version.

Second we have Agata Stadnik, who gave a brief intro to her work a couple of months ago and is kindly coming back to give us more detail.

Agata is a designer, researcher and teacher with a background in the visual communication field. In her recent work she aims to create powerful and unforgettable user experiences; she design "things" to help people communicate, learn, create, and possibly have fun. Her creative projects, games and installations foster creative social learning and interaction.

Most recently her work has focused on Motionary, an online, user-generated database of improvised words and expressions given meaning through silent (or not) improvisation. Motionary helps people learn and understand new words and, at the same time, it supports both physical and online social interaction. Motionary helps people understand the meaning of words, see them being used in the context of a situation and also helps them remember these words. Motionary members can create an entry for each new word; record performances individually or in a group, submit and meta tag their improvisations online. Users will be able to create their own accounts with vocabulary preferences, galleries of favorite performances, and sign up to receive an improvised word every day.

www.motionary.org (http://www.motionary.org/)

www.agatas.com (http://www.agatas.com/)

Please note we have a slightly earlier start time of 6.30 and there are just two talks this time, not three, as the schedule was getting a little crowded.

Also, for those of you who attended the last meetup and weren't too scarred by participating in the Love Game experiment, I'm hopeful that at least one of the team can return to give us an update on how the game is developing (hint, hint).

Looking forward to seeing you in September. If you haven't been able to attend a meetup yet, come and give us a try.

All the best

Kirsten