I attended the GLS conference yesterday and was most impressed by the caliber of attendee and the fabulous posters depicting the best and the brightest game/research projects going on. This link will take you to a photo montage of the poster event which quickly and visually displays high quality game development projects (mostly related to education). Most projects also had a research mission. Bravo GLS.

Changing of the Guard is not a new educational web game. It’s the announcement of the peaceful transfer of power as I leave Web Courseworks, the Games Can Teach blog, and e-Learning for a new career in commercial game development with the jolly-smart independent games studio Three Rings.

I am very thankful for the opportunities Web Courseworks has given me, both in practical experience and creative freedom.  Freedom I was able to use to invent new tools like the Conversant Game Engine - which we used to create Play True Challenge and other games. I hope they’ll still be using it after I leave.

Joystiq has a great set of screenshots and summaries of the finalists for the 2009 IndieCade Festival. Each one of these is a wonderful example of how a game can be so much more than a little diversion. Most of the finalists are games with something important to say or teach.

Science Magazine has posted a video introduction to their special "Education and Technology" issue.

I couldn't agree more about the need to have real data telling educators (and developers) what does and does not work, and that we need a better distribution model for educational games.

However, It's always a little disingenuous to talk about World of Warcraft and The Sims when trying to make the point that video games can reach millions of players. WoW and The Sims are outliers - the most successful games out there.