Frontiers in Playful Learning

Over the last few years, a number of games, play, and learning scholars have expressed a shared desire for some sort of community-centered event that 1) puts specific focus on the academic side of games/play and 2) brings together experts engaged in contemporary learning science, educational technology, and game-based learning methods, analyses, and implementation (migrating away from a general 'games are potentially useful for education' discussion to something more about the position in which we [researchers, graduate students, academic communities] find ourselves after 10+ years exploring the field and, crucially, where we can and should go from here).

After much collaboration, feedback, and planning, Frontiers in Playful Learning has been organized for precisely this purpose. Together, we:

• Energize scholarly discourse about game- and play-based teaching and learning research goals, methodologies, and findings;
• Connect members of the game- and play-based academic community who are using tabletop and digital games for instruction and/or designing tabletop and digital games to deliver intellectual, educational, and creative content; and
• Provide an open-ended, playful context for discussion about current scholarly work in game- and play-based teaching and learning (e.g., Virtual Reality, Alternate Reality, Table-top RPGs, Living Card Games, Massively Multiplayer Online gaming, narrative game design, instructional games, esports, etc.)