This was a great talk by Cory from Second Life.

Games will Save the Planet!!! How? Playing games improves the capacity to critically filter the increasing volumes of information we are exposed to. Games give you a place to practice performance before competence. As you learn new skills you can also maintain an appropriate level of challenge. Games are full of disinformation and information asymmetry and coping with these challenges is a skill that they develop. Laziness is not tolerated in game play because they are hard. Games get harder and harder.

Education researchers are studying how game players are organizing and educating themselves in MMOG (massive multi online games) guilds. They are hoping that this research can be applied to traditional education. Games develop critical thinking goal oriented thinking. Those researching this include - Anne Gever, Joshua Fouts and Douglas Thomas. and UW - Madison Paul Gee, Kurt Squire.

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