Here at the Games-Learning-Society Conference in Madison, Wisconsin there has been a lot of discussion and presentations related to how games and education should mix. We’ve got your standard games and education evangelists (like Jim Gee, Katie Salen, Eric Zimmerman, etc…), a plethora of academics presenting research, and a few folks like me who mainly design games. The conference seems to be part pep rally, part best practices, part mingle fest, with not enough attention given to “how to talk to school administration about putting games into the classroom” and “when and when not games should be used in the classroom.” The conference center was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (and it shows, truly special architecture) and so I’m worried he’s rolling in his grave as I never heard a single person mention form has to meet function in game design (especially for education). That’s really my only criticism at the moment, on the whole the conference was a joy to attend. I’ll post more in the coming days about specific lectures and the conference highlights.