Save the Date: University of Erfurt hosts the 38th Forum on Communication Culture

Whether open world online game, virtual reality application, gaming app, QR code rally, making, urban gaming, new games, role-playing or board game: games and play take on a central significance in the appropriation of the world. Experimentation, personal and social development and the acquisition of experiences also take place through play. Games help answer the essential question of what kind of world we live in and how we want to live. So is "the source of all that is good in play", as Friedrich Fröbel, founder of the "Kindergarten", once said? Critical aspects such as gaming addiction or gaming disorder, data protection, risky interactions or the instrumentalisation of games and players must also be considered.

Accordingly, games are considered and actively used in educational science, cultural and political education as well as in social, media and, of course, games education.

A separation of digital and analogue play no longer seems to make sense today. For children, young people and adults, both forms are relevant and help shape individual (media) socialisation. In practical media education projects, instructors also benefit from all forms of play. The intersections of game and media education are large.

The 38th Forum on Communication Culture will explore the pedagogical potential of analogue and digital game variants and address the social, cultural, ethical and political aspects of play.

Central questions of the conference:

•     Which potentials, but also which challenges are relevant in the context of games, gaming smart toys and digital toys?
•     How can games be meaningfully and enjoyably integrated into educational contexts such as schools, day-care centres, youth work and adult education?
•     How do gaming cultures and lifeworlds interact in our digital society?
•     How can play-related critical faculties be cultivated and stimulated in children, young people and adults?
•     What synergies are there between media, play and cultural education? And how can these often separate pedagogical fields learn from each other or work together?
•     How can games contribute to participation and to the critical and creative shaping of life worlds and the development of the personality?
•     How can cultural, political and ethical aspects of play and play cultures be dealt with pedagogically with different target groups?
•     How can we frame the market-based character of the world of games in terms of media education?
•     Game-based and game-inspired learning: Which concepts and methods for creative and educationally relevant use of digital games can promote the desire to learn?
•     How can eSports and gamification be taken up and made usable in media education?

The event will take place for the first time as a hybrid format and will offer space for answering numerous questions and many opportunities for theory-practice transfer both in numerous online workshops on 18 and 19 November and through discussions and expert lectures in the stream as well as on site in Erfurt on 20 November. In addition to the above-mentioned formats, this is to be made tangible with interactive game stations, and the audience is to be actively involved.

Ulrich Heimlich (Munich), Judith Ackermann (Potsdam), Franz Josef Röll (Darmstadt), Dirk Poerschke (Düsseldorf), Martin Geisler (Jena), Renate Hillen (Frankfurt am Main) and Jens Junge (Berlin) will provide impulses and contributions.

The Forum on Communication Culture is organised by the GMK in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung) and supported by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend), Gutes Aufwachsen mit Medien, (GAmM), Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Fernsehen (fsf), Klicksafe, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter (FSM e.V.) and other partners.

contact:
Gesellschaft für Medienpädagogik und Kommunikationskultur e.V. | Obernstr.24a | 33602 Bielefeld
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