Vienna is the venue for CHI2004:Connect, a conference on human factors in computing, with the theme ‘Social Learning Through Gaming.’ This workshop will bring together researchers, academics, and designers from several disciplines, including game design, development, communication, psychology, computer science, graphic and the visual arts. The social learning effects from playing games in technology-mediated settings such as computer/ video and augmented reality games will be explored, as well as virtual reality, mobile devices, live action role plays, and multi-player online role playing games.

A workshop report will be generated for SIGCHI Bulletin, and workshop participants are invited to submit extended versions of their position papers to a special issue on "Social Implications of Learning from Gaming" to be published in the winter 2005 issue of the journal Interactive Technology and Smart Education.

Participants are selected based on submitted position papers. By January 12, 2004, prospective participants are asked to electronically submit the following:

A position paper of no more than four pages, which should include:
(a) A discussion of your interest in creating opportunities for learning, exploration, and discovery in games.
(b) A description of your relevant work or approach to data analysis, evaluation, incorporating subject matter experts (SMEs), or designing learning opportunities into games.
(c) Examples or lessons learned by having taken certain approaches to design, evaluation, or from having explored certain topics with games.
(d) Please indicate whether you intend to give a short demo of your work (for scheduling purposes)
(e) A short biography of no more than 250 words.

Conference website:
workshop/CHI04GamesWorkshop.htmlworkshop/CHI04GamesWorkshop.html