#play14 is an international gathering for people who share the idea that playing is a good and great way to teach, learn and understand! Let’s meet in Technoport on 18,19,20 March.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin

Many different profiles of people are invited to share serious games, good practices, tips, knowledge, laughts and smiles in a common goal of spreading new ways to teach, learn, create or train. These profiles could be for example (and not exhaustively) : serious gamers, learning-by-doing practitioners, games designers, serious games facilitators from various communities like agile, teachers, specialists, service designer, actors, improvisers, therapists, speech therapists, creativity, Human Resources managers … you!

What do we understand by Serious games?

Benjamin Franklin said “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

During the whole weekend (two and a half day), we’ll play using metaphors, stories, competitions, sticky notes, drawing, improv, singing, and many others innovative ways!

Because we want to focus on the face to face nature of play and we believe it to be most relevant in the context of this event, we will not use nor create any digital or video games during the weekend.

What is unconference?

Unconference is a conference format where attendees are also session contributors.

There are some simple rules for participants. They will be explained during the Friday evening plenary welcome speech, but usually, participants create the scheduling of the sessions during a marketplace session taking place at the beginning of each day of the event (saturday morning and sunday morning).

Anyone who wants to initiate a topic can claim a time slot in the agenda.

What is the schedule?

#play14 take course over a whole weekend.

Friday starts around 6 P.M. with some ice breakers and warm up games, and then a nice get-to-know-each-other dinner.

On Saturday, we start around 9 A.M. with the marketplace. Then, the sessions start. Lunch is usually served around 1 P.M. and a short debrief will take place at the end of the day, around 6 P.M.. Then it’s pizza & beer time.

On Sunday, the rhythm is almost the same except that we finish a little bit earlier because some people need to catch a flight and get back home.

What to expect when attending?

Who should attend?

Anyone who is using (or is willing to use) side activities in order to:

–    Improve the learning experience while teaching

–    Be more creative

• Be more communicative and receptive
• Spread new ideas in a group or an company
• More generally, try to change behaviours or some cultural aspects of a group of people

How will we achieve our goals?

We propose you to gather with like-minded people on a unconference format. This means no slideshows, no rockstar sessions in push mode, but collaborative sessions where people get the opportunity to learn and practice but also discuss and challenge.

So, bring the materials you need to organize and facilitate the learning activities you already know in order to share them actively with your peers in a learning-by-doing and collaborative mindset.

About the language: English will be used in all general communications, but we would like to let the session leaders decide which language to use in their session.

How should I behave when I am there?

Here is the #play14 code of conduct

– Thy shall always be open minded and ready to listen and learn from others

– Thy shall feel free to propose, experiment and explain what you have in mind

– Thy shall not high-jack, sabotage or ruin the learning experience of other people

– Thy shall behave appropriately and act as a decent human being

– Thy shall be ready to get serious fun and good laughs, and should not be shy about that

Where is it taking place?

In the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at Technoport – Belval

Technoport – Belval is an amazing place. Those who already have been at #play14 know about it.

It is at the same time a Startup Incubator, a Coworking Space and a FabLab.

If you are interested in joining us for this first edition in Luxembourg? Feel free to register on http://luxembourg.play14.org