One of our partners, the Student Youth Network, is holding a Media Learning Week from August 24 – 28 at the State Library of Victoria.  Sessions are free, but bookings are essential.

In SYN’s own words:

SYN Media Learning Week is underway next week!!

We will be hosting a week-long series of Free Teacher Professional events at The State Library of Victoria.

One of the highlights of SYN Media Learning Week will be the Keynote Presentation by Mark Pesce.  Known internationally as the man who fused virtual reality with the World Wide Web to invent VRML, Mark Pesce has been exploring the frontiers of media and technology for a quarter of a century.
Mark Pesce will be speaking about the “four domains” of importance to educators in the 21st century: Constructivism, Sharing, Mobile and Digital Citizenship.

This presentation is an amazing opportunity for teachers to experience the knowledge of Mark Pesce in person.

There are still spaces available in this session, Thursday August 27 1:30 – 2:30 pm and it is FREE!

Book online http://www.eventbrite.com/event/373156120 or email training@syn.org.au

Our program page has been updated with all of our sessions – including some new ones – and the times they’ll be happening at.  All of this info will also be available in our printed program – which I’ve just seen, and looks brilliant.

Our speakers page has also been updated with the bios of some newly confirmed speakers – currently, we have 41 developers, educators, artists, writers, journalists, bloggers, film-makers, cross-media experts, and students taking part across the two days.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been beavering away behind the scenes to put together our program, and while we’re not quite ready to make a full announcement yet. we did want to give you a bit of a taster of what you can expect on August 14 & 15th.

The Village Roadshow Theatrette is where we’ll be hosting our lecture / panel sessions.  We want to make these a little bit longer than in previous years to give the speakers more time and also to give the audicnce more time to ask questions.

Planned sessions include:

• The mainstream versus the independent sector
• Transitioning into indie developlement
• Diversity in the industry
• Where games development will be in the next 5 years

The Seminar rooms at the State Library will be where we hold our smaller, more focused workshops:

• Procedural content creation
• Managing small teams
• Running a team using agile
• Audio design
• Level design
• Programing for artists
• Writing for games

Lastly, the Experimedia space will house our public program, incuding demos of games from indie developers and a series of panels devoted to exposing a broader audience to what we do as developers:

• Games and screen culture
• A game design challenge
• The role of education and development
• Where to find free and open source development tools

Over the next week, we’ll be confirming with our speakers – drawn from diverse backgrounds including professional and indie developers, educators, cross-platform creatives, film makers, and writers – and filling in the detail.

Our venue partner, the State Library of Victoria, is having a gaming night on Friday 17th July.

Xperience XBOX

FRI 17 JULY, 6.30 – 9PM

Come in and experience some of the best XBOX 360 games with an evening of modern, multiplayer, and online XBOX 360 games, such as Guitar Hero: World Tour, Halo 3, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Street Fighter IV, and Sacred 2. There’ll also be giveaways and opportunities to win major prizes*, including an XBOX 360 & games pack. All funds raised on the night will be going to benefit the Royal Children’s Hospital. So engage with XBOX 360 gaming and help others at the same time! Presented in association with OzBoxLive.

Where: Experimedia at the State Library of Victoria

Cost: FREE [Bookings required] *$5 payable per ticket for the prize raffle

Phone: 03 8664 7099
Email: bookings@slv.vic.gov.au
Online (via Eventbrite): http://xperiencexbox.eventbrite.com

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Freeplay 2009 took place at the State Library of Victoria on August 14 & 15.  Over 200 people came along to our panel, lecture, and workshop programme taking place in the Village Roadshow Theatrette and Seminar rooms, hearing from over 50 speakers including developers, educators, students, programmers, artists, film-makers, and cross-media practitioners.

For the first time, Freeplay held a public expo program that took place in the Experimedia room at the State Library.  Over 300 people had the chance to play locally produced independent and professional games, take part in discussions about games and the broader gaming culture, and workshop their own ideas in a game design challenge run by Infinite Interactive.

Our international speaker, Pteri Purho, drew large crowds to talk about not only his process for creating games, but also the role of creativity in creation and play, and his return in our Freeplay Greatest Hits Panel saw him create rag-doll peggle in under 5 minutes.

In the wake of Freeplay, we’re hoping to continue to build the creative community, supporting independent developers through discussion spaces and events, and putting together our plans for 2010.

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