Hello, and welcome to the Playful Learning Day 2 Program in a Pod, an audio companion to the Playful Learning Conference 2026 program.
We'll be speaking with the speakers, parlaying with the presenters, and conferring with the keynotes to get a vibe for what to expect from this year's conference.
I'm Mike Collins, Senior Learning Designer at the Open University, Pedagogic Podcaster at Pedagodzilla.com, and pastry enthusiast.
Yeah.
This year, Playful Learning is at the University of Sussex in Brighton.
The theme is Into the Woods.
And by this point, you may have indeed already ventured into them, surrounded as you are by the South Downs National Park.
You may also have squared off against the seagull, but that's a less relaxing image.
Focus instead on the lovely woods.
The cheeky squirrels.
Simon the badger in his little waistcoat.
Look.
He's checking the time on a tidy pocket watch.
Think not of the glint of bastardry in the eye of the seagull.
Have you ever seen that video of one swallowing a rabbit?
Horrifying.
But back to the conference.
The day starts at 8am.
Those staying on campus will be able to have a breakfast, participate in an optional campus run, or go forest bathing, a slow, mindful walk where curiosity is the destination.
And possibly a forest.
There is advanced sign-up required for this as space is unlimited.
The day gets into full swing at 9.30 in the terrace room.
Where the conference organizers will be welcoming you to day two.
From this point onwards throughout Thursday, you'll be able to access these Spotlight drop-in sessions.
The first of these is Lego Serious Play in HE, presented by Susanna Quincy.
So
it's gonna be an informal networking session.
So I don't serendipitous, but that means I haven't done much.
I so I've been oh
series play facilitator for probably eight years or so and the method is is great but it's very located in kind of business and there's a lot of people who are Lego series play
facilitators in HE and I know that I gained so much from talking to other people about what they're doing in their own practice.
So I thought it would be really nice if we could just do something at the conference where people could just rock up with their ideas, their problems, challenges, anything that's
been working well, less well.
And have a bit of the kind of hive mind of Lego series play practitioners in HE, get together, share ideas and potentially create a network.
I don't think there is one, but if there is one, great.
Then come along and and tell me about it.
That's such a lovely idea.
And also just what a wonderful I what a wonderful matching of Lego series plates.
Just like okay, let's just keep our hands occupied and we can have a natter.
It's the same thing of kind of th those knitting groups, isn't it?
Nobody's there for the knitting.
It's all about the goth.
Exactly, exactly that.
So yeah, and I just um I thought it would just be a good good opportunity to to get together.
It's something that I've wanted to do for ages and have been talking about it and I was like, right, this year I should actually put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and and
get my abstract in to to run it.
To brick even, yeah, exactly.
Brick that's that that could have been a a title for your thing.
Brick to brick there goes series playing H E.
Too late to change it now.
Maybe we'll subheading like yeah.
Marvelous.
And of course you've got at Playful Learning, I think quite a quite a good representative slice of other sort of Lego series play facilitators.
So is this open to everybody at the conference?
Yes, anybody can come along.
And I think also so don't feel because also I think some people are trained Lego series play facilitators, other people aren't.
They might have kind of just been using Lego or they might be really interested in becoming a an actual trainer.
So anybody can can rock up and and I will talk all day about how brilliant I think Lego series play is.
So I'll just bore everybody with that.
So yeah, any anybody if you've got any interest in Lego and want to do a bit of building, then please come along.
Fantastic.
and just obviously you and I know what we're talking about with Lego Serious Play.
We may have some people coming to the conference who've never encountered it before.
Real quick, can you just let us know what Lego Serious Play is?
Yeah, it's a methodology um designed in cab collaboration with Lego to help with strategic thinking, team building, strategizing, problem solving, where you basically w go through a
series of exercises and build models in relation to that sounds a bit boring, but it's it's very serious.
But it's it's fantastic about understanding different perspectives, being really inclusive, really getting down to thinking differently and expressing often ideas that you
have in your mind.
that you just can't really articulate, but you can do that through the bricks and the building.
So you said it was developed in collaboration with Lego.
Do you feel it's suspicious at all that Lego think the solution to things is more Lego?
And that if perhaps you'd done it in collaboration with IKEA, the solution might have been fucking furniture.
Do you know Ikea did do a Lego sets at one point as well?
Did they?
Yeah, they did.
They did.
They did a whole set of boxes and some some individual Lego sets.
I might have had to do a special trip to IKEA to get those.
Um I think it
It's really interesting.
There are special Lego series play kits, of course.
Um, but actually you can use any any Lego.
And I think there's a kind of slightly different perspectives in the community about whether you need to be kind of purist Lego series play using the bits or whether you can
actually
There's elitism in the Lego series play community.
I love this.
I love this so much.
Did diversity of perspectives are
Yeah.
I just I'd I'd love the idea of the really snooty person being like, Excuse me, I think you'll find that isn't within the standard facilitator playset.
That has a rocket ship on it.
You the Lego series playsets have some very cool bricks in them.
I have to keep them away from my kids.
Special Lego.
So I'm like, but Mom, I have a Lego.
That's so wonderful.
I love it.
Like I really want to come now and just see if any kind of big arguments break out.
Um and obviously to to participate in the networking as well.
Throwing Lego bricks at each other.
Thank you so much, Susanna.
Really looking forward to that session.
So I say session, spotlight.
So it's running throughout throughout the third.
So I think it's gonna be a bit of an informal dropping, as I say.
It's an evolving idea at the moment.
But yes, there'll be some there'll be Lego, there'll be chat, uh, and there'll be hopefully, yeah, lots of good idea sharing.
That sounds fabulous.
I can't wait for it.
So I have just one more question for you before I let you go.
Uh which is, if you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
I I love this.
I would be h uh and uh for the let the mother tree in
in the forest and I'd be hugging that to come.
Carl Edgerton presents our other spotlight drop-in session throughout Thursday.
The Virtues of Getting Lost and Then Getting Found Again.
Mapmaking for Philosophers.
So uh the idea of this session is kind of picking up on something that I've noticed is difficulty for um students, which is with easy availability of internet information,
especially in the age of emerging LLMs giving access to to seemingly good summaries of things, um, students uh really are struggling with the idea of uh engaging with the
literature and not really being sure what's going on.
um and spending a little bit of time just kind of wrestling their way through stuff and, you know, seeing if they want to find a reference they're gonna follow and pursue this
line or that line and kind of taking that that independent approach.
and I started to think about it with reference to first of all, kind of concept maps and the way that people think about that in various parts of um kind of pedagogical research.
But then I moved on to think about real maps.
And I thought
um it would be fun to have a playful way of exploring the idea of people actually mapping out spaces that they are exploring.
Um so the idea for this session is uh yeah a kind of a spotlight drop-in session um which will kind of have some playful map making activities.
So I want to have I'm gonna there's gonna have there's going to be one uh version which is just pure map making.
So there's gonna be just a bunch of prompts
That allow people to kind of creatively, playfully create maps, giving some guidance.
Um, where there'll be the opportunity to see how if you're given different prompts, different things that might be in your vicinity, you might come up with slightly different
maps, but still an overall kind of shape of the landscape that is familiar to everyone who's doing it.
and then I'm going to or I want people to explore linking that into uh an example that's more subject focused, where
The same activity is going on.
There's still a kind of physical map going on, but it's going to be anchored in the idea that the locations are to do with philosophers and arguments and concepts they're working
with.
Um so kind of not going straight back into the space of concept maps, kind of keeping that idea that I'm mapping out a landscape where I don't know where I am and I'm gonna find my
way and start to feel more comfortable as time goes on.
So use a map as tool to explore um unfamiliar space as opposed to to define a familiar space.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um and and you know, to to potentially get across the idea that, you know, there might be more than one route through the space you're working with, you know, more than one way of
getting from point A to point B.
Carl, this I've been asking everybody this question and it seems extra apt with you.
If you were to get lost in the woods.
Where would we find you and what would you be doing?
Oh, that is uh very good question.
You would probably find me um as high as I could get in the most climbable tree.
Um, because I do I do like climbing.
Um I do a bit of climbing in my spare time when I can find the time.
Um and I've liked it since I was a little kid and I used to get stuck up trees and come shouting for my parents to help me down.
but I guess it's also uh a useful thing to do if you're if you're lost, you know, get yourself up uh
kind of high and have a look around um see if you can figure out where you are.
my my mind always goes to the moment in the the book The Hobbit where Bilbo climbs up to the highest tree in the forest to to find his way.
I don't know why that idea left into my mind uh just there, but it is, you know, a fun moment to think of and hopefully I'll be doing doing that sort of thing.
And as with day one, Emma Gillasby, David Collett, and Rochelle Rawlinson will be running their Encounters with the creatures of the SOTL Labyrinth Game.
SOTLE of course being scholarship of teaching and learning, and not a sound you make when you swallow something sideways.
Now to the day's parallel sessions.
10 a.m.
Gallery Room 2.
Annette Kern presents flood walls or candy bars, making climate choices under uncertainty, in which participants will play and reflect on an interactive simulation game focused on
climate adaptation under uncertainty.
The game explores the challenge faced by communities, regions, and countries when making investment decisions in climate adaptation, while future climate outcomes remain
uncertain, even when probabilities are known.
10 a.m.
Gallery Room 1 Anna Carter, Anna Henrieks, Dan Jackson, William Ivacude, Lauren Scott, Shelley Knotts, Ian Robson, and Nicola Whitten present AI Aboard, Learning Ethics Through
Uncomfortable Play.
AI aboard is a game to start thinking about a different way.
Uh it's based on the trolley game, so where you have to choose a different route um and basically decide who to kill.
Um but instead of people
instead of people will be killing different types of AI.
Um so the whole point of the game is to you have the conductor um who is there um as AI itself.
Um you are arguing in opposing teams about the type of AI use, the positives, the negatives, and then at the end the AI decides who survives and who does not survive.
So it was all about discomfort and
Each card has like the positive aspects of the AI, but also the negative aspects.
Um, and the whole point around it was around trying to kind of make people actually think about positives and the negatives of AI.
A lot of the time, I think in AI, it's all negative, negative, negative in the media, but some of it has really good things that it does and some things are obviously really bad.
So that's the general gist.
That's wonderful.
I mean, I've heard it described previously as a very polarizing space where there's an enormous amount of opinion and not an enormous amount of information.
Um also I've never heard it described as the trolley game before.
I've heard it described as the trolley problem, but you're very much making it sound like a wonderful pastime to choose what gory mess to make under the the front of a motorised
trolley.
So it's a debate card game.
What are you expecting from people who come to the session?
What should they expect when they step in?
Yes, lightweight facilitated.
You can come in in groups or individuals.
Um, everything will be set up.
It's like it's a setboard game with cards.
Um, so you can be seated or stood.
Um, we'll pass those cards around.
You'll also um get a bit of role play time.
So we've got some cards for each side so that you get the perspective of what side you're arguing from.
Um, and we have that as well.
So interactive.
um fun and a little bit role play.
So if you have an alter ego you really want to try out, then this is perfect session.
any of your alter ego is an AI.
That's um I'd like to I mean I'd I'd like to think I've I've I'm clawed, but I've got a horrible feeling I'm actually Microsoft co pilot.
I'm just, you know
Oh no.
Hello.
I can see your I'm not quite sure if it's writing an email or making a spreadsheet, but um I can't read it, but I can suggest a recipe for you.
Oh bless it.
It's so it's so useless.
It's rubbish.
If you met an evil wizard in the forest, what woodland critter would you like him to transform you into?
I would like to turn into a gnome.
uh Gnomes.
I'm just obsessed with gnomes.
I have so many gnomes in my garden, it's embarrassing.
ten AM The Terrace Room Sarah Pavey, Vicky Daphne Hendo, Malcolm Murray, Jen Bright, Joe McLeod Ira Day, Manisha Mort and Faye Cole present Fly in or Flock Off Getting Lost in
Playful Game Design.
Sorry, I just had to cover my chips there for a second.
I could felt threatened.
Um so everybody, that that was everybody.
That was Malcolm, Manisha, Sarah, and Vicky.
who are presenting the session fly in or flock off.
What can you tell us about it?
So we have actually uh been together for the last year's conference also in Brighton with the Playful Learning Association.
And uh we went to this session that was called the world fastest game GM ever created and the fabulous host of that um workshop with Joe and he was really wondering if you can
actually manage to do a game in forty five minutes.
And we actually did.
It was playable after the time we left the uh the workshop and since then we have been uh making a lot of iteration on it.
And now I will tell you a little bit about the game.
It's actually seagulls versus humans beings and and the Brighton area or Brighton here is actually in the inspiration for it.
Following on from that, so you summed it up.
It's seagulls versus humans.
We were inspired by being in Brighton and being surrounded by all the things Brighton-based.
And in the on the surface, I guess what we wanted to say is on the surface is a bit of a chaotic game board and it's about seagulls stealing chips, but really underneath it's
about people, power, and unpredictable play as well.
Because the whole purpose of this game is that there isn't really any control that's
Any one person or team can have.
So it's all about unpredictability and how people talk to each other, how people strategize with that in mind as well.
And I would say that we took it a bit further because after we finished our session, we actually took it to the board game evening last year at Playful Learning.
And judging by the amount of noise that came out of our session, we think it was one of the most successful parts of the evening.
And we were about the last people in the building as well.
it's got quite an interesting mechanic because each round s so players take turns, but you don't know until you roll the dice whether you're going to be moving the seagull character
or the people.
And you have a team, but you can actually therefore act to try and forward the aims of your team or thwart uh the aims of the opposition.
And so you're you can have these amazing complicated plans uh and one player the next player can just change things by moving your character into completely the wrong place.
So
It's fairly simple rules, although we have been through about fifteen iterations of them, tr trying to refine them and explain them more clearly.
And I think one of the things we want to do at the playful learning session is just share those experiences and going from just the idea of quickly creating a game that you're
going to throw away to thinking, no, hold on a minute, there's something here that we think is actually quite fun.
Could we do more with it?
And Joe has been really good at guiding us and
and talking us through the various stages to see whether we could actually, you know, make a game that we could put into some form of production and sell.
And Vicky has been playtesting it to death and taking it around various European games events to try and raise a bit of interest.
What will participants be coming and playing the game?
Are we talking a high energy game or is it a nice sort of sit down and have a cup of tea game?
So you were still in the process of putting it together at the moment, but it is very much focused on the gameplay itself because we are still in the process of refining this game,
even though it's gone through lots of testing and you know being played by lots of different people.
So we very much want participants to be part of the game and to a part of refining it as well.
Um so it is very much a not a watching session, it's a get a stuck in and um give us your thoughts on this game as well.
Um and we are wanting it to be fast paced, a bit unpredictable, learning as we go along.
Like Marco mentioned, it's not a very difficult game to play.
So we're wanting people to master it and to basically just throw themselves into it and to m immerse themselves into the experience.
And we can learn from watching other people play the game as well, as much as what they're learning whilst playing together in a group of people that they may not know before.
So it's all part of just that k kind of chaotic feel really.
I mean that's my angle from it, I'm sure.
I I would say that it's the sort of game where you're not going to be able to sit down and have a nice cup of coffee.
In fact, if you did bring your coffee or your tea in there, I think you would have to guard it with your life because the excitement was so much that there's a lot of physical
activity around it and you know, you might be in danger of scalding somebody um because it accidentally goes flying through the air as people get enthused.
Well that's the first you know what, that's the first one of these that's come with a health warning.
Everybody and this is the first time I've had four people on a call, so this may go a bit strange, but let's see how it goes.
If you were to disappear into the woods, where I would find you and what you would be doing.
Malcolm, can we start with you?
I think you'd find me up a tree hiding from the gruffalo.
I
I like food and foraging and the idea of it.
So you probably find me collecting sticks to try and uh build a fire and collect some mushrooms if there are any, to see what I can make rough and ready.
Fantastic.
Sarah.
I'd be venturing into the wood dressed as little red riding hood with a basket with a lot of fake food in it that I would throw at any errant seagulls that were hovering about like
Malcolm in a seagull costume.
Vicki, I think I've already got one for you, haven't I?
So would you like
But this would be a different answer because last time I I was a swirl, but this time I'm a seagull.
So I'm not lost in the wood at all.
I'm out on Brighton Pierce gathering chips around.
10.45 a.m.
A short break.
Have a lovely biscuit.
Please.
Yeah.
11am Gallery Room 2 Richard Treves presents The Grid using physical floor activities to enhance learning.
Yeah.
So this comes out of my discovery that silly things I'd been doing in teaching for years uh were properly called embodied learning.
So I've been trying to keep people going at the end of um school outreach days and things like that by getting them to do strange physical things and I discovered that actually
it's deeply embedded with theory, um, that these help people learn and help people remember.
Uh so I'm I was quite excited to find that and I have been using bits and pieces like the grid uh for years on and off.
Um I'm bringing a couple of things.
First of all, I'm gonna try and explore I d I think this really suits STEM because uh g STEM is naturally graphical in sort of subject manager science, technology, and
engineering and maths.
but I I think
You can get diagrams into everything.
So I'm gonna try and do some English literature.
Um and the main idea is in the kind of way that you would show a graphic, we stick a graphic on the floor in really big size, and then you get people to make decisions and
show relationships uh and wander around, and then as the tutor I I I wander around and talk to people and have conversations with.
about the about their choices and that's where the teaching unfolds.
and I recently did a point of science talk where I got them all doing Mexican waves and the feedback from that was excellent.
I was I was I was showing them how earthquakes work by getting them to do Mexican waves and and strange Mexican waves and and they really enjoyed it and they said it's very
playful.
so I was pleased about that.
So it's those sort of techniques.
Fantastic.
So what are you going to be expecting of uh attendees?
So they will be
the way I'm gonna do it is the way I uh approached last year's session, if anyone came to that, is I'm going to be enrolled, we'll go through some teaching examples and and they
will play students and then I'll keep on stopping the action and say, Right, I am now doing this for these reasons and sort of unpack um the pedagogical reasons that I'm making
choices and doing certain things.
uh and the approach and uh I I might I'm in this for the learning as well.
Um I'm I'm quite early in quite a lot of these sort of things, so people's opinions and feedback about what they think about the techniques and whether they work and how they
could be improved, I'd be really interested to hear what people say about it.
That sounds fantastic.
And it's lovely to have some playful approaches being embedded in STEM subjects as well, 'cause I know that's always a really tricky fit for people to kind of to to work that out.
embodied learning.
Do you know there's a lot of people been talking about embodied learning?
I'm not sure I know entirely what it is.
How what would how would you describe embodied learning?
There are wonderful examples of this is is science has been looking at the brain far more and discovering that the old line, I think therefore I am, as in the only thing I can
trust is me being me, my brain, which naturally separates you from your body.
is an interesting philosophical position to hold, but it's not true.
I i if people are thinking with their bodies.
So for example
There's an experiment where they got people to do maths, school kids to do maths, and some of them were allowed to gesture and some of them weren't.
And the ones that gestured did significantly better.
Oh that's so interesting.
Which i is fascinating.
And and and a one that Mark Childs told me the other day, which I also love, is um it's not about learning, but judges making judgments are more lenient if they're holding a hot
cup of tea or coffee.
Which just tells you is our our bodies are influencing us and we are thinking with our bodies all the time.
Now people may think, No, I'm a brain and I kinda drive this fleshy machine which does the thing I want.
That's your perception, your perception of how you work.
I I talk about the blind spot and people don't know where their blind spot is.
Is is is an example of our brains do stuff for us and we don't know.
So your perception i it is just it helps you get through the day and and and do whatever y you do.
But science is showing us that real really we are thinking with our bodies.
and the other really good example, I'm I'm from a geographical, geological background, is it
is field work and they stuck people at the bottom of the ocean and taught them to remember just lines of words and then they tested some of them at the bottom of the ocean and some
of them back on land and the ones they s tested at the bottom of the ocean with all the gear, the scuba gear stuff, did better.
And it's about if you're taught in an environment, you will naturally do better in an environment which tells you where your body is.
is really important.
So Richard, one more question for you, which is if you disappeared into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
what would I be doing?
Um, I would be scurrying around looking for a rock.
Because deep down what I really love is I'm a geologist.
Dude, geology.
I would I would be looking for a rock.
And famously, I love this story.
Physics, everything's been worked out in nineteen ten, relativity, and no one can understand it.
It's incredibly complicated.
Um, geology's still going on.
We're still finding things out.
There is there's a guy in the nineteen fifties, a school kid, found a fossil.
In Pre-Cambrian rocks, you're not supposed to get fossils in Pre-Cambrian rocks.
And his teacher said it it can't be.
We don't get fossils in Precambrian rocks.
So he sa he told his dad, who is a university lecturer, and lo and behold, it is a pre-Cambrian fossil, and it's in um one of the museums in the East Midlands now.
So go into the woods, find some rocks.
Yeah.
11am Outdoors Matthew Carney presents Nature Abhors a Vacuum, Sustainability Through Connection, a session which playfully explores the importance of connectedness in
educational sustainable development through the metaphor of Woodlands.
Yeah.
11 a.m.
The Terrace Room Emma Gallaspi, Emma Derbyshire, Abby Jones, Alisa Dollard and Emma Gallaspi present What to Do When They Don't Want to Play.
Bringing Playful Learning to the Unconverted Many.
Our approach to engaging skeptical facilitators.
This came out of us having conversations about having facilitators that either don't buy in to our playful learning strategies or who have been timetabled to teach and it wouldn't
necessarily be something that they would choose to facilitate.
And we realised that success and sustainability of these types of sessions relies so heavily on having
converted facilitators who really buy in to to what we're doing.
So this all stemmed from us realizing that we're probably not the only people who've struggled with facilitators who don't want to play or think that they can't play.
And what what could we do about it?
So we wanted to in this workshop sort of share some of our experiences with people, share some of our activities that we use
with our own facilitators when we're doing a bit of training and gentle encouragement that actually it is wonderful to come and join the chaos as they perceive it.
Um so we're gonna be in this workshop we're gonna be taking you through some of the the playful strategies that we use, um, some of our findings, what's worked well, um, how
we've overcome some of the challenges of the the reluctant facilitator.
And um just generally
hoping that we give people some ideas for for how to bring more people into this wonderful world of playful learning.
I mean, that sounds fabulous.
I mean, also though, it sounds quite intimidating.
I c I can't imagine giving a facilitator who's I I suppose not expecting it or hasn't previously engaged with it something playful to do.
Um, so what do you do with that?
How do you how do you handle that?
Or is this the whole kind of is this the whole session?
Yeah, I mean I think that's a big part of it.
And what we realized uh sort of early on was that w there are a number of barriers, especially as being um people involved in interprofessional learning.
And often we can focus on trying to ensure that the students are are doing well in the session or trying to get them to see the insight and the value.
But what we realise is actually there's two sides of this that we have to also have our colleagues on board and often
it's safety in what you know and if it's something that you don't know, that can often cause a lot of fear.
And I think it's recognizing that fear and how do you overcome that?
Because actually once you do get that buy-in, what we find is that actually it spreads and it spreads like wildfire.
Actually more people are more willing to try new things and do things slightly differently, especially when they start to see the benefits and the outcomes with our
students.
That sounds great.
So what are people going to be um doing in the session itself?
Yeah, so we're gonna be using some imagery to get facilitators to to think about speaking about emotions.
So using that imagery for them to tell us how they're feeling basically.
which allows that kind of vulnerability to sort of bubble to the surface and then we can have those those uncomfortable sort of conversations and and put people's fears um aside
by reassuring them.
Then
There'll be looking at some other activities where we try to demonstrate by sort of spot the difference and using that kind of similarity and differences to sort of really just
get them to understand that what they bring to f facilitation actually is helpful and isn't that different just because we're doing playful learning.
So we're just gently coaxing people along.
And there'll be some other other sort of games and and
creative approaches with then a bit of time for reflection at the end um for how people might take this away and use it in their context.
I mean, that sounds marvellous.
And also not what I was expecting, which was something like you cracking the whip and saying, No, it's mandatory fun for all.
Get get out there and enjoy yourselves.
Meh So yes, that sounds that sounds brilliant.
Um and I've already asked you my normal icebreaker question.
So I'm gonna ask you a stupid different question, which is if you could be any woodland critter, what would it be?
I would like to be a falcon, just so I can fly and go wherever I want to go.
Also quite like to be a predator.
I was gonna say, I I was like, Do you do you just have it out for voles?
Is that what it is?
You're like voles, they think they're so great.
I d I don't I don't want anything attacking me.
Top of the food chain me.
I feel like this is probing deep into our psyche.
Um I'm gonna go for something like a butterfly for the fabulous outfits.
Emma's always in a fabulous outfit though.
12 o'clock, the Terrace Room.
Emma Gillasby, Abby Jones, Emma Derbyshire, Steve Seymour, Anne Herbston, and Amy Edward Smith present Guardians of the Learning Forest, Growing into Professional Education
Together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Our background is higher education.
We work across health and social care courses.
There are over twenty plus courses that we currently work with.
And our session is mainly looking at how do you get over 20 courses together in order to create interprofessional activities and sessions where students can learn not only
alongside each other but about each other and from each other.
Um and how do you do that with professions that might not be the same as your professions or what?
what you might think are important.
Um, so there's some lessons learned definitely in our session around um kind of those issues that you have to overcome, the things that you have to accept and really building
those collaborations across peer-to-peer um and what that looks like in practice.
Um by no means an easy feat for our institution.
It's something that we've grown to do.
And um I mean I think we have over twenty two members of staff that are key to that.
Plus more staff that engage with the sessions.
I think I want to say over 3,000 students that have engaged this academic year, 70 plus sessions.
So we're really going to talk through a little bit about what that looks like, em trials, tribulations, and all.
But also give those attending our workshop opportunities to do different types of activities and games that we use in our own sessions to bring that learning to life.
And
allow our students to shine in their skill set, but also demonstrate why working collaboratively, especially in health and social care, is so important.
Um there's a lot of learning that can come out of play, which um I think me and my colleagues would agree with.
And it's not just the students that are learning through that process.
We are as well in our many um our own interprofessional activities that we throw amongst our staff teams as well.
Um so yeah, that's what
I think our session's gonna look like.
It's fantastic.
So what's it gonna look like from attendee perspective?
Because I looked at through the abstract, uh, and you've it looks like you've got all sorts, you've got a real pick and mix.
I see escape rooms, puzzle games, challenges.
Um so yeah, what's um yeah, what's it gonna look like for attendees?
So at first we battled with how do we show seventy sessions in such a small sh period of time.
But again, we don't want this to be us talking either.
We want people to learn that themselves.
So what we've done is we've tried to pull out some highlights and key themes from the seventy and key activities and smaller games that are in each of those sessions.
And we're gonna have um those
out and available to attendees to play themselves and rotate around five key areas for us.
In the hope that they'll see and start to demonstrate amongst each other what our students do too.
Very much hoping that the actual doing will demonstrate our point.
So as little time talking about our process and more hands-on allowing people to play and have a wander around and do some of that learning for themselves.
I that sounds like a marvellous analogue for that discipl interdisciplinary um approach.
Just 'cause you you're gonna have diverse people from diverse professional backgrounds.
I have just one more question for you, which is if you were to go missing in the woods go missing, no, disappear.
Good grief.
Um, Stevie, if you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
Glad that you changed the terminology because as you've said missing, I'd say ask Abby Jones first.
Ask Abby Jones where I am.
But probably wandering around, thinking to myself, how did I get here?
Where am I?
Because I tend to just wander.
So I just you probably find me a little bit lost and confused, like what am I doing
Where am I?
12 o'clock, gallery room two.
Rory Parkinson presents Cards for Social Policy, a playful approach to teaching health policy.
So Rory, tell me about your session Cards for Social Policy.
I it's better for me to just give a general out overview of who I am.
And I work for a medical school at University of of Lancashire.
I'm one of the module leads who really focuses on behavioural and social sciences.
That's kind of my through part of our delivery, we have to think about social policy, social health policy and why is that important to really, you know, I guess f for medical
students but also then the wider health and wider population.
I want you to really think
if you said to any student in whatever context like today's session we're going talk about uh legislation, we're talking about political ideologies and social policy.
Think about that.
Eyes are rolling to the back of the head.
Yeah, they have switched off, you have lost them.
Um and
I I love it.
I love political idea.
I love politics.
I love social policy.
I'm a sociologist.
So I'm thinking, well, how can I get students to interact and engage in this subject in a playful, fun, engaging manner to help with um, you know, everything from their assessment
to memory tension or of you know of the knowledge, um, but also as well about the application to real life situation um and how them as medical students can they navigate
this this world.
Played a few
card games.
Um I'm a bit of a game myself and I'm rooted in things like T T RPG, so tabletop role-playing games or things like Duny.
Dragons.
You'll get on with Laura Mitchell if you've not met her already.
I recognize that name.
Al also video games, um RPG video games, all that sort of stuff.
I think a gamified and playful approach to learning is extremely um impactful um and it can create some really good learning experiences and for students.
So the card game um is based on um a couple of different games.
So Cards Against Humanity, some of you may already know about, um slash another game that you might not heard called Policy Odyssey.
It's by Simple Politics.
Simple Politics is a social media site run by a gentleman called Tatan.
Uh have referenced previous um and he created a game um where basically there's like problems and solutions.
And I really like this this essence of these problems and solutions, but I also like the um kind of selecting cards and choosing cards and debating from of cards in humanity.
Sort of merged them together.
And I created a card game that
There are several problems and students pick the problems.
We hand out five solution cards and they've got to generally debate.
Um, so for example, I have a card here called um insecure jobs.
lack of job security and employment benefits result in financial stress, health insecurity for workers.
Now, students will be given five cards each, um, solution cards.
For example, they may pick something.
Uh active commun uh commuting support, provide incentives for walking, biking, or using public transportation.
What they would have to do though is they may have five different options.
They may choose that one go around.
This is the one I can debate and argue and justify my position on uh the most.
They would do this in around groups of four to five
Students.
And they have this um debate.
Then they would vote at the end has to be democratic about who would have the best option.
Like it.
So, I mean, this is a this is a really interesting setting for it as well, because I'm obviously I'm conscious that um in healthcare at the moment, particularly in the NHS, you
know, politics and ideologies are extra tricky.
How do you find doing that with your students?
Like is is this kind of like a safer way of presenting those sorts of discourses?
It it is grounded in um ideology and and I mean obviously d we haven't got the time here to talk about the construction uh of it, but um the idea was that these solution cards do
have a mix of right, left and centrist ideology and and policy.
Um but also they have a mix of top down policy, so from government downwards and they also have bottom up from community and and low community upwards uh policy.
So there's a mixture there and we do do activities with the game afterwards, isn't just to play the game, have a bit of fun.
And then move on, we then look at some particular questions, such as um, you know, matching some of the cards into particular ideologies and them sort of things.
Um, I do have to have a uh a psychological safety warning at the beginning, um, because some of the cards can to some students seem very terse.
Um, you know, things from even like raising uh the legal edge consent to mandatory um parenting for lower social classes and mandatory parenting classes.
for for lower social economic classes.
So so they're really kind of port the really wild poor things for two, um, you know, billionaires tax.
So, you know, so we've got high regulation, then we've got like no tax at all.
It is everything in a box.
Navigating that with students is is quite interesting because I have quite an interesting demographic of students where we have quite a high amount of international students.
So I always like to learn about their uh home countries um and the politics behind there and
Is it democratic?
Is it um based on a monarchy?
you know how how is that run?
And it's just creating a safe space to have them conversations and
kind of abstract the the person from the the situation.
Rory, if you were to disappear into the woods yourself, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
disappeared into the woods.
I would be in a n you know, n nice kind of hut somewhere.
Um I probably will have constructed uh a badminton net.
played badminton.
Uh hopefully finding some sort of fellow sportsman um somewhere to to to play w uh badminton with me.
Um I'll probably also be trying to figure out a way of of of how can I connect back to the internet because um
I I sort of live my life slightly uh online.
but no I I would be quite happy, uh relaxing.
My bottom.
12 o'clock Outdoors Martina Deal presents A Walk Through the Woods, embodying readiness for play in spaces of resistance, through grounding, connection and reflection.
Say Martina, tell us about your session A Walk Through the Woods.
Is is is this like a Ron Sil thing?
Is it a
It is so I went to um to the Fly for Learning conference a f a couple of years ago and I realised there were trees outside and then obviously with the theme now being into the
woods, I thought how can I use those trees to my advantage in the hope that they are still there?
I don't know.
Yeah, sometimes a disaster.
Some someone built something on it.
I don't know.
I'm I'm hopeful that the trees are still there.
So so my idea was a a walk through the woods and um have a look at the trees and um think thinking about different themes at ever each each tree that we come across on our walk.
and that the first tree thinking about grounding.
So something I find in my own workshops and in
when I deliver and design them is the the idea of grounding.
It's something we often forget.
I think as academics, we're all often very much in our heads um and don't think about the body and how that's connected to giving ourselves permission to play and to try new
things.
Um so we'll first do uh a little grounding activity that I have from centered riding.
So I'm actually a horse rider in my my spare time.
And uh
is a horse like a requirement for this?
Do you need to bring a horse or one of those sticks with a horse head on?
I wish it wasn't so far away and I could have taken my horses with me.
I could have made up a part of it.
Um but the the approach I use with my horse riding is uh centered riding and it's thinking about how the how our bodies can help guide the horse and lead and be empowered leaders uh
who are in partnership
And actually in my teaching, I use a lot of those principles from centered riding um because it's a lot about leadership and having clear intent, having a plan, but also being
flexible and being adaptable if the plan doesn't quite work.
So actually I use a lot of those methods um in in my teaching.
And so I thought Playful Learning Conference is a great place to experiment with making bringing a bit more awareness to that, I guess.
Um so we're going to think about the centered riding principles in the session, which is ground, center, breathe, and grow.
and yeah, so the grounding is is the first place where we stop and have a have a think about and have a doing uh activity uh where where we feel more grounded.
Um another thing with centered riding is very much around connection.
So it's connecting in in that case with the horse, but actually, you know, also connecting with the people in front of you and around you.
And a a lot of the centered riding stuff works with partnering exercises and activities to think about who you are as a person.
Are you kind of a natural leader or are you a little bit more like waiting for someone else?
So we're going to do a fun activity there, which is going to allow us everyone to to kind of lead and follow and think about.
what kind of person they are through uh an embodied activity that I don't generally do with students and because it requires some physical contact and that with students I
always find a bit difficult to lead that.
But I thought playful learning it's a it's a nice safe space to be brave and to have the the courage to try these things out.
And then at the final tree we'll we'll have a bit of a reflection time where we think about creative ways of reflecting on our own practice and who we are within our practice
um and also who the people are.
Who we who we teach.
I this sounds marvelous.
What are the spaces of resistance?
What I often find in academia is as I mentioned before is how people are very much in their heads.
And I think asking people or inviting people to connect the mind to the body can bring some resistance around where people aren't open to that.
Uh, but actually I find through some grounding exercises that are very basic and have an immediate result, people start to open up to it.
They're like, I feel a bit different.
This is interesting.
I want to learn more.
Um and
And that kind of breaks through those uh barriers of resistance.
I mean, I've had feedback from students where the where they they said they felt they they didn't think they could ever do anything like that.
And then they did.
They're like, I've never written a poem or I thought I was horrible at writing, and but I've written this poem, and that's because we've started with a bit of grounding and
breathing, and then we go into uh a bit of more creative writing and and thinking about the research in novel ways.
There are these spaces of resistance where we feel like we have to have our academic voice on and wear our academic trousers and be this in this conformed academic environment,
whereas actually we're learning what our own academic voice is and who we are in that academic space to make more sense of the world and to make the world a better place.
And we can only really do that through connecting with the people around us, but also reflecting on ourselves.
Um so it's bringing that.
that connection in there as well between the mind, the body and the other around us.
So interesting.
Embodied learning seems to be a real theme this year at the conference.
I have one more question for you, which is if you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
Ooh.
I would probably be mooching around trying to find little creatures and and just watching them and observing them and seeing what happened.
That's the first time somebody said mooching around.
And it might be the first time I've heard the phrase mooching around.
Mooching years Years.
I love that.
That's marvellous.
Is there a particular woodland creature that you'd seek out or just whatever was going?
I really like sort of squirrels and hedgehogs.
I would I would definitely be on the hunt for a red squirrel.
Um yeah.
Or or woodpeckers because you can always hear them but I can never find where they are.
1245.
Lunch.
A mesé lunch to be precise.
There'll be Moroccan spiced chickpeas, Kishir Turkish bulga salad, Kobez flatbread, Shirazi salad, Lemonese fatouche salad, roast carrot with feta and rose harissa, pickled
red cabbage, chamula chargoed haloumi, and furnuffles.
130.
Having made a messé of the mese, the conference reconvenes in the terrace room to join Alex Mosley as he presents the second keynote.
Higher education is a game, so let's play.
I'm coming to Playful Learning this year as a keynote, which is an interesting role for me, uh having run Playful Learning for many years.
And then last year.
I have, yeah.
And and yet last year, just as a punter, which is great actually, just to uh enjoy it without any responsibility whatsoever.
Uh this year I've got a different type of responsibility, which is to uh pull people into um a keynote session.
Um and as you say, the title is Higher Education
play your game.
Um the idea of the session, I'm got I'm not going to reveal too much today just because I want a few things to be a surprise.
But the whole premise of it is to imagine pushing universities into the future and then have a think about whether applying game principles or play principles into that future is
a better situation for higher education.
Or whether the blend actually is more important.
So it's imagining universities who are who have developed approaches that are derived from games or play as you go into the future.
So how does it feel to be coming to the conference that you have run, managed, stewarded, done basically every job associated with over the last few years as a keynote speaker?
Does it feel higher pressure than actually delivering a thing?
Yeah, I'm I'm really, really nervous actually, because I know from my organizing days that
We selected our keynotes really carefully to make sure that they would give a good solid forty five minutes of entertainment for our groups and also had that and what's great
about Playful Learning, they had that mix of academic and evidence based approach alongside the practical and the kind of creative side as well.
And if you can blend those two together, that makes a perfect keynote.
So that's what I'm trying to do.
I think in my session.
Uh, whether that will work or not, I don't know.
But that's my aim.
So is there gonna be an element of interaction to your session?
Are you gonna be asking anything of the audience?
I am, yes.
The audience will be fully involved.
So I'm gonna ask the audience to to join with me.
Um I'm gonna start with a bit of science fiction, and that's how I'm gonna begin the session.
Uh and I'll be drawing people from the audience into that world uh and getting them to help me create.
a vision of what those worlds could be in the future.
Um I won't say too much more about that, but yeah, it will be it will be very interactive.
So of course, um, so much of what we've had from previous keynote speakers, but also from the sessions is very focused on kind of like the the student and teacher.
And of course your background um and your I'd suggest expertise is very much at kind of institution level.
What are you aiming for people to come away from the keynote with?
Individual
reflections on their own approach to whatever context they're in.
That's what I'm aiming for.
Um so I know that we have a good mix of attendees at Playful Learning.
Some might be teachers, some might be learners, some might be uh practitioners, some might be artists.
Um we have all sorts of people at Playful Learning, which is a great a around its diversity.
It's why it's so wonderful.
But I that's what I want to do.
I want to give everybody
a sense of what I've what I've managed to do in my career.
So yeah, I I started out as a learner, as a teacher, and have and have, you know, ended up in a kind of leadership role, sort of by accident.
But that journey, as I've been helped through that journey by developing uh a playful approach myself.
So I so I call myself a playful leader.
That's what I said when I was interviewed for my current role.
Uh and that's how I run my approach and my team here.
So I'd like to give everybody an opportunity to think about what their approach might be, whether it's game like, whether it's play like, whether it's playful, which is what mine
is, uh, and how that could then help them develop their own approach within their own context.
If you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
I would almost certainly be sitting around a campfire toasting something tasty like marshmallows or
Sausages or something like that.
I do I do like climbing trees, I do like hiding in undergrowth now and again, but the best thing I think about
Make them something else.
230.
Gallery Room 1.
Gary Waughan and Jess Bodman present Off the Beaten Track.
So for for our session, um my um advice to anyone who's who's who's looking to choose a session, if you want one where you can come in, jump in straight away and start playing.
Um ours is the session.
It's gonna be highly interactive and combined uh a team challenge um with another product that we use to uh to provide insight and self awareness.
help but notice um in the abstract for this the words wooden and train.
What what what can you tell me?
These wooden trains will feature.
So we're gonna bring one of our most versatile team challenges actually into the space.
I'm called the train track challenge.
It's used for a multitude of different things from complex fr complex problem solving, creativity, teamwork.
Um we'll be using ours just as a playful piece, if you like, as a way in to um provide a bit of insight on on on ourselves as we as we jump into the competitive nature of
Of what it means to um to take on a team challenge.
Fantastic.
So uh attendees coming along, are they going to be doing the team based kind of activity?
Yeah, pretty quickly there'll be quite a lot of noise in the room.
We're we're within a few minutes.
So our our products are plug and play products.
so they're used by facilitators.
Um we put the box in the middle of the room, we set the big timer at the back of the room, we press go.
We're gonna combine it a little bit with um a set of cards that help us reflect on ourselves.
Um so we could do we'll do a little piece at the start and a little piece at the end of that.
But mainly we'll just be jumping in um and playing with a team full of strangers.
Um VUCA environments.
What's a VUCA environment?
Yeah, very good question.
So common within the leadership space that we operate in is leaders want support with dealing with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Um this challenge um particularly brings brings about quite a bit of complexity that the team need unpack.
If you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
That's a very dangerous question.
probably this pin pr probably den building.
Um with our in my creative world there's lots of banales.
Okay.
230.
The Terrace Room.
Irada Stern presents Building Meaning in Complex Systems through Play, Sustainable Materials, and AI.
In the session, you'll be invited to step off the forest path and enter a playful micro ecosystem where contract law comes to life through colour, tension, and collective making.
2.30.
Outdoors or gallery 2 if raining.
Abby Edgar, Ian Johnston and Laura Barclay present The Forest of Reason.
Experiencing a playful critical thinking game in the woods.
It's actually a session that was designed or is being designed to be an online game.
That is the sort of fruition of it.
Um and it was already already called the Forest of Reason.
So when the Playful Conference had the outdoors theme or into the woods theme, um Abby very kindly sort of coerced us into sort of creating a a real life version.
So what we're sort of doing is trying to reenact what we are planning for the online game in real life.
And it's it's basically taking people through a journey of critical thinking, various different stations where there are different activities to uh figure out.
I don't want to say too much, don't wanna give too much away.
And then we'll all come back together to see if they um are able to to sort of contribute to the criticalitary finds at the end.
I know.
Did did the criticality was that the first thing that happened and then everything else evolved off the back of that?
eh What?
But it's so good.
It was I we was basic 'cause Ian and I were chatting online and we couldn't remember the name of the tree that we had at the end.
Like 'cause this has been in in in progress for a while.
And then we should also give a shout out to our colleague um Joe Larkin as well, who's at Leeds Becket, who was very much part of the um the original um start of this this game.
Um it was it was sort of positioned to get the the idea is that people move through this game and end up at that tree.
Um
And we had different uh stations to get them there.
But we couldn't we couldn't actually remember what we'd called the tree and then yeah, Criticala tree.
Think we we thought it was the tree of knowledge, but Criticality has just got so much of a better ring and in in the online version of the game, um which is still we haven't done
yet, but we're going to be using this and and putting the people that attend the session in in the shoes of people playing it online almost, even though they're in that real world
environment, they'll kind of experience it how they might as an online user.
So if they wanna know more about that, please come along.
Um
And it will help us as as a prototype of what the online game goes on to become.
They'll each get to do one of the so the three zones Laura mentioned in the forest have three different critical thinking skills attached.
So they'll each do one of them and within the time we got and then come together and kind of brief each other on what they've done and solve some some final puzzles between them.
That sounds fabulous.
And also, how have you found adapting an online game for in person, but also outdoors?
It's essentially the opposite in terms of environment.
It r it really is kind of the opposite way where we'd normally think about doing things.
It's actually been really fun and I think really freeing.
It's we um we we were really lucky.
Abby actually flew over to Portsmouth a couple of weeks ago and we spent an entire day in our office making things, physical things that we thought we could take outside with us,
um for people to put their to get their hands on, sort of thing.
Um so it's actually been a really interesting process to do it that way round.
But I suppose what we've lucked so far is the
the other side of actually engaging with the activity, engaging with the script that we have, before we go through the process of um creating the online game.
And we think we've got some ways to do that, um, through Abby's institution.
Um, but it'll be quite interesting to see if we can sort of untangle a few of the knots before we get there um and and do the next stage.
So this is where we'll have some like real life interactions and and try out some of these things in a practical sense to give us
Potentially some feedback on how it might need to be tweaked um before we make the final version once it's online.
Our experience of of educational game design for each of us, including Abby, is mainly um physical games as well.
So we haven't done an on online game before.
Um and this almost we've been talking about the online game for quite a long time and stalled a bit, so actually creating this physical prototype is probably a a great step on
the way.
So we're almost doing it in reverse of converting the online game to a physical game in the end, if that makes sense.
It does, it does.
And you say it's a it's a physical game.
So obviously there are things in video games that you can do physically that are, shall we say, a little bit more energetic in person.
So will you be asking attendees to do double jumps, barrel rolls, kind of those sliding crouch?
Yeah.
There's nothing too physical.
Like it's there's there's no sort of need for participants to sort of run around the campus or like move round the campus once once we've moved from the the main room down to
the outside space that we we use, they will quite literally just be in three groups and go off into three different stations that are very portable and back again.
There's not I mean obviously they want to run around, they are more than welcome to do so, but it's certainly not an obligation on our part.
That sounds marvelous.
Thank you so much.
Really look forward to the session.
So I have just one more question for each of you, which is if you disappeared into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
I'd be in the witch's hut having a brew or stuff creating a potion.
I'd I'd I'd probably yeah, I'd probably track down the the nonsense maker and just see what she's up to and see if I can join her clan, to be honest.
Be negotiating my way around the foggy clearing, I expect.
One of the zones is actually called the foggy clearing.
Um they they have to use their critical skills to literally and metaphorically remove the fog and and see clearly.
See the tree.
Mm.
330.
Gallery Room 2.
Janina DeWitz presents TP Traveler, a playtest session.
An immersive card game that transports players to a world where teleportation is not only possible, but increasingly pervasive.
A classroom game to encourage players to consider the ethics of this new travel technology.
TP Traveller comes with a twist at the end and a discussion activity that teleports players firmly back to the present and encourages them to reflect on the current day
societal impacts of Gen AI.
330.
The Terrace Room.
Penn Holland, Ella Howes and Laura Mitchell present The Monsters of Change.
How to fight with fables and transform with tales.
So we were trying to put together um a session that would fit really nicely with this year's theme.
Um and I have a number of colleagues who work in the business school and who teach change management.
Um and so we thought it would be a really, really fun way of engaging with that topic to present a storytelling exercise um that is loosely informed by
An adventure in the dark, dark woods of change.
And I dislike fairy tales.
but there's there's some really cool stuff behind it as well.
Um, which is to do with the fact that um I have recently been on research leave and as part of that I've been going down a very deep rabbit hole into the structures of different
sorts of stories.
You will have heard many times at Playful Learning Association about uh things like the hero's journey.
Um and that is only the tip of the iceberg of a whole subfield of studies in literature called Poetics, um, which is not my specialist area, but it has been a very exciting
rabbit hole to jump down.
Um so the the structure of the session, the the sort of type of tale um that we will be uh asking people to participate in um and have characters in um is actually one
that is drawing on uh that sort of rich uh underpinning of uh different story structures.
That's so cool.
So what will you be asking people to do in the session?
So you s you said they're gonna be kind of drawing on characters.
We're talking a bit of the old role play.
What are we talking?
Yes, there will be a little bit of an old role play.
We might even ask them to do a teensy wheaty little bit of dress up.
Just a teensy wheatsy bit.
They'll definitely be hatched.
I was gonna ask, will there be hats that's sold?
There might be some magic ones.
Possibly a cloak maybe a fairy wing or two.
Um or a crow on your shoulder.
Who knows?
A hero sword.
We we are coming on the train, so it's not gonna be too excessive.
my god, yes, you're gonna be tooled up on the train.
That's gonna be absolutely fabulous.
It's gonna be like the Battle of Helm's Deep, but uh at Charing Cross.
That's that's
Will not be the first time I have been on a train in full costume with people looking at me strangely.
But it's such a cool timely thing because of course, you there's so much higher education at the moment going through a lot of not always very comfortable change.
But also it's such an interesting field at the moment.
I've got a colleague, Chris Cox, who's been looking at the observable characteristics of narrative um in the design of learning and student journeys.
Um and it's really interesting how a lot of those things map to what we normally res regard as good design practice.
It's kind of like a good sort of universal design tool.
So we we will we will be asking people, crucially, at the end of the session, to spend some time reflecting on the story that they have collectively told together and think
about what they came into it with in terms of their expectation, whether they were gonna be the heroes of this adventure or the baddies.
Um because there is a a very strong sort of moral message in a lot of fairy tales.
So we we do really want people to reflect on that and
sort of parallel that to any experiences they may have had um with going through or observing a change process.
And I think one of the nice things about the storytelling is, you know, anyone who's going on a journey to become a leader or a manager and is going to have to handle this kind of
thing has to come to terms with the fact that they are not going to be the hero of almost anyone's story, not even their own.
So finding a way to reconcile that
to say, well, which character do I need to be to get the best best outcome for everyone?
Um is very crucial.
That's a wonderful way of framing it.
So I'm really looking forward to the session.
I have just one more question for you.
Penn, Laura.
If you were to go and disappear into the woods yourselves, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
I would probably be sitting on a mossy rock next to a small pool in a tiny clearing that is not too hot, um, but is green and the birds are singing and nobody can find me.
I am disturbed by how close my image was to pens image that she just described.
Except mine would probably mine would probably also involve
hiding in the trees because I do love the dappled um shade that you get through uh the green leaves when you're sort of completely encapsulated by the canopy in a little bit of
deciduous forest.
Um ready to jump out at the unwary traveller.
I was gonna say it, that was exactly the mental image I had of you, Laura.
It was very much you up a tree in a cloak, waiting to spring out on some sort of passing merchant.
What what wares do you have?
Okay.
4.15, a short break for coffee and bickies.
Followed by 4.30, the terrace room.
Rosie Jones, Jane Mooney, and Elliot Spath present A Framework for Inclusive Play from Clues to New Pathways.
So Rosie Elliott James
So um this is basically a sequel, should we say, to a session that we delivered last year.
on inclusivity in play and last year's session was I suppose all about trying to find out the problems we were trying to address.
So Elliot and I have been involved with organisers for a number of years uh and Elliot in particular was taking on a kind of inclusivity champion role and whilst we were looking at
that we were getting lots of feedback from the conference about why it was or wasn't inclusive.
For individuals.
So we kind of looked at that problem and last year started to try and articulate that problem.
em And we did it through a crime scene investigation board over three days where we came up with the issues, the solution, probably sensible solutions, and then we kind of
augmented that in quite a playful way.
And then this year we will make that.
into some amazing framework that will allow uh others to reuse and to to think differently about both events or sessions that they're designing or just inclusivity in general.
So I think that's the premise of what we're about to do.
Sounds great.
I mean I'd come to that.
That's it's sold.
Yeah, it sounds very impressive, I think.
So yeah, I think that the thing that often comes up when we talk about inclusion in many, many contexts, is no, but what do we do because different people need different things and
what if those conflict?
And those are often presented as a genuine concern and they're often well, sometimes presented as a bit of a gotcha as a well, we can't think about inclusion because there's
too many conflicting things.
And I don't think that's so much the mindset of the kinds of people that come to playful learning.
So we thought what better way of thinking about how to address this, deal with this, is to harvest the brilliant minds of the people that will be there to to think about what some
different approaches that are playful could be.
Because really it's about being able to adapt and try things on the spot and
Just see what happens really, as long as you're compassionate and open to adjusting based on how people receive it.
And it's so it's so timely right now as well, because inclusivity has sort of jumped to the top of everybody's agendas once again, because everybody's suddenly woken up to like,
no, actually this isn't just a nice to have, this is actually existentially quite quite important for for higher education and wider education.
But we had a conversation about this as well, Mike.
And and one of the things the reason we're really excited about kind of taking a playful approach is what worries me around inclusivity is that people feel forced to do it.
So they feel like it's a tick box exercise, that it's something, you know, as long as I've put subtitles in, I've done my piece.
And so that's the reason we've added this augmented kind of playful approach, which sometimes the idea is a absolutely something you wouldn't adopt.
But equally out of crazy ideas come brilliant ideas as well.
Um so what we want to do is to make uh including inclusion fun and playful.
Last year the the sort of the precursor to this was a detective crime scene investigation.
What's your playful spin this time around for your co creative mashup?
think well n nobody wants to be predictable when it comes to season two.
So I think expect the unexpected.
Um we we're definitely uh following the uh trails into the woods um along with this year's conference theme.
Absolutely.
We are definitely embracing the theme and I think we will it we're gonna use um I suppose uh not too much of a a a teaser here, but um a woodland prop, shall we say, to try and
inspire um thinking outside of the box.
That's so mysteriously sinister.
A woodland prop.
Like that's such a broad category that I'm quite worried.
Well, it sounds absolutely marvelous.
And of course you will be benefiting from some of the most playful, while anchored in good practice pedagogy and research minds um that the world has to offer.
what can those minds expect from the session?
What will be you be asking of them?
We're really desperate that there's something very productive coming out of this session.
So I I suppose we we have to get to this template.
We have to get to something that allows people to start to reuse this and reuse it in anger.
So that it doesn't mean we won't revisit it in future years, but we want to understand how people adopt uh and I suppose work with this tool.
So I suppose the great minds in the room is almost being able to get from that mapping of these
playful the crime scene we had last year and and it looked wonderful.
But how do you make that into something that actually, if you're not in that playful learning community, you feel quite confident with adopting and sharing.
And we've got a few models that um we're looking at in the sector.
I mean Elliot's absolutely um an expert in this space and uh we've got the advanced H E framework that uh Elliot um led on.
Is that right, Elliot?
Led?
Yeah I think I'm going with LED.
Um, Jane and I have been very heavily involved with JISC's work in terms of digital capabilities and digital literacy and their framework.
So we've got models we like and maybe we could readapt into something that that would work going forward.
That sounds not just like you're gonna be rinsing people's brains, but also they're gonna walking away with something very, very useful by the end.
One framework to rule them all.
Yes.
and in the darkness bind them.
If you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you?
Jane?
Swimming.
I'd be swimming.
Hopi hoping there's water in the woods.
yeah, yeah, there's like a you know, there's a lake in the middle and a clearing.
I'm in the lake.
Come find me in the lake.
Elliot, how about yourself?
I would be up a tree looking over probably clearings, but not specifically due to the fact that there's anyone swimming.
But getting a good view, getting a good view of just the the rolling expanse of the woods.
How about yourself, Rosie?
well the last time I disappeared into the woods, which was about a week ago, I was lay on the floor in severe cramp, having run forty miles over the top of Snowdon.
So that's what would happen to me.
That's that's that's that's
You'd be waiting for rescue.
You would be needing medical assistance.
Nobody came.
That's that's the least whimsical answer I've had to this so far.
Just awaiting medical help.
Um golly.
But also good for you.
Wow, running through four forty kilometres.
Well, it was eighty in in total, but I'd only done forty by that point.
It was a long way still to go.
Oh sorry, yes of course.
Just just the first ball theory for Walmart.
430 Gallery Room 1 Federik Kaj Zutum presents I'm the King of the Cardboard Castle.
My session is uh about uh a particular approach to uh playful teaching in higher education, centered around building something in cardboard collaboratively to learn about
a topic.
And uh the example I draw on uh is learning about participation in in social education or preschool teacher training.
People will be uh students will be assigned roles as well as participants in this workshop, each with their individual trouble issues about uh difficulties about
participating in the group work.
So so they are not just learning about participation, but they're experiencing participation from their own bodies while trying to reach another goal.
So there's sort of uh a double goal in this is uh feeling uh what participation can feel like when it's hard and trying to achieve a goal about pedagogy or playful learning or
whatever it will be in the session.
Such a wonderful, wonderful idea where one of the actual learning outcomes is just that feeling of doing something together as a group.
And I love, love the idea of just you're building something out of cardboard.
It's the kind of thing I might do with my daughter.
Um is this something that you you run a lot?
I've done this more than a few times.
What's the most ambitious thing that's ever been constructed out of cardboard?
Oh, that's a tough question.
I I don't know, these castles that I built with my students uh are are quite often ambitious.
We're talking turrets, we're talking buttresses, gates the works.
Yes, exactly.
And and some of them are of course not.
They're more like a box with some words on.
But you know, we're all different people.
What will you be asking attendees to do?
What will uh what should somebody expect when they come to your session?
What should they expect?
They uh they will get a brief introduction to the workshop, of course, and I will tell them a little bit about how I use this kind of session for my teaching.
A short, super short presentation of the academic topic, because we don't have time to delve into that, and part of the academic topic will be playful learning.
So I'm expecting people to have some knowledge already.
Uh
And then I will talk about the roles they will play.
Or rather, I will not I will talk about that there are roles to play, because they're secret.
And what they're so supposed to build, and I will divide them into groups and they will build.
Building will take most of the time.
After building, there will be some reflection in in various ways, a short questionnaire of some sort where they reflect on.
what they've done and then the discussion.
But mostly most mostly building stuff together.
I mean that sounds absolutely heavenly.
I can't think of a better way to spend a bit of afternoon than just sitting there building building something together.
Is it gonna be castles?
Is everybody gonna be making castles?
Or is that part of the mystery?
Is this part of the surprise?
I'm going to tell them that they're supposed to build castles, but you know, the best thing that happens in these creative collaborative processes are when they sort of hack
the process and go their own way.
So so so I'm I'm not gonna stop them if they're building a Formula One car or something else.
Frederick, thank you so much.
I've just got one more question for you, which is if you were to disappear into the woods, where would we find you and what would you be doing?
I I like to go for a run in the woods, but but then I'm not really disappearing.
I would be I wouldn't be s sitting in my small secret cottage, sipping a coffee, reading a
430.
Gallery Room 2.
Geraldine Foley presents AI Empire and the Space of Possibility, designing inclusive and accessible games for teaching and learning.
This explores the ethics of generative AI in a playful way, using a game to create a safe space for HE students to discuss the topic and encourage collaboration, communication, and
critical thinking.
In the session, participants will get to experience and give feedback on a speed version of the game.
You'll then discuss the constraints and factors around designing for timetabled sessions and ways to make games for learning accessible and inclusive.
And that concludes Friday's day two's sessions, but not the day itself.
From 5 15 till 6 30, there'll be some free time and then chill out tonight at Meeting House, where there'll be beer, street food, and games on campus.
On the menu there'll be a street food paella with wild mushroom, charred leeks, fire sweede, roasted squash, and butterbean pearl barley.
Served with a choice of toppers and sauces.
There will also be a pudding, a little cheeky dessert, individual plant-based black forest torts, served with cherries, berries, and pouring cream.
This will also mark the start of the evening's activities.
And Hyperjam 26.
There'll be three parts to this.
Jo will begin by sharing the benefits of analog game making.
You'll then get your chance to go into the box of delights or components.
And then finish by discussing how to incorporate analog game making into your personal teaching and training practices.
Then Hyperjam 26, a sequel to last year's successful unofficial world record attempt.
and the birthplace of earlier mentioned flock of.
The other of the evening's optional activities will be presented by CJ Foster, the Bark Choir.
The Bark Choir will be created as a scratch choir for any conference members to join.
Main objective being to give everybody a chance to playfully explore singing together and creating music.
Drawing upon the conference themes, in this relaxed session we'll be exploring singing, improvising and enjoying a community sing-along experience.
And no previous musical expertise required.
And so, with the day drawing to a close, you'll crawl off to bed with your very last ounce of energy.
Your head full of climate choices, uncomfortable AI ethics, playful grids and learning forests, critical thinking trails through the woods, and the virtues of getting gloriously
lost before being found again.
Perhaps you'll dream of flood walls and candy bars, of cards for social play, of interprofessional guardians tending a learning forest.
Of building meaning through play, sustainable materials and AI, of travelling through playful worlds, battling the monsters of change with fables and tales, claiming your
rightful place as king of the cardboard castle.
Maybe somewhere between sleep and that little bit between sleep, where you wake up and sneeze sometimes, you'll find yourself wandering through a forest of reason, accompanied
by a Lego philosopher.
Perhaps you'll participate in a bark.
Продолжение следует...
dreamily hyper-jamming a board game.
Or trying to convince yourself that higher education really is a game.
Perhaps we should play it all.
a little bit more often.
Whatever strange things await us this night, rest, recharge.
and get ready for the day three.
Friday, the final day Playful Learning 2026.
This special program in a pod episode was edited and presented by Michael Collins.
For more playful pedagogic podcasting, visit pedagodzilla.com.
And if you really like playful takes on pedagogy, why not also check out our book, Pedagodzilla Exploring the Realms of Pedagogy.