Congrats Mark Wagner: Video games, education, and a new baby

I want to congratulate Mark Wagner and his wife Eva on their new son Clark. Mark is one of the people I've met through my work on Research Quest. Mark's been Twittering about his experiences during the pregnancy, in additional to whole variety of other issues. While I'm not the most active Twitter user (twitter ID: researchquest) as a husband and father I could relate.

Not only is Mark an active Twitter user, but he is an researcher and advocate of video games and education. I've followed Mark's work through his Educational Technology and Life blog for a while. His mBlogger: Research Quest - Create Postost recent post is a great resource for video games and education. The post discusses a conversation he had with a school superintendent, gamer, and father.

Ultimately, he’s sees the dynamic, social, and global nature of his gaming community as a positive alternative to the often “flat” culture of classrooms. (In this sense he doesn’t mean “flat” as in Freidman’s “the world is flat” or Davis and Lindsey’s “flat classroom.” He means it is static and boring as opposed to dynamic and exciting.)

Mark provides a number of resource links to his work including:
Books on Educational Gaming
Educational Gaming Issue Summaries
Chapters from his dissertation on video games & education

If you haven't read any of Mark's work, this post is a great place to start.

Congratulations to Mark, Eva, their new son Clark!