My first bloggity thing – part 2. I did it! #ACTIgames4girls

Part 2:

If  you have been following my adventures so far….

Thanks for reading! You are awesome!

BIG GROUP HUG! Mwah!

So, we made it to the Hyatt, handed the (please don’t run out of gas) van over to the valet and after taking a deep breath…walked inside.

We found the elevator and made it to the right floor. Then we proceeded to try and join the veterinarian conference also taking place on that floor.

Uhhh…wrong group.

A very sweet waiter pointed us to the right conference room.

Walking through those giant, fancy-schmancy doors was one of the scariest things I’ve done.

OMG. OMG. OMG. I can’t do this. I can’t not do this. I can’t do this.

Then I’m pretty sure Alane pushed me inside.

 I must have been sporting the “deer in the headlights” look because as soon as Jenny spotted me, she  came right over and gave me a hug.

You have NO idea how much I needed that.

Ok, I’m through the doors, still breathing, I have a few familiar faces….

You know the scene when the new kid goes to the empty cafeteria table? Yeah. That was me.

But it’s all good….because I was there!

Now on to the important stuff, why the heck was I there anyway?

The Activision Games For Girls Summit is exactly what it sounds like. A summit of people, mostly moms, getting together to talk about video games for girls. This particular summit focused on 6 games in particular: Lalaloopsy, Zoobles, Wappy Dog, ZhuZhu Babies, Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo, Squinkies 2: Adventure Mall Surprize! . I will review the details about each game one by one in upcoming posts. During the summit we learned quite a bit about the positive side of gaming for girls. Some of the facts that stood out the most to me…

•  Games provide us with the 4 ingredients that make for a happy meaningful life
• Satisfying work
• Real hope for success
• Strong social connections
• A chance to become a part of something bigger than ourselves
• Games create a positive mindset and making them more resilient in the face of failure
• Gamers spend 80% of their time failing
• We like and trust someone after we’ve played a game with them
• More likely to help someone in real life after we’ve helped them in an online game
• 40% of time on Facebook is spent playing social games

(40%????? Really? Wow, that’s a lot of Mafia Wars and Farmville!)

Video games aren’t just hard, they’re adaptively hard

• Keep people at the edge of their abilities and push them further
• Adaptive challenge is stunningly powerful for learning, according to John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at MIT.
•  Faster reaction times
• Increased hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity
• Increased spatial skills
• Ability to divide and switch attention, pay attention to more than one object/person

Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life study (Feb 2011): girls who play video games with a parent enjoyed a number of advantages.

• Behave better
• Feel more connected to their families
• Have stronger mental health

Want one?