Housed in the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the Local Games Lab is dedicated to the creation and study of place-based games, as they apply to learning.

Kurt Squire is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Educational Communications and Technology division of Curriculum and Instruction. He is a former Montessori and primary school teacher and, before coming to Wisconsin, was Research Manager of the Games-to-Teach Project at MIT and Co-Director of the Education Arcade. Squire earned his doctorate in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University; his dissertation research examined students' learning through a game-based learning program he designed around Civilization III.

Squire co-founded Joystick101.org with Jon Goodwin and currently writes a monthly column with Henry Jenkins for Computer Games magazine. In addition to writing over 30 scholarly articles and book chapters, he has given dozens of talks and invited addresses in North America, Europe, and Asia. Squire's current research interests center on the impact of contemporary gaming practices on learning, schooling and society.

Mark Wagler is a game producer and also project manager for our ARGH project. He studied cultural and intellectual history, comparative literature, creative writing, and theatre at Universität Bern in Switzerland, the University of Chicago, Kent State University, and the University of Wisconsin. A fulltime storyteller, folklorist, and consultant from 1979 to 1987, he documented local culture in many communities, and performed narratives he collected from traditional storytellers.

More recently Wagler has been a fourth and fifth grade teacher at Randall School in Madison, Wisconsin, where equity, inquiry, local study, and networking shaped his curriculum. Every two weeks in the fall and spring, his class spent half-day “Mornings-in-the-Marsh” at nearby Lake Wingra. He took his students on yearlong cultural tours of Dane County, Wisconsin Hmong communities, and Madison’s Park Street. With his students, he researched and created an augmented reality game about the past, present, and future Greenbush community.

He has published numerous educational articles and chapters, written the Teacher’s Guide to Local Culture, taught hundreds of teacher workshops, given keynote addresses, and conducted long term educational projects with many organizations. Among academic and teaching awards he has received are a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics and Science.

Jim Mathews grew up in southeastern Wisconsin where he fondly remembers exploring the Root River watershed by role-playing as an adventurer, archaeologist, biologist, and time traveler. 

Currently, Jim teaches social studies, critical media studies, and video production at an alternative high school in Middleton, WI.  His communication arts-based curriculum helps connect students with their local communities through documentary filmmaking, photography, writing, and service learning projects.  Students involved in his school-based video production studio have produced numerous videos for local non-profit agencies on topics ranging from aging to environmental education.

Jim researches augmented reality gaming as a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (Educational Communications and Technology) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He is particularly interested in helping students develop their historical inquiry and critical thinking skills by helping them design AR games based on local historical and environmental issues.

Mingfong Jan is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a major in Educational Communications and Technology, a minor in the design of learning environment, and a Master degree in Literature in Ecological Poetics. He has been working with Augmented Reality games since 2004, and has been deeply involved in the development and implementation of all the AR games we've done. He created the first AR game in Madison, Mad City Mystery, and is currently working on a game about the eco system of Lake Wingra. 

Mingfong has been a member of the Games, Learning and Society group and a research assistant at the Mobile Learning project under Academic ADL Co-Lab since the spring of 2004.

Chris Holden is a sixth year PhD student in Mathematics at UW-Madison with a specialization in Algebraic Number Theory. He also studies Math Education under Eric Knuth, researching middle and high school students' understanding and production of mathematical proof. He's been a member of the Games, Learning and Society group since the spring of 2004. His favorite games are Katamari Damacy and Dance Dance Revolution.

Chris is interested in many educational issues that revolve around
games, but has a keen eye for mathematical gameplay and an interest
in creating game-based math instruction.  He's been a designer with
the Local Games Lab since the spring of 2006, and has had a heavy
hand in developing the AR game Hip Hop Tycoon. There is more
information about Chris and his work at his personal website.

John Martin is passionate about sustainable design and living, and is excited that local games, like the handheld augmented reality games, can foster greater care for real places. He's spent 13 years helping to run a deep woods camp in Maine called Flying Moose Lodge, and is studying AR games there via the Mystery Trip. He'll write all about the blend of the game experience, design, and sociocultural connections to place in his doctoral dissertation. Oh yeah, when he's not at camp, he's a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Curriculum and Instruction, with a minor in Learning Sciences, and a specialization in Educational Communications and Technology. He is part of GLS (the Games, Learning, and Society group), and a fan of physically immersive video games. You can read more about him at regardingjohn.com.

Christine Johnson, Ed.D. (Indiana University, 2005) performs the duty of the evaluator of the Stars (ARGH) grant. She provides formative evaluations on the components and relationships of grant partners and their activities including the use of resulting curriculum, the usability of software, student achievement and increased learning. Christine is a veteran teacher both in K-12 and university settings. She is a “systems thinker’ a person who enjoys seeing the big picture. She is a constructivist at heart and works to keep learners central to curriculum design. She supports efforts to have end-users involved in the design process. For some of her previous evaluations and links to published articles see: http://www.alivelearn.com/main.html Christine holds as a life goal the supporting of teacher’s practices(including technology) that awaken their students to strong learning skills and creating “the bright eyes of exited students as they experience their learning.”