Mark Wagler

Biography

Photo of Mark Wagler

Mark Wagler is a game designer and project manager at the Local Games Lab. 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 full-time 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 was 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.

Sessions