New Issue: Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

A new issue of Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is out. This issue’s focus: Pedagogy, Education, and Innovation in Virtual Worlds. Click here for the journal’s home page, where you can access current and past articles. James Paul Gee has a paper in this issue entitled Games, Learning, and 21st Century Survival Skills. Many of the other articles focus on Second Life in education. There is one on Quest Atlantis. JVWR is published by the Virtual Worlds Research Consortium, a Texas non-profit.

Games Empower Learners: Gee’s Speech at GLS4

James Paul Gee over at Arizona State is renowned among educational gamers because he wrote what is widely considered to be the first scholarly book on educational applications of videogames: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003). Recently, he keynoted the 4th annual Games, Learning, and Society Conference. Michael Abbott over at Gamasutra caught up with him and detailed the meat of his speech here. Some excerpts:

Gee sees the current U.S. educational system as inadequate to the task of addressing the problems of an increasingly complex world. He stated that “21st century learning must be about understanding complex systems,” and he believes many video games do a better job at this than the antiquated sender-receiver teaching model that dominates American classrooms.

Passion communities encourage and enable people of all ages to do extraordinary things. Gee believes the ‘amateur knowledge’ that arises from this immersive involvement often surpasses ‘expert knowledge,’ and cited fantasy baseball as an example.

Other highlights:

- Passion communities give users power and control, not necessarily money.

- He cites a young lady who learned PhotoShop in order to make better clothes for her Sims characters, later for avatars in Second Life. She remains uninterested in fashion, though, preferring computers because they empower her.

- Gee cited the game Portal, which could be construed as a parody of school life, as a means of allowing players tools to construct reality in the game’s environment. RL schools should be like this, Gee mused. “Education isn’t about telling people stuff, it’s about giving them tools that enable them to see the world in a new and useful way.”

- Complex games engender involvement in whole new ways for players. Mods allow players to manipulate the environment in ways they see fit. Mods are tools allowing players to put personal play theories to the test.

Abbot sums up:

Gee clearly situates video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy with genuine power to transform students and equip them to address complex problems.

References:
Abbot, M. (2008, July 14). Analysis: Games create ‘passion communities’ for learning. Gamasutra. [Online]. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19389

Amy Jussel, HASTAC, and MIT Press’ Open Access Books in the MacArthur Series

I was familiar with Amy Jussel’s excellent Shaping Youth blog, because she linked to a post of mine on exergaming a while back. Recently, Jussel shook some corporate trees by taking Target to task for some suggestive advertising. Target essentially brushed her off since she’s “just” a blogger, which resulted in a firestorm of criticism from the blogosphere (ouch, bad PR … and negative posts last forever in cyberspace). The New York Times took up her story, resulting in even more bad PR for Target.

Anyway, I was perusing Jussel’s blog when I discovered an entry in which she mentioned the MacArthur Foundation’s new book series with MIT Press. Her entry linked to HASTAC.org, which stands for Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory.

The MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning is available through MIT Press in paper format. However, thanks to the foundation’s funding, MIT Press is offering the texts in digital format free. Of most likely interest to readers of this blog will be, The Ecology of Games. Here is the TOC:

Foreword
Mizuko Ito, Cathy Davidson, Henry Jenkins, Carol Lee, Michael Eisenberg, Joanne Weiss
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: vii–ix.

Toward an Ecology of Gaming
Katie Salen
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 1–17.

Part I: Learning Ecologies

Learning and Games
James Paul Gee
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 21–40.

In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting Video Game Play to the Rest of Kids’ Lives
Reed Stevens, Tom Satwicz, Laurie McCarthy
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 41–66.

E Is for Everyone: The Case for Inclusive Game Design
Amit Pitaru
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 67–86.

Part II: Hidden Agendas

Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History of Children’s Software
Mizuko Ito
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 89–116.

The Rhetoric of Video Games
Ian Bogost
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 117–139.

The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games
Anna Everett, S. Craig Watkins
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 141–164.

Part III: Gaming Literacies

Open-Ended Video Games: A Model for Developing Learning for the Interactive Age
Kurt Squire
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 167–198.

Why I Love Bees: A Case Study in Collective Intelligence Gaming
Jane McGonigal
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 199–227.

Education Unleashed: Participatory Culture, Education, and Innovation in Second Life
Cory Ondrejka
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 229–251.

Why Johnny Can’t Fly: Treating Games as a Form of Youth Media Within a Youth Development Framework
Barry Joseph
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 253–266.

Glossary
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 267–273.

Games Index
The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning: 275–278.

New Educational Videogaming Book Announced

A press release for a new educational videogame book came across the transom today. Children’s Learning in a Digital World initially seems to purport to delve into notions of negative effects surrounding violent videogames. However, the copy reads more along the lines of a much more positive take on educational videogames.

Video games, computers, and the Internet can provide opportunities for problem solving, creativity, and autonomy, and in particular, carefully constructed software can offer an alternative to traditional classroom learning. “Children’s Learning in a Digital World” is one of the first books to examine the impact of computers in both formal or school learning environments and informal learning contexts. It presents exciting and challenging new ideas from international scholars on the impact of computers, the Internet, and video games on children’s learning, as well as the social and cultural issues that affect technology use.

Here is the TOC:

Foreword: Seven Criteria for Investigating Children’s Learning in a Digital World by Richard E. Mayer

Pt. I Informal Learning with Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges

Introduction by Teena Willoughby and Eileen Wood

1 Media Literacy – Who Needs It? by Henry Jenkins

2 Good Videogames, the Human Mind, and Good Learning by James Paul Gee

3 How and What Do Videogames Teach? by Edward L. Swing and Craig A. Anderson

4 Videogame Addiction: Fact or Fiction? by Mark D. Griffiths

5 Meeting the Needs of the Vulnerable Learner: The Role of the Teacher in Bridging the Gap Between Informal and Formal Learning Using Digital Technologies by Laurence Peters

Pt. II Formal Learning with Technologies: Opportunities and Challenges Introduction by Eileen Wood and Bowen Hui and Teena Willoughby

6 Using Technology to Assist Children Learning to Read and Write by Philip C. Abrami and Robert Savage and C. Anne Wade and Geoffrey Hipps and Monica Lopez

7 Tools for Learning in an Information Society by John C. Nesbit and Philip H. Winne

8 Virtual Playgrounds: Children’s Multi-User Virtual Environments for Playing and Learning with Science by Yasmin B. Kafai and Michael T. Giang

9 Can Students Re-Invent Fundamental Scientific Principles? Evaluating the Promise of New-Media Literacies by Andrea A. diSessa

10 Domain Knowledge and Learning From the Internet by Malinda Desjarlais and Teena Willoughby and Eileen Wood

11 The Integration of Computer Technology in the Classroom by Julie Mueller and Eileen Wood and Teena Willoughby Summary and Looking Ahead

Where the MacArthur Foundation Grant Money has Gone, So Far

Education Week has a nice article (registration required) on the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $50 million initiative funding digital media and learning (including educational gaming research). A little less than half, about $23 million, has been funded so far to 36 grantees. Article author Andrew Trotter breaks down the expenditures:

• Examining how young people are changing as a result of digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $6.2 million

• Exploring the development of new learning environments AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $8 million

• Studying how social and civic institutions could change in the future AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4.8 million

• Helping build the field of research and development in youth and digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4 million

Constance Yowell, director of education for the MacArthur Foundation, is quoted extensively. Other prominent mentions include Sasha Barab over at Indiana (Quest Atlantis); Nichole Pinkard, director of technology, Center for Urban School Improvement, University of Chicago (Chicago charter schools and Remix World); Barry Joseph, director of the non-profit after school organization Global Kids (efforts in Teen Second Life); Katie Salen, director of the Institute of Play (New York City Game School); and Mizuko “Mimi” Ito, over at USC (ethnographic studies of digital media consumers).

Trotter mentions another project Salen is involved in:

Katie A. Salen, the director of the Institute of Play, in New York City, is a partner in two projects supported by MacArthur grants. One, led by game researcher Jim Ghee and involving a commercial game company, is creating an online, narrative game in which teenagers are game mechanics who learn to fix and modify broken games in a game-driven world.

I’m wondering if “Jim Ghee” is a reference to James Paul Gee?

Regardless, it’s a good article and well worth the read. The $50 million in grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation will no doubt continue to yield important findings on educational videogames and other components of digital media for years to come.

References:
Trotter, A. (2007, December 5). Projects probe new media’s role in changing the face of learning. Education Week, (27)14. 10.