May 3, 2013
In exploring the fandom of a young boyband called One Direction (1D), I am often struck by the serious forethought and complexity woven into the lighthearted artifacts produced by the band’s fans. The fan artifacts they make include fanfiction stories, book covers, song remixes, and gifs.
Read More...April 19, 2013
As a CLRN Research Fellow, I spend a lot of time thinking about Connected Learning and what it means for schools. At its core, Connected Learning is about equity and empowering students to become change agents in their communities now, and not just when they reach adulthood. But what does connected learning look like in practice, in a school setting? To gain some insight on this question, I have spent the last couple of months observing schools that are trying to integrate connected learning principles into their curriculum and organizational structures.
Read More...March 22, 2013
By Lone (right) and mitosis (left) on TeamLiquid.net
Consider a circle drawn on a track field to have a radius of 5 feet. If you had to run across the circle within a span of 1.5 seconds, what is the maximum cord length that you could traverse within the span of that time?
Read More...February 19, 2013
Guest blogger biography: Stephen Paolini is a junior at Winter Park High School in Winter Park, Florida. His interest in the concept of interest-driven community stems from his experiences with his unique family structure and the International Baccalaureate program, an internationally constructed college prep program created to provide a rigorous all-around curriculum. With a passion for connected learning, Stephen has always been interested in gaming, education and the integrated role they play in a modern society.
February 11, 2013
This is the second in a series of posts that explores the tensions between innovation and convention, and what it means for the design of Connected Learning Environments. This post focuses on blended learning spaces and their affordances for innovation and conflict.
December 19, 2012
During my dissertation work, I interviewed three male youth from the same school: one junior and two seniors, who all had college aspirations of technology or game design, and came from a variety of home situations with varying socioeconomic status (SES). These youth were avid gamers and were part of my research because they were World of Warcraft players. Despite the fact that they were highly engaged with World of Warcraft (WoW), they had all disengaged from a traditional school setting.
Read More...December 14, 2012
When we discuss learning, some people attend primarily to the learning content, such as physics or math. They may raise their eyebrows when the content to be learned is a game. But it is not learning content that concerns me in this blog. It is about how we can learn to learn. In many contexts, take StarCraft II for example, there is no assigned teacher whose exclusive role it is to teach. Therefore, learners learn based on productive social interactions with peers. In StarCraft II, learning is such a social process.
Read More...December 10, 2012
This is the first of a series of posts that I will write exploring the tensions between innovation and convention, and what it means for the design of Connected Learning Environments. This first post focuses on the lure of convention, and why it is so much easier to go with the status quo, than to forge your own path.
September 7, 2012
According to a StarCraft self-reported community survey, only 1.8% of respondents are female.1 That is a very small number. Why are female gamers nearly absent from the StarCraft community site?
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