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?
Read More...August 9, 2012
As a learning scientist one of the first things I was trained to consider is my underlying epistemology—the theory of knowledge, or what it means to know—and how that relates to the learning environment being studied. Seymor Papert (1980) discussed epistemology as what “reflects and reinforces a particular way of thinking and knowing that is aligned with the norms and principles of a particular community” (Hatfield, 2011).
Read More...August 2, 2012
Most parents would agree that competitive sports like soccer and football are good for kids. How about competitive video games? In my research, I interviewed kids who not only share video game interests with family members and peers, but they also derive academic and social benefits from their gaming experiences.
Read More...July 20, 2012
When I first started playing LittleBigPlanet2, a Playstation 3 game created by the company Media Molecule, I was both excited and frustrated. I was excited because the graphics, characters, and story of the side-scrolling platform were stunning and engaging.
Read More...July 17, 2012
On October 22, 2011, I found myself in a full capacity crowd at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. We eagerly awaited the appearance of two superstars. The stars, with aliases MVP and NesTea, were professional gamers–among the very best in the world. They have team coaches, impressive skills, and fans. About 10,000 fans attended, and 200,000 more watched from home. Most of the crowd was male, white or Asian, dressed in T-shirts and jeans, and short-haired; some sported goatee beards. I sat on the floor in the aisle; the seats were filled.
Read More...July 12, 2012
Figure 1. Fiber crafts meet Harry Potter: jen2291, a Hogwarts at Ravelry member, has crocheted the main characters of the Harry Potter stories.
Read More...July 10, 2012
“[T]here is something huge about that [moment] in education where the most powerful person is the student, where they just suddenly realize that, ‘even if I don’t get this fancy course, nobody is going to stop me being [what I desire to be].’”
— Kareem Ettouney, Media Molecule, Art Director
July 6, 2012
We are delighted to announce the opening of our new blog for our Leveling Up project team. We’ve been hard at work for the past academic year, launching new fieldwork on games and online communities that can teach us a thing or two about how young people learn in highly networked and interest-driven settings. As we start to analyze our data and reflect on what we’ve learned, we’d like to share our work in progress in hopes that we might invite engagement and formative feedback from a broader community of researchers, designers, educators, and learners.
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