Otaku Learning
August 31, 2012
Openly networked
From Theory to Design: Exploring the Power & Potential of ‘Connected Learning’, Part One
August 2, 2012
This summer I attended summer school…well kind of. For three weeks in June I worked with a great team to implement a digital media and design project with high school students. We followed that project with a two-week game design camp in July at the University of Texas with middle school students. Both projects are what you might call ‘connected learning’ design pilots. What exactly is that? The goal of each project was to put into action some
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When We Played Video Games With Kids
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...StarCraft – Where Geeks, Digital Media, and Sports Collide
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.
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Knitting Up Hogwarts: A Harry Potter Fiber Craft Community
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.
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A Brief Introduction to the Games and Modding Tools Studied by the Leveling Up Team
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
Greetings and Welcome from the Leveling Up Team
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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