Literacy, learning and digital games: Taking seriously Serious Play.
Submitted by:
Catherine Beavis
Abstract:
Key words: digital games, multimodality, literacy, pedagogy, learning.
There is increasing interest in the possibilities of digital games to support learning, and in the mix of new and traditional literacies, literacy practices and dispositions towards learning fostered by digital games (Gee 2007; Carr et al. 2006, Gerber & Abrams 2014). However, sustained, on-the-ground research in everyday classrooms is limited. This paper presents findings from a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council: Serious Play: Using digital games in school to promote literacy and learning in the twenty first century, conducted across two states in ten Australian primary and secondary schools.
The study investigated ways in which learners and teachers approached games, how working with digital games supported both new and traditional forms of literacy and learning, and the implications for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment when digital games were introduced into school contexts to support teaching and learning.
Within a broadly sociocultural paradigm, and digital media/new literacies framework, the study used a mixed methods approach, including quantitative and case study, and related analytic methodologies. Data included student surveys from the first and last years of the project, teacher and student interviews across the three years, field notes from both home and school, teacher and researcher reflections, conference presentations from teachers and researchers, student artefacts, blogs, films. The study found that digital games did have the capacity to foster a wide range of ‘21st century skills’, creativity, traditional and new literacies and literacy practices, insider knowledge of curriculum areas, and to reshape familiar forms of pedagogy and curriculum. A crucial factor in all this, however, is the role of the teacher, in working skillfully with digital games to promote critical and reflective engagement, productivity and deep learning for the students in their care.
References
Carr, D., Buckingham, D., Burn, A. and Schott, G. (2006) Computer Games: text, narrative, play. Cambridge: Polity.
Gee, J. (2007) What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy 2nd Edition
Gerber, H.R. & Abrams, S.S. (Eds.). (2014). Bridging literacies with videogames. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers