Our students have a choice of using one of the 200 netbook devices or one of the 120 fixed desktop PCs - which ones are they drawn to and under what circumstances? They have relatively free reign in a large learning space (incorporating library, cafes and student services) the size of a football pitch across three floors - which means they have a choice as to where to work, learn and play with these netbooks - and again, which zones are they drawn to and under what circumstances?

Which leads us to another set of interesting questions:

• What kind of affordances do these devices bring?
• Are they indeed "value added" or something else?
• Does the combination of group work and mobile devices differ from that of group work and fixed devices?
• Does an "underworld" of virtualised peer support exist in these groupings?

I have a lot to think about and mull over before I finally hand in my project proposal in April 2010 - the trick here is to keep the research question(s) tightly focused.

If you are interesting in delving deeper into the OLPC project, Nicholas Negroponte, author of "Being Digital", founder of MIT Media Labs and founder of the OLPC initiative provides a nice summary of what the initiative is and the some of the issues of getting the project off the ground. James O'Hagan's blog "1 Laptop : 1 Student" offers some "stories" and case studies taken from practitioners of the initiatives.

References

Dunleavy, M., Dexter, S. & Heinecke, W.F. (2007). "What added value does a 1:1 student to laptop ratio bring to technology-supported teaching and learning?". Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23, pp. 440-452.

"This programme represents a £13.08m investment aimed at supporting existing institutional strategies by providing solutions to institution-wide problems, based upon proven practices, technologies, standards and services. The solutions will act as exemplars to other institutions by demonstrating innovation and good practice, and building knowledge and experience, which can be shared across institutions."

One of those projects is the Academic Social Networking project which is being developed by the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) at the University of Cambridge. The project itself "aims to bring some of the affordances of consumer social networks to teaching and learning".

What is interesting to me, and possibly to other students on the research methods module is that CARET collaborated with Flow Interactive, an external company, to investigate whether commercial user-centric design (UCD) techniques could be transferable and be used within a Higher Education context.

As the research team suggest, user-centric design is different because:

"...it explicitly, constructively and actively includes users in the design process from a very early stage."

One of the key features of their particular methodology is the notion of "design personas" and how it enabled them to:

"...identified trends or patterns in user behaviours, expectations and motivations, through conducting a combination of diary studies and interviews, and how this formed the basis of our personas. Having these personas enabled us to focus the design effort on supporting user goals. Also, where traditionally a designer might have lists and lists of requirements, personas allow one to prioritize these requirements to the degree these personas would find them important, offering more clarity."

Moreover, the research team at CARET have published their UCD methodology into a rather useful and compelling handbook for us lucky reseachers to peruse and may even offer a new approach to conducting research with our key stakeholders.

• Student to Student
• Student to Peer Group
• Student to Tutor
• Peer Group to Peer Group
• Peer Group to Tutor

It reminded me of some journal articles that I read as part of my "Space, Place and Technology" wiki articles for the "Psychological and Social Contexts of e-Learning" module. Specifically, this regards Nova (2005, p. 119) who proposes that when "dealing with the concept of space in collective situations", it should be considered through the lens of a number of dimensions:

• Person to Person
• Person to Artefact
• Person to Place
• Space, Place and Activity
• Space and Artefacts
• Space and Time

The "Space, Place and Technology" wiki articles are now converted into an "as is" electronic paper version on Issuu, if you wish to find out more about these dimensions. We can represent these dimension using the following illustration.

What we are looking at are fixed physical spaces are depicted as solid circles whereas transient physical spaces are denoted with dashed circles. Each circle is inhabited by people with some form of information and communication device like a desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone or PDA; also present are a number of "artefacts" represented by the orange star and the green diamond - these "artefacts" could be a chair, table, books, or Interactive White Boards. As depicted in the diagram, some "spaces" can overlap and be shared. Each information and communication device is connected to one or more virtual spaces as depicted by the computer servers inside a blue dashed cloud formation. These virtual spaces could be blogs, wikis, virtual environments, web pages and such like.

In terms of thinking about methodology, some ethnographic approach could be considered, but as Cousin (2009, p. 109) warns us:

"At first sight, it might seem that anyone can do ethnography but doing it well requires familiarity with a theoretical field, a set of research skills and perhaps, above all, ... an 'enlightened eye'"

Cousin (ibid) goes to say that "ethnography is not so much about studying people as learning from them". In their joint Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in Creativity project called inQbate, the Universities of Sussex and Brighton have created "two creativity zones" which offers "exciting opportunities for students to work in spaces that foster collaborative, self-directed and experiential learning".

The methodology for capturing how students reacted to and interacted within the space and with eachother was to use Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). This is a relatively recent qualitative approach developed specifically within psychology by Jonathan A. Smith, a Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London. IPA concerns itself by:

"...trying to understand lived experience and with how participants themselves make sense of their experiences. Therefore it is centrally concerned with the meanings which those experiences hold for the participants."

I am not really considering IPA but it does demonstrate some of the deep and rich approaches to data collection and analysis. What has caught my eye, however, is something called Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) which is a theory about the link between attitudes and behaviour. TPB is a quantitative approach developed by Icek Ajzen, a Professor of Psychology at Amherst, University of Massachusetts. It was Siragusa & Dixon (2009) paper for the Ascilite 2009 conference where they were using questionnaire items related to components of the TPB to determine students’ attitudes and planned use of ICT-based instruction. Like any methodology, TPB has its' advocates and detractors.

It has been suggested to me that I could develop a case study. But in the meantime, I think I will look into TPB to see if it has any real value.

References

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education (6th Edition). New York, London: Routledge.

Cousin, G. (2009). Researching Learning in Higher Education. New York, London: Routledge.

Norton, L.S. (2009). Action Research in Teaching & Learning. New York, London: Routledge.

Nova, N. (2005). "A Review of How Space Affords Socio-Cognitive Processes during Collaboration". PsychNology Journal, 3(2): 118-148.

Robson, C. (2002). Real World Research (2nd Edition). Malden, MA; Oxford; Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing.

Siragusa, L. & Dixon, K.C. (2009). "Theory of planned behaviour: Higher education students'
attitudes towards ICT-based learning interactions". In Same places, different spaces. Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009. Available at: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/procs/siragusa.pdf [Accessed 02.02.2010].

JISC (2006) informs us that learning spaces:

"...should be able to motivate learners and promote learning as an activity, support collaborative as well as formal practice, provide a personalised and inclusive environment, and be flexible in the face of changing needs." (p. 3)

However, as the JELS (2009) report found out, there is very little by way of evaluating the effectiveness of learning spaces and a fair bit of research would be needed to begin to understand what is going on. Temple (2007), in his literature review, is particularly scathing on how little we understand such spaces:

"...if the curriculum in higher education is a set of experiences, that a student inhabits, experiences that that arise from a student’s interaction with his or her ‘learning environment’, then any attempt to trace the influence of one particular thread of experience may well be doomed..." (p. 69)

So, over the last 18 months I have been involved in a part JISC-funded project that is part of their Institutional Innovation Programme, which:

"...represents a £13.08m investment aimed at supporting existing institutional strategies by providing solutions to institution-wide problems, based upon proven practices, technologies, standards and services. The solutions will act as exemplars to other institutions by demonstrating innovation and good practice, and building knowledge and experience, which can be shared across institutions."

Our project, which we called iBorrow, has deployed 200 location-aware (re: wireless) netbooks within Augustine House which students and staff can "borrow" just by taking them out of the recharging cabinets as if they were picking up a book from off a shelf. One of the many things that we want to see is if it can provide a large-scale demonstration of how thin-client notebooks with location-aware technology can enable us to not only provide "no fuss" access to a full range of software and learning resources but also effectively manage the configuration of the facilities within the large flexible learning spaces of Augustine House.

As part of my preparation and understanding of learning spaces, I have managed to fill three A4 box folders of papers on the subject as well as looking at the notions of "place" and "space" under the auspices of environmental psychology. To help me make sense of all of this information, I have devised a mind map (click on the image below to enlarge) that covers a large number of themes (and I suspect that I have only scratched the surface).

References

JELS. (2009). A Study of Effective Evaluation Models and Practices for Technology Supported Physical Learning Spaces. Bristol: JISC. Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects/learningspaces08.aspx [Accessed 21 January 2010].

JISC. (2006). Designing Spaces For Effective Learning - A Guide To 21st Century Learning Space Design. Bristol: JISC. Available at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2006/pub_spaces.aspx [Accessed 21 January 2010].

Temple, P. (2007). Learning Spaces for the 21st Century: A review of the literature. York: The Higher Education Academy. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/lr_2007_temple [Accessed 21 January 2010].

I started the course by reflecting upon my previous experience and engagement with games, gaming and play (see "Flashbacks of a Fool") that had largely seen me leave videogames and computer games back in the 1990s preferring the more traditional games that had a largely social element to them, i.e. playing games with family or friends. The course had literally thrust me back into the digital gamesphere (see "All work and no play?" and "The Agony and Ectasy of Social Gaming") using a range of game consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Apple's iPod Touch as well as my own PC.

I had reflected that some of the games currently on the market and online had "enchanted me and brought out a child-like wonder in me (not seen since 1999)". This "enchantment" extended to the papers written by Pat Kane and Brian Sutton-Smith on their notions of play (see "The Language of Play") which can be a catalyst for creativity, originality and new developments and should actually be incorporated in each and every one of our lives as normal as it is eating, breathing and sleeping. Howeve, this "enchantment" is a little offset by the "moral panic" that sets in whenever the popular press or eminent scholars and thinker have their tu'penny worth to say on the subject (see "Videogames: A moral panic?").

Inevitably, the course would eventually touch upon my favourite hobby horse (my thanks goes to the course leaders of the "Digital Environments" modules and my colleagues at work for introducing me to it) that being Marc Prensky and the "Digital Natives" / "Digital Immigrant" dichotomy (see "Digital Natives Revisited"). Given that Prensky works in the games industry and feels passionately that learning and games can go hand-in-hand. No arguments there, it's just the grand rhetorical statements backed up by hardly any empirical research that has turn this issue into something of a pathological obsession for me - I should learn to take Michael Winner's esure advice, though James Newman's paper riled me more than Prensky's papers (see "Videogames: A tug of war").

One of my interests is identity and the course has given me ample to think about and experience. From Second Life, using the voice activated feature within it with Iris Bosa had raised questions about voice modification, personalisation and identity (see "The Curious Case of Voice Identity"); to J.P. Gee's concept of the “tripartite” of identities and the notion of the "other" in games, was presented in a very compelling and original way (see "The Learner with a Thousand Identities") that is an interesting addition to the Identity literature.

The module also called for group collaboration to design a Google Earth game (see "The New Seven World Wonders Quiz - A Team 2 Production"); solve a WebQuest (see "WebQuest DSV"); and devise a role playing game for Second Life (see "Dragons' Lair RPG - A Team 2 Production") that saw some fantastic online collaborations using Skype and a Wiki which led me to comment that it was the "most amazing brain-storming, project management session ever conducted virtually. We went from an idea to a fully-realised project plan in 1.5 hours". I have rarely seen online collaborations work at this frenetic speed and intensity before, so thank you Team 2 for an exhilarating experience. The group tasks themselves could also have been envisaged as a "game" that involved overcoming a number of obstacles and difficulties to arrive at the finish line in time with a fully realised product.

J.P. Gee presents some rather interesting concepts of "affinity groups" and "affinity spaces" (see "The Affinity towards Groups, Spaces and Learning") which I could use in relation to my insitution's new £35m library and learning centre, Augustine House, in terms of how learning spaces are been used physically as well as virtually by the student corpus and the academic community; and would such learning spaces present opportunities for real learning to take place (see "The Four Horsemen")?

So for now, I bid Hamish, Fiona and the challenging "Digital Game-based Learning" course a fond and affectionate adieu.

Until next time gamers, until next time ...

All this talk about technology, learning, spaces and group collaboration reminded me of the twin concepts of "affinity groups" (Gee, 2007) and "affinity spaces" (Gee & Hayes, 2009) - whilst a lot of this phenomena is organically and naturally conceived under informal learning situations, might it not be slightly contrived under directed learning circumstances? I can see "strong affinity groups" developing under a shared interest and passion for "Battlestar Galactica". How might a randomly selected group form over the shared responsibility of an assignment or project? Would they not develop as a "weak affinity group"? i.e. the group breaks up after the joint assignment is completed.

The most interesting part of the day was on the train journey back to Canterbury from Oxford. My boss was reading some papers as part of his masters and showed me a line that reminded me of a wonderfully quotable passage from Lawy (2006, p. 327, citing Biesta, 2004) that I used as part of my "Understanding Learning in the Online Environment" module assignment:

"Education … is a matter of risk, trust and violence that cannot be reduced to an economic transaction. Learning is a dangerous and risky enterprise that necessarily involves some challenge to existing shibboleths and ideas, and is not something that can be planned or linked with specific and intended behavioural outcomes or objectives."

At the heart of good learning, for me and my boss at least, are those four horsemen of education: risk, trust, violence and serendipity. Youenn Leborgne (2009) writes a lovely piece in his blog about making mistakes, which most of us can relate to and beautifully encapsulates these four elements.

From my own fumblings with playing with Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile", "Lost" and Clive Barker's "Jericho" on the PC and "Fantastic Contraption", "Four Pro", "Blocked", "Asphalt 4: Elite Racing", "FSS Hockey" and "Cro-Mag Rally" on the Apple iPod Touch where I have succeeded through trial and error with the occasional flashes of pure luck and chance.

I have taken risks by having to deal with virus-infected servers - having to learn quickly once thrown in the deep end (especially as viruses were quite a new phenomena in the late 1980s / early 1990s). There have been periods of pure serendipity from chance encounters to chance readings. The violence has come from the shifting of ideas and knowledge and those once-in-a-blue-moon revelationary thoughts. Much of my real learning has been informal (i.e. self taught), situated (i.e. on the job) and experiential (i.e. hands on).

What becomes of those learners who do not take risks; who do not trust their teachers or peers; who are afraid of having world view blown apart; and who fail to see happy accidents that can occur right under their noses? What becomes of their learning and what they have learnt?

References

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. (2009). Public Pedagogy through Video Games. Game Based Learning. [online]. Available at: http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/content/view/59/ [Accessed 7 April 2009] 

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lawy, R. (2006). Connective learning: young people’s identity and knowledge-making in work and non-work contexts. British Journal of Sociology in Education, 27(3), pp 325-340.

Leborgne, Y. (2009). IDGBL - Learning online. Holyrood Park blog. [online]. Available at: http://holyroodpark.net/youenn/weblog/2101.html [Accessed 7 April 2009].

As Gee (2007) points out, there are two major issues with videogames that concern people, laypersons and experts alike. These issues are violence and gender. Gee (2007, p. 11) makes an interesting case:

"Finally, despite some claims to the contrary, the fact of the matter is that the effect size of video-game play on aggression is smaller that the effect size for television, thereby rendering the claim that there is something special about the interactivity of games as a source of aggression suspect."

Gee's arguments share a similar resonance to those made by UK teachers who feel that "television had a greater influence on children's behaviour than computers and video games" (BBC, 2009a). Again, a recent EU report (Booth, 2009) seems to suggest that there is "no firm proof that playing them has an automatic negative impact on children's behaviour". Similar findings were published in "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin" which suggested that "that high levels of gore did not make playing the games more enjoyable", with players preferring "challenge and being in control that they got from the games" (Devlin, 2009).

Infact, to the contrary, the EU report concluded that "computer games are good for children and teach them essential life skills". The EU's conclusion seems to be shared by another recent report from the UK's largest music charity, Youth Music, which states that 2.5 million British children have been inpired to taking up a instrument for the first time after playing such games as "Guitar Hero", "SingStar" and "Rock Band" (Telegraph, 2008). There have also been instances where videogames have been used to create fire drill simulations (BBC, 2009d); help to reduce the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (BBC, 2009e); help to improve the "contrast sensitivity" in vision (BBC, 2009b).

Despite these positive illustrations; a number of negative ones come to the fore like a bad nappy rash and spring upon us a sense of fear and loathing with anything that is connected with technology and children. These have included a form of skin disorder dubbed as "PlayStation palmar hidradenitis" from using games consoles too much (BBC, 2009c) - this is in many ways a throwback to the Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) scares from using the mouse too often. However, when respected and eminent scientists, researchers and academics, like Baroness Susan Greenfield for example, wade into such debates, the Great Public prick up their ears and take notice.

Baroness Greenfield, a neuroscientist and the Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, has written a new book called "The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century" in which she suggests that children having prolonged exposure to screen technologies (like computers and videogames) may have an affect on children's brains and their ability to concentrate (Settle, 2008; Murphy, 2009). She makes the observation that:

"The last 10 years have seen a three-fold increase in the prescription of the drug Ritalin, a drug used for Attention Deficit Disorder. One asks why?"

A reason for this she suggests:

"This might, and I stress might, be something to do with the increased exposure of young children to unsupervised and lengthy hours in front of a screen."

She has even gone as far as suggesting to her peers in the House of Lords that "it might be worth considering whether the rise in autism ... was linked to the increasing prevalence of screen relationships" (Murphy, 2009). Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist, has written an article in the "Biologist" claiming that a lack of face-to-face contact could alter the way genes work and may give rise to the likes of cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia (Sigman, 2009; Murphy, 2009).

As Bennett et al (2008) speaking of the prevalence of the "digital native" in academic literature:

"[it] sparked an academic form of ‘moral panic’ using extreme arguments that have lacked empirical evidence"

I feel that we need to develop a realistic perspective of how videogames affects our children and members of our society that is based upon reasonably supportive empirical evidence, before we feel that we can say anything about it that is based on observations and rhetoric. What we might find is that there are a lot of factors that may be involved in these issues which are currently "invisible" to us. We may find to our ever-lasting regret that it might not be as simple as saying that "x causes y".

References

BBC. (2009a). Pupil TV habits concern teachers. BBC News, 30.03.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7972466.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

BBC. (2009b). Video games 'can improve vision'. BBC News, 29.03.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7967381.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]  

BBC. (2009c). Game consoles 'cause skin sores'. BBC News, 24.02.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7907489.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

BBC. (2009d). Video game helps with fire drill. BBC News, 04.02.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7907489.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

BBC. (2009e). Tetris 'helps to reduce trauma'. BBC News, 07.01.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7907489.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology.

Booth, R. (2009). Video games are good for children - EU report. The Guardian, 12.02.2009. [online]. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/12/computer-games-eu-study [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Devlin, K. (2009). Players of gory computer games 'like adventure not blood and guts'. The Telegraph, 16.01.2009. [online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4270752/Players-of-gory-computer-games-like-adventure-not-blood-and-guts.html [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Irvine, C. (2009). Children spend six hours a day in front of TV or computer. The Telegraph, 19.01.2009. [online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/4286701/Children-spend-six-hours-a-day-in-front-of-TV-or-computer.html [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Murphy, C. (2009). Online risks: from cancer to autism?. BBC News, 24.02.2009. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7907766.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009

Settle, M. (2008). Is computer use changing children?. BBC News, 15.08.2008. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7564152.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Shiels, M. (2008). Online time 'is good for teens'. BBC News, 21.11.2008. [online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7740895.stm [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Sigman, A. (2009). Well connected? The biological implications of ‘social networking’. Biologist. 56(1), February 2009, pp. 14-20. [online]. Available at: http://www.iob.org/userfiles/Sigman_press.pdf [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Telegraph. (2008). Computer games inspire children to learn musical instruments . The Telegraph, 05.12.2008. [online]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/3566594/Computer-games-inspire-children-to-learn-musical-instruments.html [Accessed 1 April 2009]

Gee favours the term "affinity groups" (Gee, 2007; 2001) to, say, Wenger's (1998) "communities of practice" because:

"it has been given various meanings and because I wish to avoid the romantic notions that seem to accompany the word 'community'; affinity groups can be good, evil, or anything in between." (2007, p. 206)

For Gee, "affinity groups" can be viewed as:

"...groups wherein people primarily orient toward a common set of endeavours and social practices in terms of which they attempt to realize these endeavours. In such groups people orient less towards shared gender, race, culture, or face-to-face relationships, although all of these play a secondary role." (2007, p. 196)

Affinity groups, therefore, allow for shared thinking, knowledge and reasoning to be inherently social and distributed and can, though not necessarily, be augmented by technology - this concept is quite similar in principle to the crowdsourcing or collective intelligence phenomena where nodes and networks of people get together, either physically, though mostly virtually to solve problems or to produce a product, such practices have largely been enabled by the introduction of Web 2.0 type technologies.

In terms of e-learning courses or even traditional face-to-face classrooms this approach to gathering knowledge; solving problems; or completing a task suggests a change in practice as well as changing the power structures of teacher / student in what Gee describes as "reciprocal teaching" (after the work of Ann Brown and Joseph Campione) whereby students take it in turns to teach something that they have learnt or mastered.

Following on from, and extending, the concept of "affinity groups", Gee and Hayes (2009) present a paper that develops the notion that informal learning outside of school seems to fair better than formal learning inside of school. They go on to suggest that "humans seem to learn more deeply, and more equitably ... when they learn outside of school in areas they choose and for which they are motivated" (2009, para. 2). They quickly put to bed the myth that suggests that informal learning does not involve any teaching, arguing that "teaching in informal learning in ... today's popular culture involves three things: design, resources and ... 'affinity spaces'" (2009, para. 7) which they bind together as a form of "public pedagogy". At the centre of Gee and Hayes' paper is their concept of "affinity space" which they describe as "spaces - real world ot virtual world on Internet sites or in virtual worlds like Second Life - where people interact around a common passion" (2009, para. 17).

Unlike the "communities of practice", the "affinity space" does not segregate the "apprentices" from the "masters" - they co-exist. This space also allows for the generation of shared user content and encourages and enables people to:

• gain "individual knowledge" (in their heads);
• contribute to "distributed knowledge" that can be picked up from other people, shared links or materials on a site or via mediating devices;
• use "dispersed knowledge" that can be found on other sites.

Gee and Hayes (2009, para. 19) make the claim that "affinity spaces" are "well-designed spaces that resources and mentor learners, old and new, beginners and masters alike" which can offer learners an identity, knowledge and status as well as encouraging and resourcing critical learning and reflective thinking. In their example, they have used the instance of the Yu-Gi-Oh! collectible card game (CCG) which is heavily supported by other players (face-to-face and online); video games; books; comics; posters; stat sheets; television shows; movies and websites (both official and non-official) which all fuses together in what Jenkins (2006) calls "media convergence" creating an enormous pool of "collective intelligence" and "collective resources".

In his blog post, Henry Keil (2009) discusses Gee and Hayes' paper and asks the pertinent question:

"Are we over-teaching during formal contact hours, and if [so] how can we engage students to learn more informally outside reduced class time?"

References

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. (2009). Public Pedagogy through Video Games. Game Based Learning. [online]. Available at: http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/content/view/59/ [Accessed 24 March 2009]

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gee, J.P. (2001). Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education. Review of Research in Education, 25 (2000-2001), pp 99-125.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Keil, H. (2009). Teaching in Informal Learning. Holyrood Park blog. [online]. Available at: http://holyroodpark.net/hkeil/weblog/1986.html [Accessed 24 March 2009].

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, England; New York: Cambridge University Press.

These "semiotic domains" could be a science laboratory, so the learner "thinks and acts" as a scientist; or a kitchen, so the learner "thinks and acts" as a chef. In the realm of the video game, the player either has to construct their character from scratch if it is a role playing game (RPG) or they adopt the identity of the game's main protagonist, be it Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Max Payne or Lara Croft; so the "semiotic domains" become a fantastical and improbable world; the rain strewn streets of New York; or an archaeological dig somewhere in the mountains of Peru.

This is where Gee (2007, pp. 48-51) presents his fascinating “tripartite” perspective to identity where three complex and interrelating identities are at play: “real-world” (as “played by” the individual themselves and are imbued with a variety of competing/complementary identities); “virtual” (as “played out” by the individual’s alter-ego or “avatar” which can be seen as aspirational identities that befit a particular role); and “projective” (as “played towards” being a certain type of person / role based upon the individual’s own dispositions). Gee articulates this “tripartite” of identities in the following way:

• student as scientist (real-world identity)
• student as scientist (virtual identity)
• student as scientist (projective identity)

Gee introduces another concept, that of the "psychosocial moratorium" (2007, p, 59), which was first introduced by psychologist Erik Erickson,  which has been used to describe the suspension of responsibility and accountability that allows players to explore alternate identities without the repercussions and dangers that one might face in real life; i.e. a player as a neurosurgeon performing brain surgery.

Gee (2007, pp. 53-54) suggests that the relationship of "player as virtual character" is a powerful one as it:

"...transcends identification with characters in novels or movies, for instance, because it is both active (the player actually does things) and reflexive, in the sense that once the player has made some choices about the virtual character, the virtual character is now developed in a way that sets certain parameters about what the player can now do."

The above statement reminds me of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"; Campbell's (1993) seminal work featuring the journey of the archetypal hero that can be found in most world mythologies and has been a device adopted by many storytellers including J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" triology and George Lucas' "Star Wars" franchise. Each deals with a "rite of passage" - for the learner, this could be interpreted as a "learning footprint" or "learning trajectory" - that would ultimately result in some kind of sacrifice - for the learner, this could mean supplanting previously held beliefs or knowledge or letting go of some kind of redundant idenity - that would lead to some kind of transformation - again, for the learner, this could mean the assimilation of new beliefs or knowledge or acquiring a new identity.

Blinka (2008) offers an interesting insight between the relationship of the player and their avatar; Blinka's (2008) paper seems to suggest that the younger the player, the more they identify themselves as the avatar and that for all age groups daydreaming and emotional feelings towards their avatar, was found to be important.

In the "Cultural Models" chapter, Gee introduces the idea that players can also play the "bad guy" as well as the "good guy" which means adopting the identity of the "other"; this shadowy arch-nemesis. He states (Gee, 2007, p. 158) that:

"...far more interactively that you could in any novel or movie, you would have experienced the 'other' from the inside ...  since the cultural models built into the game are not yours, you would be able to reflect on them in a more overtly conscious way..."

Depending on the role of the "other", for some of us, this role-reversal may actually be a real eye opener or may take us down very uncomfortable and threatening avenues of inquiry and experience. Uncomfortable questions may be asked of our identities - a real "looking glass" moment that is reflected back to us in all of its most uncomfortable, uncompromising and unflinching reality.

References

Blinka, L. (2008). The Relationship of Players to Their Avatars in MMORPGs: Differences between Adolescents, Emerging Adults and Adults. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 2(1). [online]. Available at: http://cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2008060901&article=5 [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Campbell, J. (1993). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Fontana Press.

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Suler, J. (2002). Identity Management in Cyberspace. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Suler, J. (2004). Personality Types in Cyberspace. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/persontypes.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Suler, J. (2007). The Psychology of Avatars and Graphical Space in Multimedia Chat Communities. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psyav.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

"I have first wanted to argue that good video games build into their very designs good learning principles and that we should use these principles, with or without games, in schools, workplaces or other educational sites. "

This sentiment is shared by Malone (1980, p. 162) 20 years earlier who also felt that "these same ideas can be applied to other educational environments and life situations". The "learning principles" that Gee speaks of are his "36 Learning Principles" (2007, pp. 221-227) that he slowly develops throughout the book.

I can, however, see a number of time poor, resource hungry teachers struggle with some of Gee's suggestions, especially when they have to work with a rather prescriptive curriculum that changes ever-so-often according to the Government's latest "blue skies" thinking or knee-jerk reaction to some kind of educational or societal failure that needs a "policy plaster" to cover it up.

So, for the next few weeks, I would like to post some of my thoughts around some of the themes and issues that had caught my interest whilst reading Gee's book.

Watch this space...

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Malone, T.W. (1980) What Makes Things Fun to Learn? Heuristics for Designing Instructional Computer Games. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL symposium and the first SIGPC symposium on Small systems table of contents. Palo Alto, California, United States.