Roberta Thompson

Negotiating pedagogical transformation and identity performance through gameplay in statecraft X

Literacy, Learning, and Digital Games is a comprehensive account of the possibilities and challenges of teaching and learning with digital games in primary and secondary schools. Based on an original research project, the book explores digital games’ capacity to engage and challenge, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative and deep learning, and enable curricula that connect with young people today. These exciting approaches illuminate the role of context in gameplay as well as the links between digital culture, gameplay, and identity in learners’ lives, and are applicable to research and practice at the leading edge of curriculum and literacy development.Children are often positioned as consumers of digital games, but what happens when they become the creators and producers of their own games? This chapter describes a digital game-making project in a Year 3/4 classroom where young students made their own digital games using the block coding program Scratch. While this project cuts across several curriculum areas, it was primarily designed as a Language and Literacies project with written composition at the centre.The case study data used in this chapter was collected from one teacher, Nick, and his Year 3/4 classes over a three-year period. While coding work in schools is generally located in Science, Technology and Mathematics education (STEM), Nick drew upon the affordances of Scratch to develop a strong language arts/ literacies focus through a game-making unit. In this way, the unit cuts across the curriculum, addressing many of the STEM standards in addition to those of Language and Literacy.For the Cook-Fort Worth Childrens Medical Center, David Schwarz offers a successful blend of comfort and delight.

'A game isn’t a game without interaction’: students’ thoughts about the use of digital games in school

Literacy, Learning, and Digital Games is a comprehensive account of the possibilities and challenges of teaching and learning with digital games in primary and secondary schools. Based on an original research project, the book explores digital games’ capacity to engage and challenge, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative and deep learning, and enable curricula that connect with young people today. These exciting approaches illuminate the role of context in gameplay as well as the links between digital culture, gameplay, and identity in learners’ lives, and are applicable to research and practice at the leading edge of curriculum and literacy development.Children are often positioned as consumers of digital games, but what happens when they become the creators and producers of their own games? This chapter describes a digital game-making project in a Year 3/4 classroom where young students made their own digital games using the block coding program Scratch. While this project cuts across several curriculum areas, it was primarily designed as a Language and Literacies project with written composition at the centre.The case study data used in this chapter was collected from one teacher, Nick, and his Year 3/4 classes over a three-year period. While coding work in schools is generally located in Science, Technology and Mathematics education (STEM), Nick drew upon the affordances of Scratch to develop a strong language arts/ literacies focus through a game-making unit. In this way, the unit cuts across the curriculum, addressing many of the STEM standards in addition to those of Language and Literacy.For the Cook-Fort Worth Childrens Medical Center, David Schwarz offers a successful blend of comfort and delight.