#barab

We can learn from games and gaming not just new ways to build better games but also ways to build better learning, assessment, production, participation, design, and creativity for all people, old and young, in a fast-changing, high-risk, global world.

“Transformational play and virtual worlds - worked examples from the quest atlantis project” - S. Barab et al.

Centraal:      >‘transformational play’                 > “(…) how individuals and environments develop, push on, and change one another through meaningful inquiry.” (BSA, p.1)    > QA intends to engage children in a form of ‘dramatic play’                 > “(…) both online and offline learning activities, with a storyline inspiring a disposition towards social actions.” (ibid.)    >> “(…) transformational play involves positioning students as active protagonists who interact with game characters and virtual environments to identify and solve personally meaningful problems.” (ibid.)

Features of QA:    - meta-game context: “(…) a genre of play in which an overarching structure lends form, cohesion, and meaning to a collection of nested activities, each with its own identifiable rules and challenges. (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004)” (BSA, p.2)

Identification    > “Through game play, as one develops a relationship with (or projects oneself into) a player-character, the individual is extended into another world--one that is virtual but that has real-world implications (Gadamer, 1975). By creating an opportunity for students to engage with curricular content in this way, the spaces of QA allow the student to test conjectures, act upon them, and witness the consequences of their actions, making visible the functional utility of one's understanding (Barab, Zuiker, et al., 2007).” (BSA, p.5)

Practiced identity    > “More than a simulation, QA is fun; like many games, it allows students to become someone and do things that they are unlikely to do in the "real world." During play, students engage a space of possibility, negotiating rules and roles and discovering the challenges and potentialities for growth within and across the boundaries of fantasy and "reality". Through play, they transcend the borders of reality; it is this potential that, in our opinion, gives play the power to expand the learner's conceptual and personal zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978).” (BSA, p.5)