MAIN > SPOTLIGHT ARCHIVE > Craig Wacker (Apr 08)

Tuesday 8th April 2008 8:00 am

Reflections on AERA:  Observations on learning, games, democracy, identity and education

Continuing our observations from the recent AERA conference, over the next week Spotlight will feature a series of posts from members of the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

The week’s series touches on some of the themes that surfaced during the event, especially as they relate to role of digital media in learning.

  • In Celebrating Seymour, David Williamson Shaffer considers the influence of Seymour Papert’s work on current thinking about digital media and learning.  Papert, creator of the LOGO programming language and author of Mindstorms, saw the emergence of new technology as an opportunity to re-imagine education.

  • Prompted by a discussion of deliberative democracy, David Hatfield considers the role of games in preparing young people for democratic participation.  In Games, Diversity and Democracy, Hatfield argues that games allow users to understand different perspectives-a critical competency for members of a democracy. 

  • Digital media, argues Elizabeth Bagley, allows young people to assume roles-such as Youth Radio journalist-that permit them to assume a professional identity, understand diverse interests, and create work products for external audiences.  In Consequential Digital Identities, Bagley claims that digital media-through epistemic games and projects like Reel Works Teen Filmaking-can help provide pro-social roles for young people.

  • New media is no longer a separate realm to be learned, claims Aran Nulty, but rather something that underlies all learning.  In New Media Technologies and Student Learning, Nulty argues that education should “be at the forefront of the use of innovative technologies.”

  • Ethics and values, according to Padraig Nash, must constitute part of digital learning.  In Navigating Digital Society, Nash reflects on a recent classroom visit and worries that schools are not preparing students to understand the complicated issues of privacy, ownership, authorship, creation, and sharing that will shape their decision-making in virtual space. 


Category: Civic-Engagement, Credibility, Ecology-of-Games, Identity, Race-Ethnicity, Unexpected

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Comments

Spotlight Editor
 Posted on April 10 2008 2:48 PM

Mechelle De Craene’s comment has been removed at her request.

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