Affinity spaces are a ―fuzzy concept‖ in the logical sense that they are defined by fuzzy boundaries

Affinity spaces do not have to be virtual

―who belongs‖ is simply to say that whoever enters the space (the fan site) is in the group and belongs.

―group‖ is defined by a space in which people associate, rather than some readily identifiable criteria like registering with a political party or completing professional training.

Imagine the transformation in schools if learning in school became about how to make good choices in science, mathematics, art, and civic participation

But ourstudy has taught us that the identities being crafted through game play are in fact real-world identities that are crafted as young people compare their actions in-game, and theirconsequences, with the consequences those same actions would have in the real world

At the beginning of the chapter, we referred to a perspective we called theseparate worldsview—the idea that games are a world apart from the real world where players can take onnew, and possibly transgressive, identities.

This vignette involving Holly and Brandon also adds something to this account, throughits comparison of a learning arrangement between two siblings that is durable in the gamingsituation, and fragile—and a source of self-abnegation—in the homework situation.

Gee has argued that this is, in large part, because gamedesigners have employed good learning principles, thus locating the locus of productiveagency primarily in the games.

We find this a strikingdifference when compared with her helping during game play; in the gaming situation sheknew equally little, and perhaps even less, about the content at hand, but in the case of thegame, her own lack of ability was of no issue

MaybeI’ll learn something.

At one point, after she handedhis textbook back to Brandon following a helping episode, he quickly handed her anothermath problem sheet. She responded with a tone of pleased and feigned exasperation, “I’mnever going to get out of here am I?” She clearly had no real need, at that point, to “get out of[there].”

What was similar between the gaming and homeworksituations was the sense of Holly serving as something of an ambient resource for Brandon;she was just hanging around, waiting to be asked for help, and offering it even when he didnot ask

it may have beendue to the fact that Brandon was the better player and both knew that he was assessing thevalue of her suggestions and deciding on the basis of the in-game situation whether it wassensible to act upon or disregard his sister’s help.

Holly played the role of running commentator, seem-ingly in hopes that some of her narration would prove useful to Brandon, but she showedlittle distress or frustration when he failed to follow her suggestions.

We often observed Holly with a game’s strategy guidein hand reading aloud sections she felt were relevant to Brandon’s play.

Holly often assumed a coaching or caretaker role, oftenwithout invitation to do so from Brandon. In these situations, she actively assessed hisneeds and attempted to provide a resolution to what she saw ashisproblem.

Rachel also maximized her in-game funds by purchasing the minimum number of itemsnecessary to keep her zoo’s animals healthy and happy, whereas Katarina would add extrafeatures to the exhibits, like trees and rocks, that did little for her in-game bottom line butimproved the aesthetics of her zoo.

Zoo Tycoon,

For example, during play ofBurnout 3: Takedown,when Tyler saw that his friend’s car was critically damaged, he pulled over to the side of theroad and waited for a fatal crash. This allowed Tyler to win the race, not by having to runlaps and risk taking more damage himself, but by default when his friend’s car was inevitablydestroyed

He is both an unabashed user of cheats, sporting a somewhat transgressive personalreputation he values at times, and, at the same time, someone who does not want his playwith friends interpreted as unfair—thus the overt display of his hands during the openingsequence to show his competitors that he is not entering cheat codes

hese are,depending on your point of view, an example of the morally sanctionable behavior of“cheating,” or an acceptable part of play.

In general, these vignettes collectively show how important it is to understandwhat goes on in-room if we are to understand how young people come to learn and playin-game.

n Moment 2 (below) the disconnected controller, previously useless in-game, was againused by Andrew, this time more demonstrably, as an instructional device. As in prior vignettesinvolving other children in other families, we see young people organizing themselves toteach and learn together—in ingenious ways.

After this early attempt,it seemed as though Johnny held the knowledge of the move, which they would needperiodically throughout the game. Just over twenty minutes after the early encounter withthe chimney, Evan stated that he had figured out a way to make climbing the chimney easier.

Moreimportant for our general argument, we see another instance in which teaching is organizedfor learning during play (like the last vignette showing Mikey and sister Maddy).

Inessence, they managed to keep their play going while they demonstrated to each othersuccessive attempts to create and solidify the climbing move with the controller, in a kindof “on the job” learning.

fter a bit of disagree-ment about the problem Maddy was having (lines 3–8), Mikey took the game systemfrom her (line 11).

It shows howMikey acts as a guide by providing advice to Maddy as she plays a game; it shows also, inher not taking his advice, that Maddy is playing an active rather than a simply passive rolein the apprenticeship and in her own learning.

Maddy:I’m just going to try it anyway.

oes it suggest a person who maintains control in the rest of her life,with game play simply another expression of this control, or might games represent a uniquecontext for its expression as compared, for example, with school, where she might have verylimited control of her our learning paths?

Typically, in an innercircle in the room, Mikey and Johnny were at play, with Maddy at the periphery observing,often commenting, and sometimes entering play under the watchful eyes of her brotherMikey.

Further support for thisinterpretation of the way Rachel organized learning for herself as a video game player can befound in the fact that she generally avoided in-game tutorials

Her questions were extremely focused, relating toparticular game moves or to identifying unfamiliar icons on the screen.

Unlikein other families in our study, siblings Rachel and Cory seldom played together because, asreported by Rachel, they had very different ways of playing.

earning arrangements

In order to better understand the question of how kids’ video game play is tied up intheir other activities, we also focused on one specific activity in the kids’ daily round outsideof game play—homework

we see a persistent bent that analyzes video game play as largely disconnectedfrom the other moments and activities of people’s lives.

We recruited the participants through advertisements onCraigslist, flyers in gaming stores, and word of mouth.

Ecological validity is about having a basis to credibly claim that our researchaccounts are about how and what people do, learn, and think in daily life, and not simplyabout what they do within the context of contrived laboratory tasks.

First, therearewidelydiffering views on the positive, negative, and noneffects of video games on otheraspects of life or learning.

Learning scientists use the termtransferto refer to the phenomenon of taking what youhave learned in one context and transferring it to another.

grade inflation

That observation deserves serious attention because how a problem is structured makes all the difference in the world

That is, even the best of educational games tend to be marginalized and channeled in the direction of extra-curricular activities.

are not solely theoretical

the act of asking good questions, guided by the construction and testing of theories, in a way that illustrates the very essence of the scientific method

focusing attention on imaginative and efficient use of resources

Equations: The Game of Creative Mathematics

even in our secular schools, a tendency towards sectarian thinking.

a world where Gods collide and their followers depend with greater and greater certainty on the correctness of their God's solution

Further, they learn that some kinds of problems are more important than others.

Therefore a puzzle-based education might not prepare people for life after school as well as a game-based education might.

There is an endless array of secrets that others know and you don't.

A game creator is "God-like"

The more you know about a mystery, the more mysterious it becomes. The more you know about a secret, the less secret it becomes.

not just in terms of whether a player's team wins or loses

that does not have a solution

School grades

Fred Goodman

critical thinking skills that are not necessarily designed for passing standardizedtests

a game has to communicate successfully to its players how to play, orit will, in some sense, fail to exist full

Not only does heor she feel like the time spent playing is both valuable and meaningful, but he or she is antic-ipating playing again.

Long beforeMath BlasterorOregon Trailhit the market, games have been used as learningtools

providing newpathways for work in the field

to be critiqued

but by the contract it establishes with players when they accept itsrule set and enter into the space of play

when we, in fact, need to look atplayers’ performance and understandtheirunderstandings of them.32

tensions in distinction between the real and the virtual,in school and out of school, formal and informal, learning and teaching, knowing and being.

Weknow, for example, that play is iterative as is good learning, and that gaming is a practicerooted in reflection in action, which is also a quality of good learning.

what routes to policy change

that make sensibleuse of digital media

This strikes us as a fascinating social organization where adultswith particular interests/backgrounds/resources can serve as targeted learning brokers for the children

Phil Bell,in his group’s study of everyday learning as it relates to science and technology, has foundseveral complex and fascinating social contexts that provide reinforcing conditions initiating(and sustaining) the gaming that is present

Nichole Pinkard

But as both Everett and Watkins and Pitaru show, entry into a broadecology of gaming is never a given. Many barriers to entry exist.

and new learning spaces

Designers of cell phones, operating systems, and new learning spaces would do wellto learn from games. When the stakes are so high, a system can’t afford not to teach

but to the entire tool-set available to the player within agaming practice

Key moment Number Four requiressupport of acommunity of practiceon the part of design

Key moments1–4 infuse the ecology of gaming, creating feedback loops that cycle through levels of en-gagement, agency, mastery, expertise, and back again

the power peer-to-peer learning affords the evolution of a knowledge sys-tem, and the range of guises in which such learning is currently cloaked

Key moment Number Three requires support ofreflectionandinterpretationon the part ofdesigners

Key moment Number Three occurs when a player turns to another and asks, “Wantme to show you?”

Key moments Oneand Two are requirements of any good learning system, digital or otherwise. As a teacherIoften measure the quality of my own instruction within this framework. Key momentNumber Two requiresdepthon the part of design

gaming as a productive literacy drivesfeelings of personal agency, affecting both life and thought.

many games players come to feel a sense of agency or ownership..

he player feelsinvestedin the experience

“Can I save it?”

heframes the question of “Can I try?” as a conduit for social inclusion

or a player who lacks confidencewill rarely choose to play, in the same way that a student who lacks confidence in his orher ability to read will tend to shy away from reading, and most certainly will refrain fromdemonstrating that ability in front of others.

Can I try?”

that gaming represents an ecologythat is tangled up in a range of other ecologies—social, technological, economic, political—and that learning how to activate gaming as one node within a larger network holds promisefor those willing to engage

Although. . . we may recognize the learning potential of games, thisrecognition alone does not change the structural conditions that insist on the bifurcationbetween entertainment and education and correlate only academic content with educationalsuccess” (p. 114)

Having kept each of these concerns in mind, I did my best to create a volume that supportedcomplementary and contradictory perspectives without the weight of too much conceptualprejudice

gaming-as-ecology I pushed the authors to explore the designand behavior of gamesas systemsin which young people participate as gamers, producers,and learners

it is equally critical to address howplayers take on active roles in determining how, when, and why they learn

and no two players ever experience the “same”game

One cannotlearn about or from games without engaging in their play

and many games take both digital and nondigitalforms. Play across media is one way games are mobilized within everyday activity.

Gaming can include interaction with nondigital media.

of a need to identify the kinds of questions not yet asked, thekinds of research not yet done—the failings, in other words—of the current approach to afield that is only now beginning to take shape.

but by the ways that particular practices are in circulation with others. (p. 64)

Gamers not only follow rules, but push against them, testing the limits of the system in oftenunique and powerful ways.

thelusory attitude,the attitude required of playersin order to play.23

a cognitive attitude tied directly to the creative, improvisational, and subversivequalities of play

Gaming is play across media, time, social spaces, and networks of meaning; it includesengagement with digital FAQs, paper game guides, parents and siblings, the history of games,other players, as well as the games themselves.

The concept ofgamingas it is used in the following pages goes beyond games, in the same waythatlearninggoes beyond the configuration of a classroom

This is where the real work needs to be done to better understand the connectionsbetween forms of gaming and certain kinds of acquired knowledge and practice.

“Video games are not just stagesthat facilitate cultural, social, or political practices; they are also media where cultural valuesthemselves can be represented—for critique, satire, education, or commentary” (p. 119).

ongoing tensions be-tween industry relations, distribution infrastructure, patterns of player/viewer engagement,genres of representation, social agendas, and educational philosophies.

Acknowledging that gamesalreadyoperate as robust learning systems forces afocus on the intrinsic qualities and characteristics that guide the types of learning and newliteracies gaming and games advance.

According to Constance Steinkuhler “Online technologies provide new opportu-nities for ‘anytime/anywhere’ social interaction, and the number of innovative curriculardesigns that incorporate online collaborative environments has been steadily increasingsince such technology first emerged.”17

“We are just learning how toexercise that power—individually and collectively—and fighting to define the terms underwhich we will be allowed to participate.”16

Henry Jenkins

is antithetical to theway most schools currently operate

and perhaps even from those of theirmentors or teachers

ames develop players’productiveliteracies, an ability touse digital technologies to produce both meanings and tangible artifacts.

his does not bode well for those seeking a silver bullet toslay the games and learning beast. It does suggest, however, that ongoing work will need tobe done to design and support asetof gaming and learning frameworks for use by students,parents, teachers, and researchers

on his or her own terms

Jane McGonigal

KurtSquire

the contributors to this volume, each in his or her own way, sharesin the belief that exposure to the flexible rule sets and iterative, cyclical play embodied inboth design and gaming practices are critical for thinking about literacy in the twenty-firstcentury.

nd toward an emphasis on creative production and the principles of design asastarting place and main area of emphasis with kids.

Colin Lankshear, Michele Knobe

The meaning ofknowingtoday has “shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to be-ing able to find and use it.”1

produce some of the most powerful, persistent, and problematic lessons about race inAmerican culture

S. Craig Watkins

Playing video games is a kind of literacy. Not the literacy that helps us read books or write term papers,but the kind of literacy that helps us make or critique the systems we live in. . . . When we learn to playgames with an eye toward uncovering their procedural rhetorics, we learn to ask questions about themodels such games present. (p. 136)

Ian Bogost

Mizuko Ito

theater games likeSibling Rivalrywere used in contexts rang-ing from activism to acting

nor a digital one

As kids get left out—not only of videogame play but also of other digitally based experiences popular among their peers—they willcontinue to fall further and further beyond.

He argues that making digital games accessible to a wider audiencebenefits everyone by providing opportunities for play across communities.

Given the relative scarcity of empirical research on video gameplay

Stevens, Satwicz, and McCarthy follow with “In-Game, In-Room, In-World”—a captivatingethnography of young people in different families playing video games in their own homes

In this chapter, Geetakes on the intersection of game design and good learning, choreographing potential sitesof engagement between the two by drawing on contemporary work in the learning sci-ences.

These chapters articulate a form oflearning ecologypresent inthe way kids game

In the end we decidedto use them all; each name came with subtleties and distinctions that would have been lostwithin a unifying framework.

We could not even decide on a shared nameto refer to our object of study—games, digital games, video games?

from education, the learning sciences, film studies, technology, anthro-pology, game design, performance studies, computer science, and youth development.

My goal, and that of the authors selected for inclusion,is to pepper this often black-and-white mix with shades of gray, pointing toward a moresophisticated understanding of the myriad ways in which gaming could and should matterto those considering the future of learning

casts them as a Holy Grai

in the sense of how all of the various elements—from code to rhetoric tosocial practices and aesthetics—cohabit and populate the game world. Purposefully broadin scope and multidisciplinary in perspective,Ecology of Gamesis intended to complexifyadebate around the value of games and gaming that has been, to date, overly polemicand surprisingly shallow

who haven’t been invited to play

act as a point of entry or departure

gaming literacies,orfamilies of practice

present, missing, or reinforced

wenow just call themkids

hybrididentities

across highly personalized networks

An idea that to many seems new today turns out to have graced the lips ofresearchers some fifty-odd years ago

A virtue of gaming that is sometimes overlookedby those seeking grander goals. . . is its unparalleled advantages in training and educationalprograms.

What’s hard about school is not learning to read

do you?

‖ (e.g., newcomers may be flamed when they unknowingly break a norm or fail to already know what they ―should‖ know).

If human learning and growth flourish in a nurturingaffinity space, then it is of some concern that school has so few features of such a space

Affinity spaces and other sorts of communities can give people a sense of belonging, but they can also give people a sense of ―us‖ (the insiders) against ―them‖ (the outsiders).

What does ―belonging‖ really mean?

Of course, we will argue that a principle of good meta-game design is involving players as designers. That is, most positive social engagement

Designing, thinking like a designer, reflecting on the interaction between design and human interaction (as in a game), and thinking of complex relations in systems (as in the rule set of a game and the way it interacts with players and they interact with it) are all 21stcentury skills (ZIMMERMAN, 2007)

fan sites to discuss, critique, analyze, and mod the game

Those of us who have made the claim that games are good for learning have meant, of course, that well-designed games are good for learning, not poorly designed ones.

games that stress the involvement of players as designers in the first sense, by making game design a core game mechanic, facilitating modding, and encouraging robust design communities to develop around the game are, we believe, particularly good for fostering skills with technology,

Using the term ―group‖ over-stresses the people at the expense of the structure of the space, and the way the space and people interact.

We will call such games big ―G‖ Games with a plus: ―Games+‖. We can claim that ―Games+ are particularly good for learning.‖

―metagame‖ has been increasinglyused to describe ―‘the game beyond the game,‘ or the aspects of game play that derive not from the rules of the game, but from interplay with the surrounding context‖

that sets up game play; i.e., what comes ―in the box‖ or increasingly, is downloaded from the game distributor‘s website. We will call the social practices that happen inside and/or outside the game, the ―meta-game.‖ We willcall the combination of the two—game and meta-game—the big ―G‖ ―Game,‖ with a capital ―G‖ (see GEE, 1990, for a similar distinction between discourse and Discourse).

The second thing RoN does to solve the problem of letting players know where the cutting edge of their competence is is to render the whole matter social.

a sandbox

the very design of the game

Information is always given “just in time” when it can be used and we can see its meaning in terms of effects and actions.

This never happens in RoN or any other good game

failing to be able to learn and enjoy these sorts of games

sorts of learning that goes on in schools

Like all RTS games, RoN involves players learning well over a hundred different commands, each connected to decisions that need to be made, as they move through a myriad of different menus (there are 102 commands on the abridged list that comes printed on a small sheet enclosed with the game). Furthermore, players must operate at top speed if they are to keep up with skilled opponents who are building up as they are. RoN involves a great deal of micro-management and decision-making under time pressure.

Good video games are complex, challenging, and long; they can take 50 or more hours to finish. If a game cannot be learned well, then it will fail to sell well, and the company that makes it is in danger of going broke.

Perhaps, too, this exposure causes in some of these young people a critique of schooling as it currently exists

makes many schools look uninspired and out of touch with the realities of how human learning works at a deep level.

However, it is clear that these principles resonant with what theorists in the learning sciences have said about learning in content areas in school.

I believe that these principles would be efficacious in areas outside games

some of the learning principles

Distributed and dispersed knowledge that is available “just in time” and “on demand” is, then, yet another learning principle built into a game like RoN.

distributed and dispersed across many different people, places, Internet sites, and modalities (e.g. magazines, chat rooms, guides, recordings).

An affinity space is a place or set of places where people can affiliate with others based primarily on shared activities, interests, and goals, not shared race, class, culture, ethnicity, or gender. They have an affinity for a common interest or endeavor

see Chapter 6

This social aspect of RoN, and games in general, makes RoN and other games the focus of what I have elsewhere called an “affinity group” (Gee 2003), and what I now prefer to call an “affinity space” (see Chapter 6)

Online there is a worldwide university of peers and experts available to any player all the time.

Every player knows there are an immense number of Internet sites and chat rooms from which loads of things can be learned and to which lots of questions can be directed.

The skill tests are, as they often are not in school, developmental for the learner and not evaluative (judgments carried out by authority figures).

was that I had not properly evaluated my skills

How do they know when they are ready to move on to the more rigorous challenges of the normal difficulty level and harder levels, as well as multiplayer play?

Games cycle through periods of pleasurable frustration and routine mastery—a cycle of storm and calm

he pleasure of mastery

The player has moved to a new level of expertise and will then eventually face a yet harder problem that will start the process all over again

And because in the spirit of participatory culture – a key feature of many games, and a core commitment of this course – this blog is a forum inviting others interested in games and learning to connect with us, participate, and build shared knowledge. Welcome!

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