Reconfiguring Interactivity, Agency and Pleasure in the Education and Computer Games Debate – using Žižek’s concept of interpassivity to analyse educational play

Digital or computer games have recently attracted the interest of education researchers and policy-makers for two main reasons: their interactivity, which is said to allow greater agency, and their inherent pleasures, which is linked to increased motivation to learn. However, the relationship between pleasure, agency and motivation in educational technologies is under-theorised. This paper aims to situate these concepts within a framework that might identify more precisely how games can be considered to be educational. The framework is based on Zizek’s theory of subjectivity in cyberspace, and in particular his notion of interpassivity, which is defined in relation to interactivity. The usefulness of this concept is explored firstly by examining three approaches to theorizing cyberspace and their respective manifestations in key texts on educational game play. Zizek’s analysis of cyberspace in terms of socio-symbolic relations is then outlined to suggest how games might be considered educational insofar as they provide opportunities to manipulate and experiment with the rules underpinning our sense of reality and identity. This resembles Brecht’s notion of the educational value of theatre. The conclusion emphasizes that the terms on which games are understood to be educational relates to the social interests which education is understood to serve

Exploring the Effects of Dynamic Avatar on Performance and Engagement in Educational Games

Avatar research has almost exclusively explored avatars that remain the same regardless of context. However, there may be advantages to avatars that change during use. A plethora of work has shown that avatars personalized in one’s likeness increases identification, while object-like avatars increase detachment. We posit that in certain situations within a game it may be more advantageous to have increased identification, while in other situations increased detachment. We present a study on dynamic avatars, or avatars that change types based on game context. In particular, we investigate what we term the successful likeness avatar. The successful likeness is an avatar that is only a likeness when the player is in a win state and at all other times an object. Our goal is to determine if this type of avatar can foster an increase in user performance and engagement. Our experiment (N=997) compares four avatars: 1) Shape, 2) Likeness, 3) Likeness to Shape, and 4) Shape to Likeness (successful likeness). We found that players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly better performance (levels completed) than all other conditions. Players using a successful likeness avatar had significantly higher play time (minutes played) than all other conditions. We propose a theoretical model in which identification facilitates vicarious outcomes and in which detachment facilitates outcome dissociation. As performance and engagement are correlated to learning (Harteveld, 2015), successful likeness avatars may be crucial in educational games.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (STEM+C Grant 1542970)Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Fellowship

New Media & Youth Identity. Issues and Research Pathways

Media have held a considerable and growing place in the social environment of industrial society in recent decades, transforming the perception that a people have of their place in the world and of their memberships and belonging, creating new paths for social relations, affecting lifestyles, socialization, and communication processes, and the construction of identity itself. The relationship between young people (especially teenagers and adolescents) and new media shows some peculiarities which are worth further reflection to understand the extent and outcomes of these social changes. This article aims to investigate the discourse on youth identity and new media in the social science literature, determining which are the key trends and exploring the more relevant research questions about this theme and the way these topics relate to one another. Titles and abstracts of articles published during the period 2004 \u2013 2013 were selected from the Scopus social sciences database and they were analysed using different content analysis techniques supported by the T-Lab software. The international literature on these topics presents a certain liveliness and heterogeneity in themes and its perspectives on theoretical and empirical research. Nevertheless, it has been possible to identify some key trends, focusing mainly on the idea of active identity construction by new media

Design-activity-sequence: A case study and polyphonic analysis of learning in a digital design thinking workshop

In this case study, we report on the outcomes of a one-day workshop on design thinking attended by participants from the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning conference in Philadelphia in 2017. We highlight the interactions between the workshop design, structured as a design thinking process around the design of a digital environment for design thinking, and the diverse backgrounds and interests of its participants. Data from in-workshop reflections and post-workshop interviews were analyzed using a novel set of analytical approaches, a combination the facilitators made by possible by welcoming participants as coresearchers

The student-produced electronic portfolio in craft education

The authors studied primary school students’ experiences of using an electronic portfolio in their craft education over four years. A stimulated recall interview was applied to collect user experiences and qualitative content analysis to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that the electronic portfolio was experienced as a multipurpose tool to support learning. It makes the learning process visible and in that way helps focus on and improves the quality of learning. © ISLS.Peer reviewe

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

Playing with Identity. Authors, Narrators, Avatars, and Players in The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide

This article offers a comparative analysis of Davey Wreden’s The Stanley Parable (Wreden 2011 / Galactic Cafe 2013) and The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd. 2015) in order to explore the interrelation of authors, narrators, avatars, and players as four salient functions in the play with identity that videogames afford. Building on theories of collective and collaborative authorship, of narratives and narrators across media, and of the avatar-player relationship, the article reconstructs the similarities and differences between the way in which The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide position their players in relation to the two games’ avatars, narrators, and (main) author, while also underscoring how both The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide use metareferential strategies to undermine any overly rigid conceptualization of these functions and their interrelation