A one-time Vancouver conference opportunity with SLA June 8-10

The June 2014 SLA Conference in Vancouver is the first opportunity for BC library workers to learn more about working in specialized aspects of our profession close to home. Topics include negotiating contracts, copyright, managing consultant-client partnerships, presenting information in visual formats, competitive intelligence, MOOCs, data mining, digitization and leadership

Ludic Epistemology: What Game-Based Learning Can Teach Curriculum Studies

"Ludic epistemology" references the need for educational game studies to remediate traditional (linguistically mediated) epistemologies. Its guiding questions are about what it means to encode knowledge in the form of a game, and how we might conceive coming to know as a process of playing. In digital game studies, a theory of ludic epistemology is concerned with the distinctive demands of-and the particular constraints upon knowledge representation in the development of computer-supported game-based learning environments. Its primary theoretical questions are about the re-mediation of educational knowledge and its representation.What educational game studies does for curriculum is to radically stir things up. Its core theoretical project of formulating a "ludic epistemology" can advance epistemic inquiries into media and learning, and respond to what have become serious questions for educators about how game-based technologies for learning, and emergent digital epistemologies, reform and re-forge relations between learning and play.

Sports foods and dietary supplements for optimal function and performance enhancement in track and field athletes

Numerous nutritional products are marketed with claims of optimizing athlete health and function and/or enhancing performance. Products that fall under the banner of “Sports Foods” or “Dietary Supplements,” may be used to support performance during training and competition or for enhancing aspects of training adaptation, recovery, immune function, and/or overall athlete health. Effective marketing campaigns and athlete endorsements may convince us that certain sports foods and supplements are fundamental in allowing athletes to reach their sporting goals. However, this approach is naive in understanding the true foundations of athlete success, such as the inherent genetic predisposition for athletic characteristics, the many hours of well-structured/periodized training, appropriate underlying nutrition, adequate sleep and recovery, and of course, good overall physical and mental health. Nevertheless, if these variables are all accounted for, there may be a role for sports foods and dietary supplements in an athlete’s training and competition routine, particularly within elite sport where marginal performance gains are pursued. The following review presents general considerations for track-and-field athletes using sports foods and dietary supplements to enhance performance, in addition to exploring the potential therapeutic/prophylactic use of these nutritional aids

Queer Pedagogy: Praxis Makes Im/Perfect

This article examines tensions between post-structuralist theories of subjectivity and essentialist constructions of identity in the context of a lesbian studies course co-taught by the authors. We describe the goals, organizing principles, content, and outcomes of this engagement in the production of “queer pedagogy” — a radical form of educative praxis implemented deliberately to interfere with, to intervene in, the production of “normalcy” in schooled subjects. We argue for an explicit “ethics of consumption” in relation to curricular inclusions of marginalized subjects and subjugated knowledges. We conclude with a critical analysis of the way that, despite our explicit interventions, all of our discourses, all of our actions in this course were permeated with the continuous and inescapable backdrop of white heterosexual dominance, such that: (a) any subordinated identity always remained marginal and (b) “lesbian identity” in this institutions context was always fixed and stable, even in a course that explicitly critiqued, challenged, and deconstructed a monolithic “lesbian identity.” Cet article porte sur la tension qui existe entre les théories de la subjectivité et les constructions essentialistes de l’identité dans le contexte d’un cours sur le lesbianisme donné par les auteures. Ces dernières décrivent les buts, les principes organisateurs, le contenu et les résultats de leur démarche en vue de créer ce qu’elles désignent sous le nom de “queer pedagogy”-une forme radicale de la praxis éducative implantée délibéré- ment pour contrecarrer le concept de “normalité” dans les matières enseignées. Les auteu- res prônent une “éthique de la consommation” explicite pour ce qui a trait à l’inclusion des matières marginalisées et des connaissances subordonnées. Elles concluent avec une analyse critique de la façon dont tous leurs discours et toutes leurs actions au sein du cours, en dépit de leurs interventions explicites, avaient pour toile de fond inévitable la prééminence de l’hétérosexualité des Blancs si bien que : a) toute identité subordonnée est toujours demeurée marginale, et b) l’“identité lesbienne” dans ce contexte était tou- jours fixe et stable, et ce, même dans un cours qui critiquait et mettait explicitement en question une “identité lesbienne” monolithique.

Research on Women and Video Games Needs to Improve

Research on gender and video games often conflates gender with sex, which leads to stereotyping of girls and women. In general, research on gameplay treats women like a second sex and gender like an insignificant variable.York's Knowledge Mobilization Unit provides services and funding for faculty, graduate students, and community organizations seeking to maximize the impact of academic research and expertise on public policy, social programming, and professional practice. It is supported by SSHRC and CIHR grants, and by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. [email protected] www.researchimpact.c

Theorizing gender and digital gameplay: Oversights, accidents and surprises

This paper attempts to tell a story of a different kind about gender and digital gameplay. Resisting the repetition of stereotypes about who plays, how and why, we show how, as researchers, our own assumptions and presumptions about gender keep surprise at bay, enforcing instead "findings" that solidify an inner "truth" about gender. Re-citing hegemonic gender ideologies that tell us nothing we don't already know, we argue here, is no accident. Rather than recurring encounters with the all-too-familiar, we are entitled to expect to be surprised by the research we do, and more serious interpretive work, in conjunction with alternative methodologies, promise very different findings than those hitherto attributed to women and girls playing games