James Paul Gee

Despite a heightened focus on information literacy, students and adults alike struggle to assess online information. In this article, the authors argue that the K–12 information literacy curriculum needs to focus on supporting stu- dents to develop identities as expert information seekers to address complex and mutable modern literacy needs. The authors explore commonalities and themes within three different expert information-seeking professions: aca- demic librarians, journalists, and nonfiction children’s book authors. From semistructured interviews emerged distinct themes of doing, knowing, and being that expert information seekers employed when encountering informa- tion. The authors believe that these identity practices could form the basis of an information-seeking curriculum that can help address the challenges of the current online information environment.

We have always appropriated whatever technologies are available to us for use as technologies for instruction. This practice may well date back as far as communication itself. The practice of “studying the masters” is an old and respected one, and using this perspective we can take advantage of the opportunities afforded us in studying outstanding examples of commercial digital games as “educational” objects, even if they weren’t produced by professional educators. An examination of successful games can progress towards an understanding of the essential elements of ‘good’ games and begin to discuss the implications this holds for the deliberate design of educational games. There is, however, a caveat: knowing why a game is good is not the same as knowing how to make a game good. It is nonetheless an essential step in that process.
This chapter examines some ways in which a few “good” games implement some well-known learning and instructional theories. “Good” games in this context are defined as those that have experienced both substantial commercial success and broad critical acclaim: the deliberate implementation of one or another learning or instructional design theory is not a prerequisite. In fact most will not have been consciously influenced by formal educational theory at all.
Implications include the notion that learning and instructional design theories can be developed in the context of learning with games. Finally, this chapter will present some key distinctions between digital games and other learning technologies and what this might mean for the development of design models and methodologies.

This paper explores the effect of a multicultural literature course on pre-service teachers' abilities to examine themselves and their figured worlds through a practice known as perspective-taking. Using critical discourse analysis as a tool to analyze three pre-service teachers' work completed in the course, this study offers a series of complications and tensions embedded in classrooms like this, where white students read multicultural literature for the purposes of change and social justice in an educational context: the tension between the student-as-student and the student as-future-teacher, the contradiction between oral and written discourse connected to identity and positioning, and the role or "power" of the multicultural text. With implications for teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a multicultural society, this study theorizes the role figured worlds play in maintaining and re/creating students' identities.

Upon request from my advisor, and famed game studies scholar, Constance Steinkuehler, produced an original interview series for the GLS, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, featuring some of the brightest games & learning scholars in the country.

Highlighted selections:
Kurt Squire - August 11, 2011
Eric Klopfer - August 11, 2011
James Paul Gee, Dan Norton, & Drew Davidson - Aug 2011

Behind the Scenes Photos:
MAGD Students Shooting the GLS - Summer 2011

Excerpt: As described by James Paul Gee, embodiment is a way of thinking and problem solving which takes a connectionist view, forming associations between one aspect of life and another, the functions of the mind, the internal, and body, the external.

Jerome Bruner has helped to shape the notion of constructivism, which is of prime significance when looking at pedagogy in games and much of the learning that occurs in games is constructive. In one of his more recent works, “The Culture of Education” (1996), he discusses the importance of nine tenets to the development and maintenance of culture. Many of these touch on recurring themes in many discussions of games (Beavis, 1999; Kafai, 2001; Wolf & Perron, 2003). Bruner believes that “education is not an island, but part of the continent of culture.” (1996, p11) The same can be said of games. Bruner’s tenets guide such a ‘psycho-cultural’ approach to education and this paper will examine these tenets through the lens of game design.

Current approaches to the design of games for learning can be roughly divided into two main camps: one claiming that commercial games already employ many strategies that are valuable in the design of instructional games and that formal instructional design methodologies are not needed, while the other argues that the design of instructional games must apply traditional practices in formal ways and that games designers must yield to the better-informed professional instructional designer. The main focus of this paper is to explore the tension between these two viewpoints. A comparison of game design and instructional design uncovers several paradoxes which must be reconciled before they can be properly combined to be of use in the development of instructional games.

This paper proposes a new way of thinking about a contemporary educational space. This new way of thinking combines two established spatial metaphors to develop an enhanced understanding of a contemporary educational configuration. Drawing on a recent empirical classroom research project, I argue that the project space exhibited features of both a heterotopia and an affinity space, yet that neither of these concepts by itself can adequately explain the character of the space. The concept of heterotopia is insufficient because it does not adequately account for the shared learning endeavour; the concept of affinity space is insufficient because it does not adequately account for the Otherness of the space. I apply and problematise the metaphors of heterotopia and affinity spaces in relation to the project space, before synthesising these two concepts to reveal resonances and resolve dissonances between them.  I propose the new hybrid concept of heterotopic affinity space as a way of better understanding the project space, arguing for its usefulness whilst acknowledging its limitations. This paper therefore advocates the hybrid concept of the heterotopic affinity space as a tool for helping us think more clearly about contemporary educational spaces.

When looking at how the different forms of modern media have been used this way and which particular instances have been chosen, one notion stands out – the majority of the most remarkable and effective “lessons” taught to us have been created by extraordinarily talented writers, directors, and producers together with their teams. They have, by and large, not been created by professional educators or instructional designers.

Far from trying to sell educators and instructional designers short, we should recognize the opportunities afforded us in studying these outstanding examples of “educational” objects, and try to learn why they have the impact they do.

This session examines successful commercial games to connect the designs of these games with known learning and instructional design theories. By “studying the masters”, we can progress towards understanding the essential elements of ‘good’ games and begin to discuss the implications this holds for the deliberate design of educational games. Knowing why a game is good is not the same as knowing how to make a good game, but it is a necessary first step.

Este artigo discute alguns aspectos da representação do professor de português da escola básica frente às responsabilidades que lhe são atribuídas socialmente a partir da Análise do Discurso proposta por James Paul Gee. Ele se baseia na análise de entrevistas semiestruturadas de professores de português atuantes e de alunos de um curso de Letras quanto à problemática envolvida com esse tema. Conclui que, à esteira das dificuldades inerentes à atuação profissional e a teorias aprendidas, há uma distância considerável que ora pende a uma tensão do discurso acadêmico, ora o traz como essencial, ora demonstra certo despreparo em lidar com a diferença entre a prática docente e o uni-verso especializado que conduz grande parte do fazer docente, numa conexão estreita com as repon-sabilidades que a sociedade atribui a esse importante ator no interior da instituição escolar. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Análise do discurso; Professor de português; Responsabilidade social.

This chapter will discuss the growing importance of applying considered rationales to which games are chosen for study, whether it be for ethnography, classroom use, or anything else. A brief overview of how games are currently being chosen for study is presented through a meta analysis of studies with games that were published between 2003 and 2006 in order to demonstrate that most published games studies do not include a supported rationale for the games chosen. The chapter will then present various ways that game choices can be justified, and propose and explain a data fusion technique that can be applied to game reviews and other lists in order to facilitate representative and defensible game choices.

Jerome Bruner has helped to shape the notion of constructivism, which is of prime significance when looking at pedagogy in games and much of the learning that occurs in games is constructive. In one of his more recent works, “The Culture of Education” (1996), he discusses the importance of nine tenets to the development and maintenance of culture. Many of these touch on recurring themes in many discussions of games (Beavis, 1999; Kafai, 2001; Wolf & Perron, 2003). Bruner believes that “education is not an island, but part of the continent of culture.” (1996, p11) The same can be said of games. Bruner’s tenets guide such a ‘psycho-cultural’ approach to education and this paper will examine these tenets through the lens of game design.

Due to the cross-cultural features requiring the ability to adjust to almost infinitely diverse intercultural communication situations, EFL/ESL settings are significant environments that reflect real life in that they entail conflicts and conflicting situations. Therefore, it is crucial that English instructors not only become knowledgeable about negotiation strategies but also be able to put them into practice in their classes. Considering the intertwined and complex social goods of the classroom, this study presents an analysis of a peace educator’s discourse in an ESL classroom. For this purpose, Gee’s Situated Language Approach and Scollon’s Mediated
Discourse Analysis were applied in order to analyze the socially-constructed meanings within the Discourse community of the classroom and effectively explore the histories of the social actors of the classroom going beyond the here and now.

We explain the need for formal collaboration between students in the arts and computer science students, and argue that this should be encouraged at an early stage of their education. Two specific courses that foster this sort of cooperation are described.

Rhetoric and composition teachers have in general been resistant to the idea of the classroom as a simulation space, preferring instead to focus on attempt to foster "authentic" engagement and "authentic" voices.  An examination of how Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games design their initial player experiences offers some guidelines for how embracing the classroom as a simulative space could enable us to design more effective entryways into complex learning environments.

Note: this is an experimental, non-linear web installation that utilizes some of the design metaphors of the kinds of games it discusses.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo realizar uma breve introdução ao pensamento de James Paul Gee no que diz respeito à Análise do Discurso. Ao desenvolver uma dissertação de mestrado ancorada em suas proposições, encontramos um único trabalho orientado por elas. Além disso, não há textos do autor sobre o discurso traduzidos para o português. Por isso, selecionamos conceitos fundamentais e elaboramos uma síntese de sua teoria. Na primeira seção, abordamos as noções de língua e de discurso/ Discurso e mostramos o papel da Análise do Discurso na sociedade; na segunda, explicitaremos a importância do contexto para essa abordagem e apresentaremos o conceito de modelos discursivos; por fim, discorreremos sobre o conceito de identidade, mostrando suas categorizações.
Palavras-chave: James Paul Gee. Análise Crítica do Discurso. Discurso. Modelos discursivos. Identidade.

The language learning challenges of the non-English-dominant bilingual in Singapore may be easily overlooked in the light of the increasing use of English as the dominant language in Singaporean households. Non-English-dominant polytechnic students have been observed to display a lack of confidence and interest in classroom activities and assignments that require an extensive use of the English language. This retrospective narrative inquiry examines how the identity of a non-English-dominant bilingual is shaped by the micro-level issues of inequitable social relationships in the school community, as well the tensions between the learner’s primary and secondary Discourses.

Through email and face-to-face interviews, questions were asked about the student’s English language experiences from primary school, secondary school and post-secondary educational institutions. Responses from email correspondence and interviews were then examined for positive and negative experiences of language learning and usage, particularly within school-based interactions. Subsequently, the student was invited to read, verify and comment on the initial analysis.

It can be seen that while a lack of legitimate participation in secondary Discourses negatively affects the student’s identity, ‘mushfaking’, that is, making do with limited resources, within safe houses or extrapedagogical sites of activity, as well as future-oriented identity positions, can increase the student’s investment in language learning. Although the case study highlights particularly language learning experiences of one student, teachers of non-English-dominant students can learn what has contributed to both negative and positive aspects of such learners and apply such knowledge in their classrooms through greater sensitivity to their students’ language learning histories and being more intentional in facilitating mushfaking among students.

Serious Games are digital games designed for purposes other than pure entertainment. This category includes educational games but it also includes a great deal more. A field that was unheard of until Ben Sawyer referred to it as Serious Games in late 2002 (Sawyer, 2003) has already grown so large that one can only hope to keep track of a very small part of it. The time is rapidly coming to an end when literature surveys of even one branch of Serious Games can be considered comprehensive. This chapter will examine the current state of the discipline of that part of serious games that intersects with formal education, with a particular focus on design. The work begins broadly by looking at games in order to define the term but then narrows to a specific focus on games for education. In this way, it provides an educational context for games as learning objects, distinguishes between traditional, (i.e. non-digital; Murray, 1998) and digital games, and classifies games for education as a subcategory of serious games while at the same time still being part of a larger group of interactive digital applications.

Before researchers can perform studies using commercial games, they must choose which game or games to study. The manner in which that choice is made and justified is the focus of this paper.  Ideally, research informs pedagogy and when looking at game education it is important to be able to justify and defend conclusions drawn from game studies so they can inform best practices in design and development. As the number and sophistication of titles released in a given year continues to rise, it becomes even more important to look more seriously at how we are choosing the games we study, the criteria we use for those studies, how we support our claims about the suitability of the game for our purposes, and how generalizations to other games should be limited or qualified. This paper is a report on a qualitative meta-analysis of the methods used in choosing games for study and the implications that holds for both researchers studying games and educators teaching about games and game development.