Digital Game-based Learning: A Retrospective

Tempus fugit – Doesn’t time fly when you are having fun? After a 12 week tournament that is the “Digital Game-based Learning” module. All good things must eventually come to a full stop. Whilst we have been reading, writing and debating about the “serious” business of games, gaming and play; more importantly, we have also […]

Chauvet Four Horses

The Four Horsemen

Yesterday, I attended the Fourth Symposium on Social Learning Spaces at Oxford Brookes University with my boss who is, incidently, doing his masters on professional development and the use of e-portfolios. We had hoped to have come back from the symposium with lots of ideas and food for thought with regards to our University’s new […]

Videogames: A moral panic?

When I started the “Introduction to Digital Game-based Learning” module back in January 2009, I kept a special Diigo list for all of the gaming articles that I either came across or were suggested by my peers on the course. As you can see by the rather extensive bibliography at the end of the post, […]

The Learner with a Thousand Identities

One of my pet interests is that of identity. Gee not only devotes a whole chapter on idenity (and learning), but also another chapter that looks at identity (and culture). Gee suggests that learning that takes place within, what he describes as “semiotic domains”, or as he puts it more plainly: “an area or set […]

The 36 Steps

I have finally finished reading James Paul Gee‘s “What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy” where Gee gives an inspirational treatise on how the Education sector can look to the principles and methods employed by the games industry to get people playing their computer / video games and how the players […]

Treasure Huntin’ in Second Life

One of the other activities that we have been undertaking has involved the idea of going on a treasure hunt in the Second Life environment. So far, Fiona Littleton has devised two such hunts and has given the players just a brief clue to get them on their way. These being: High above the chapel […]

WebQuest DSV

Over the last few week on the “Introduction to Digital Game-based Learning” module, we have been given numerous opportunities to look at an assortment of games with a view of developing an insight into how they might help with learning. Not only are we grappling with the nebulous concepts of “play”, but also discovering how […]