This course examines play as it is currently developed and popularly imagined in commercial computer- and consoled-based games in order to more closely examine what is "learned" in those immersive environments and ask how they might more productively be harnessed for educative ends.

Although computer gaming represents, for many people, something unfamiliar, potentially subversive and antithetical to education’s intellectual and social goals, play has always been a powerful vehicle for learning. There is little doubt that young people today, who represent computer gaming’s largest and fastest-growing audience, are learning a great deal in and through computer-based play, but what is it they are learning, and how? The purpose of this course is to give serious attention to and careful analysis of the educational promise of contemporary computer-based forms of gaming and play.

This course is further concerned with how we might take seriously the importance of computer-based gaming and play for education. What might it mean to allow gaming to drive an educational agenda, and how might we better harness its possibilities for educative ends? We will pursue these questions through a critical overview of a broad and diverse set of literatures on educational gaming and play, organized into the following themes:

• play and pleasure (Axeline, 1947; Brougère, 1999; Corbeil, 1999; Winnicott, 1971);
• studies of gaming genres (Friedman, n.d.; Keys & Wolfe, 1990; Kirriemuir, 2002);
• game development, systems and content (Brozik & Zapalska, 2000; Klabbers, 2000; Laurel, 1990; Saltzman, 1999; Malone1981, 1987;)
• narrative and gaming (Buse, 1996; Frasca, 1999, 2000; Mallon & Webb, 2000; Rockwell, 1999; Sherman, 1997);
• psychological, behavioral and cognitive effects (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Blumberg, 2000; Calvert & Tan, 1994; Funk & Buchmann, 1996; Greenfield, 1984; Greenfield, et al., 1994; Kinder, 1991; Pillay, Brownlee & Wilss; 1999; Schutte, et al., 1988; Shapiro & McDonald, 1992; Silvern & Williamson, 1987; Van Horn, 1999);
• gaming and gender (Brunner, Bennett & Honey, 1998; de Castell & Bryson, 1998; De Jean, et al, 1999; Funk, et al. 1999; Inkpen, et al. 1995; Kafai, 1996; Kaplan 1981, 1983; Walkerdine, et al., 2001);
• constructionist theory and game design research (Blanton, Greene & Cole, 1999; Kafai, 1995; Kafai, et al., 1998; Rieber, Luke & Smith,1998).

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