Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Teenage Guys, and Learning: Experiments in an After-School Game-Based Casual Learning Lab

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

Compelling evidence of learning in virtual worlds is beginning to emerge, along with positive assessments of programs based on such technologies. For the past two years, we have hosted an informal out-of-school lab for adolescent boys from local (mostly rural) areas using the commercial online game World of Warcraft as a vehicle for the development of pro-academic practices and dispositions such as digital and print literacy, problem solving, and pro-social skills. In this symposium, we detail findings from this program in terms of reading, information literacy, social reasoning, and epistemological beliefs. We introduce the program design and research methods used, then present empirical findings on each listed theme, followed by a critique of our work by an outside scholar.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Curriculum

Chair

• Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Papers

• Reading, Videogames and Interest - Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Caroline Cassie-Marie Williams, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Collective Information Literacy - Crystle Martin, University of California - Irvine

• Social Reasoning in Virtual Worlds Versus Real Worlds - Amanda Kay Ochsner, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Sarah N.M. Chu, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Yoonsin Oh, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Epistemological Beliefs in Games Versus School - V. Elizabeth Owen, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Shannon Linehan Harris, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Discussant

• Kurt D. Squire, University of Wisconsin - Madison