Virtual Worlds and Video Games: Synergies in Research

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Research on virtual spaces has been fruitful in developing perspectives, but it also has created some dichotomies. Currently, there is a separation between the study of Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) and videogames, as well as a separation between research that focuses on in-world activity and research that examines activity across sites. This includes ways scholars have conceptualized (and often dichotomized) digital and placed-based meaning-making (Prinsloo, 2005), which positions the virtual with its own set of practices and contextual features. Creating additional divergence, the definition of virtual spaces has been both protean and nebulous. Overall, this symposium brings together virtual world and videogame scholars to engage in conversations about learning and meaning making within and across online and offline spaces.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Learning

Chair

• Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Saint John's University

Papers

• Distributed Teaching and Learning Systems - Elisabeth R. Gee, Arizona State University; James Paul Gee, Arizona State University

• The Transmedia Games: Flows of Literacy Across Corporate and User-Produced Spaces - Rebecca Ward Black, University of California - Irvine

• Monster High: Playing in the Converging Imaginaries of a Virtual Dollhouse - Karen E. Wohlwend, Indiana University - Bloomington

Discussant

• Guy Merchant, Sheffield Hallam University