52.069 - New Perspectives for Serious Gaming: Games That Integrate Making and Playing for Learning

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The goal of this symposium is to explore what and how children learn when given the opportunity to make, rather than just play, their own games. Despite the growing number and range of technologies to make and share self-made games, there has nonetheless been considerably less research on the educational potential and pedagogical use of game-making in and around schools. Through both wider reviews of the literature as well as through a series of empirical studies on game-making, this symposium closely examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the constructionist approach and the potential to better connect making with playing as a new approaches to serious gaming.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Curriculum

Chair

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania

Papers

• Programming Games for Learning: A Research Synthesis - Shannon Campe, ETR Associates; Jill Denner, Education, Training, and Research Associates

• Finding the Story in the Game: Playing and Modifying Tabletop Role-Playing Games - Sean C. Duncan, Indiana University

• Designing Games to Be Objects-to-Think-With - Nathan Holbert, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Maker Innovators: Youth Modeling and Making of Complex and Bidirectionally Responsive Tangible and Wearable Computing Designs - Gabriela T. Richard, The Pennsylvania State University

• Connected Gaming: Challenging the Playing Versus Making Divide - William Quinn Burke, College of Charleston; Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Douglas Clark, Vanderbilt University