Knowing and throwing mudballs, hearts, pies, and flowers: a connective ethnography of gaming practices
Pages 232 - 239
Abstract
Little is known how young players learn to participate in various activities in virtual worlds. We use a new integrative approach called connective ethnography that focuses on how gaming expertise spreads across a network of youth at an after school club that simultaneously participates in a virtual world Whyville.net. To trace youth participation in online and offline social contexts, we draw on multiple sources of information: observations, interviews, video recordings, online tracking and chat data, and hundreds of hours of play in Whyville ourselves. One particular game practice - the throwing of projectiles and its social uses and nuances - became the focal point of our analyses. The discussions address methodological challenges underlying the synthesis of diverse types of data that allowed us to follow youth across multiple spaces and times as well as initial insights into how this practice was used to negotiate relationships in multiple spaces through play.
References
[1]
Beavis, C., Nixon, H., & Atkinson, S. (2005). LAN cafes: Cafes, places of gathering, or sites if informal teaching and learning? Education, Communication, Information, 5(1), 41-60.
[2]
Ching, C. C., & Kafai, Y. B. (in press). Peer pedagogy: Student collaboration and reflection in a learning through design project. Teachers College Press.
[3]
Fields, D. A. & Kafai, Y. B. (2007). Tracing insider knowledge across time and spaces: A connective ethnography in a teen online game world. In C. Chinn, G. Erkins, and S. Puntambekar, (Eds.) Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, New Brunswick, NJ, 196-205.
[4]
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
[5]
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
[6]
Goodwin, M. H. (1985). The serious side of jump rope: Conversational practices and social organization in the frame of play. Journal of American Folklore, 98(389), 315-330.
[7]
Goodwin, M. H. (2006). Hidden lives of girls: Games of stance, status and exclusion. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[8]
Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage Publications.
[9]
Jenkins, H. (1998). Complete freedom of movement: Videogames as gendered playspaces. In J. Cassell & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Perspectives on gender and computer games (pp. 323-356). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[10]
Kafai & Giang (2007). Virtual playgrounds. In T. Willoughby & E. Wood (Eds.), Children's Learning in a Digital World (pp. 196-217). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[11]
Kaiser Family Foundation (2005). Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 year olds. Washington, DC: March 9. Available online at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia030905pkg.cfm (access September 2006).
[12]
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
[13]
Leander, K. (in press). Toward a connective ethnography of online/offline literacy networks. To appear in D. Leu, J. Cairo, M. Knobel, & C. Lankshear (Eds.) Handbook of research on new literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
[14]
Leander, K. M., & McKim, K. K. (2003). Tracing the everyday 'sitings' of adolescents on the internet: A strategic adaptation of ethnography across online and offline spaces. Education, Communication, Information, 3(2), 211-240.
[15]
Lin, H. (in press). A cultural geography of gaming experiences in homes, cybercafés and dormitories. In Y. B. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner & J. Sun (Eds.), Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat. Cambridge: MIT Press.
[16]
Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1969). The Psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books.
[17]
Steinkuehler, C. A. (2006). Massively multiplayer online video gaming as participation in a discourse. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 13(1), 38-52.
[18]
Stevens, R., Satwicz, T., & McCarthy, L. (in press). In game, in room, in world: Reconnecting video game play to the rest of kids' lives. In K. Salen (Ed.), Ecology of games: MacArthur Foundation series on digital media and learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
[19]
Swalwell, M. (2003). Multi-player computer gaming: 'Better than playing (PC Games). Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 3(4) Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/034/swalwell.htm
[20]
Taylor, T. L. (2006). Play between worlds. Cambridge: MIT Press.
[21]
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Index Terms
- Knowing and throwing mudballs, hearts, pies, and flowers: a connective ethnography of gaming practices
Recommendations
Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing
In this paper, I outline a perspective on knowing in practice which highlights the essential role of human action in knowing how to get things done in complex organizational work. The perspective suggests that knowing is not a static embedded capability ...
Dual materiality and knowing in petroleum production
This paper explores the relationship between materiality and knowing through the notion of dual materiality. Dual materiality highlights how digital technology becomes important, as its materiality plays an integral part in creating, not simply ...
From Knowing It to “Getting It”: Envisioning Practices in Computer Games Development
The development of information systems and software applications increasingly needs to deliver culturally rich and affective experiences for user groups. In this paper, we explore how the collaborative practices across different expert groups can enable ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
June 2008
484 pages
Publisher
International Society of the Learning Sciences
Publication History
Published: 24 June 2008
Qualifiers
- Article
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 307 of 307 submissions, 100%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 80Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 19 Nov 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in