Game Education Summit Europe

Paper Abstract:

This presentation explores innovative educational settings created when commercial videogames are introduced into the classrooms as educational tools. We will examine relationships between real and virtual universes as situated cognition processes involving game situations based on NBA Live. Special attention will be paid to the role of the expert and novices girls during the game, their previous knowledge and their grasp of consciousness of the rules. In very general terms, 'real' and 'virtual' worlds refer to the physical environment of the game and to the gamers' activities on the screen. To understand the role of sport games as cultural and educational tools we found the concept of 'situated cognition' of the anthropologist Jean Leave and his colleagues (Holland & Lave, 2001; Jenkins, 2006; Gee, 2008). Adopting that perspective, cognition is engaged with environment, action, gender and expertise. This study is based on a qualitative analytical perspective based on narrative and ethnographic approaches. We carried out our research in the course of eleven two-hour sessions of a multimedia workshop at the school. As a result of a exploratory conversational analysis we suggest that the fact of grasping consciousness of the rules of the game is part of a situated cognition process, dependent on at least two dimensions of the context: a) boys and girls relationships, when adults help children to be literate with regard to the game; b) the specific characteristics of the game as interpreted by the boy or the girl when interacting with his/her companion. Implications of the results for formal education will be discussed.