Videogame Literacies: Preparing for classroom learning

Join ACMI Education and Alex Bacalja; Senior Lecturer in Language & Literacy, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, for a series of online professional learning sessions that will delve into the opportunities and challenges of using videogames in the classroom.

Bacalja, an expert in the area, and has developed these three sessions to get beyond simply engaging students using videogames, to show teachers different possible ways we can 'read' videogames in the classroom, and explore how videogame centred curriculums can work - as well as the hurdles they can pose for teachers.

Beyond Engagement: Towards conceptual learning at school with videogames

Tuesday October 24th

There is little doubt that videogames have evolved into highly interactive forms of media that have been designed to hold our attention. We should hardly be surprised that teachers have turned towards such media as a way of increasing student engagement. But how can we move beyond engagement and incorporate videogames into our classrooms for more complex learning objectives?

This sessions explores ways of using these digital technologies for subject-specific and conceptual learning. It aims to demonstrate how moving student attention from the general to the abstract can support students to make productive bridges from their out-of-school gameplay to their in-school learning.

Reading the videogame at school

Tuesday October 31st

The increasing prevalence of videogames in schools raises a number of questions about the relationship between reading and play. What happens when students engage in videogame play at school? What kinds of reading do they use to make meaning? And how can reading instruction designed by teachers impact game-centred learning?

This sessions begins by exploring differences in how we have come to understand reading and what these differences might mean for how we ask students to play videogames at school. It then introduces three ways of reading a videogame (close reading, intertextual reading, and reading against the grain) to show how the approaches adopted by teachers to classroom play are critical to the kinds of student learning that might emerge.

Planning and designing the videogame centred curriculum: opportunities and challenges

Thursday November 9th

Videogames have understandably become common digital technologies teachers use to support school learning. However, if we are to avoid the trap of overestimating the capacity of these media to develop knowledge and skills, then we will need to carefully consider the opportunities and challenges they pose.

This session explores the ‘nuts and bolts’ of designing videogame centred curricula. It begins by exploring technical decisions that teachers must navigate, such as which console to use, and then models a number of ways to configure students, controllers and screens in classroom spaces. We conclude by looking at different kinds of play, from the solitary to the social, and differences between free and structured play.