On the Horizon: Volume 17 Issue 1

Breaking the virtuous cycle

Tom P. Abeles

This paper aims to outline the challenges that the current forces of technology change pose for the traditional K‐16 education system and to assess whether the rise of the social…

Virtual worlds and learning

Constance Steinkuehler, Kurt Squire

This brief introductory paper aims to outline seven key principles for educators thinking about life in a continuously partial virtual world.

Cheating in virtual worlds: transgressive designs for learning

Yasmin B. Kafai, Deborah A. Fields

This paper aims to present and discuss cheat sites and cheating practices associated with Whyville.net, a virtual world with over 1.7 million registered players aged eight to 16…

Virtual worlds, conceptual understanding, and me: designing for consequential engagement

Melissa Gresalfi, Sasha Barab, Sinem Siyahhan, Tyler Christensen

This paper aims to advance the idea of consequential engagement, positioning it as a necessary complement to the more common practices of supporting procedural or conceptual…

Scalable learning: from simple to complex in World of Warcraft

Douglas Thomas

The aim of this paper is to examine how a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), World of Warcraft, serves as complex and, most importantly, scalable learning environment.

Digital literacies for the disengaged: creating after school contexts to support boys' game‐based literacy skills

Constance Steinkuehler, Elizabeth King

This paper aims to reviews the structure and format of an after school incubator program that leverages online games for literacy learning, particularly for adolescent males. It…

Not just a dollhouse: what The Sims2 can teach us about women's IT learning

Elisabeth R. Hayes, Elizabeth M. King

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a popular computer game, The Sims2, engages players in computing practices that are foundational to information technology (IT…

Mobile media learning: multiplicities of place

Kurt Squire

This paper seeks to build a theory of mobile media learning by studying indigenous use of these media and theorizing what impact they might have on learning and education.