Institute for Research in Digital Learning (IRDL)
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The Institute for Research on Digital Learning (IRDL) has a broad mandate to engage in systematic inquiry, discussion, and information sharing related to the uses of technology in teaching and learning by encouraging the formation of links with faculty members across the university and with schools, government, and industry to provide collaborative, multidisciplinary approaches to research problems and issues. For more information see: https://irdl.info.yorku.ca/about/ .
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Browsing Institute for Research in Digital Learning (IRDL) by Author "de Castell, Suzanne"
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Item Open Access From Simulation to Imitation: Controllers, Corporeality, and Mimetic Play(2014-09-16) de Castell, Suzanne; Jenson, Jennifer; Thumlert, KBackground. We contend that a conceptual conflation of simulation and imitation persists at the heart of claims for the power of game-based simulations for learning. Recent changes in controller-technologies and gaming systems, we argue, make this conflation of concepts more readily apparent, and its significant educational implications more evident. Aim. This article examines the evolution in controller technologies of imitation that support players’ embodied competence, rather than players’ ability to simulate such competence. Digital gameplay undergoes an epistemological shift when player and game interactions are no longer restricted to simulations of actions on a screen, but instead support embodied imitation as a central element of gameplay. We interrogate the distinctive meanings and affordances of simulation and imitation and offer a critical conceptual strategy for refining, and indeed redefining, what counts as learning in and from digital games. Method. We draw upon actor-network theory to identify what is educationally significant about the digitally mediated learning ecologies enabled by imitation based gaming consoles and controllers. Actor-network theory helps us discern relations between human actors and technical artifacts, illuminating the complex inter-dependencies and inter-actions of the socio-technical support networks too long overlooked in androcentric theories of human action and cognitive psychology. Conclusion. By articulating distinctions between simulation and imitation, we show how imitative practices afforded by mimetic game controllers and next generation motion-capture technologies offer a different picture of learning through playing digital games, and suggest novel and productive avenues for research and educational practice.Item Open Access Pathways to sustainable futures: A “production pedagogy” model for STEM education(Futures, 2019-02-19) Alonso Yanez, Gabriela; Thumlert, K; de Castell, Suzanne; Jenson, JenniferSTEM education initiatives currently pervade the global landscape of educational reform.Unfortunately, the rush to adopt STEM reforms in North American schools and develop students for competitive 21st century knowledge economies has encouraged an uncritical embrace of underlying STEM narratives and purposes, thus foreclosing critical discussion, alternative models, and new perspectives on doing science education differently. Here, we unpack narratives and practices informing STEM education that induct learning actors into ‘anticipatory regimes’ that advance neoliberal ends and techno capitalist ideologies. We argue first that STEM narratives of progress, competition, and innovation increasingly obscure the urgent ecological, ethical and social justice conditions students confront daily. Ironically, this prepares them for a future rendered unsustainable by scientific and technological orthodoxy. We then draw upon critical sustainability studies (CSS) to articulate new axiological orientations that reposition science and technology learning. Lastly, we describe and illustrate an approach aligned with these critical principles–production pedagogy–whose theories and practices re-vision science and technology education. These strategies will situate students in agentive roles now, in this present, using real-world tools in authentic sociotechnical contexts. They can then confront their own capacities and limitations to engage in personally relevant ways, as producers, with techno-scientific knowledge.Item Open Access Short Cuts and Extended Techniques: Rethinking relations between technology and educational theory(Taylor and Francis, 2014-04-14) Thumlert, K; de Castell, Suzanne; Jenson, JenniferBuilding upon a recent call to renew actor-network theory (ANT) for educational research, this article reconsiders relations between technology and educational theory. Taking cues from actor-network theorists, this discussion considers the technologically-mediated networks in which learning actors are situated, acted upon, and acting, and traces the novel positions of creative capacity and participation that emerging media may enable. Whereas traditional theories of educational technology tend to focus on the harmonization of new technologies with extant curricular goals and educational practices, an educational theory of technology looks to novel forms of technologically-mediated learning experience—from production pedagogies to role play in the virtual—to make visible the surprising relations, techniques, and opportunities that emerging media, and their attendant social contexts, may offer educational research.