03 nov

Most educators are dismissive of video games. But corporations, thegovernment, and the military have already recognized and harnessed theirtremendous educative power. Schools have to catch up, the authors argue.
BY DAVID WILLIAMSON SHAFFER, KURT R. SQUIRE, RICHARD HALVERSON, AND JAMES P. GEE
COMPUTERS ARE changing our world: how we antisocial ways. Games are inherently simplifications of work, how we shop, how we entertain ourselves, reality, and today’s games often incorporate — or are based how we communicate, how we engage in poli- on — violent and sometimes misogynistic themes. Critics tics, how we care for our health. The list goes on suggest that the lessons people learn from playing video and on. But will computers change the way we games as they currently exist are not always desirable. But learn? The short answer is yes. Computers are al- even the harshest critics agree that we learn something from ready changing the way we learn — and if you playing video games. The question is, How can we use the want to understand how, just look at video games. Not be- power of video games as a constructive force in schools, cause the games that are currently available are going to replace schools as we know them any time soon, but be- In answer to that question, we argue here for a partic- cause they give a glimpse into how we might create new ular view of games — and of learning — as activities that and more powerful ways to learn in schools, communities, are most powerful when they are personally meaningful, and workplaces — new ways to learn for a new Informa- experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time.
tion Age. Look at video games because, while they are From this perspective, we describe an approach to the de- wildly popular with adolescents and young adults, they sign of learning environments that builds on the educa- are more than just toys. Look at video games because they tional properties of games but grounds them deeply with- create new social and cultural worlds — worlds that help in a theory of learning appropriate to an age marked by us learn by integrating thinking, social interaction, and tech- nology, all in service of doing things we care about.
We want to be clear from the start that video games are no panacea. Like books and movies, they can be used in The first step toward understanding how video games The authors are faculty members in the School of Education at can — and, we argue, will — transform education is chang- the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and founding members of the Games and Professional Practice Simulations (GAPPS) re- ing the widely shared perspective that games are “mere search group at the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning entertainment.” More than a multibillion-dollar industry, Co-Lab. DAVID WILLIAMSON SHAFFER is an assistant profes- more than a compelling toy for both children and adults, sor in the Department of Educational Psychology, KURT R. SQUIRE is an assistant professor in the Department of Curricu- more than a route to computer literacy, video games are im- lum and Instruction, RICHARD HALVERSON is an assistant pro- portant because they let people participate in new worlds.
fessor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy They let players think, talk, and act in new ways. Indeed, Analysis, and JAMES P. GEE is the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. players come to inhabit roles that are otherwise inacces- sible to them. A 16-year-old in Korea playing Lineage can become an international financier, trading raw materials, terials; avid gamers seek out news sites, read and write buying and selling goods in different parts of the virtual FAQs, participate in discussion forums, and become criti- world, and speculating on currencies.1 A Deus Ex player can cal consumers of information.2 Classroom work rarely has experience life as a government special agent, operating in an impact outside the classroom; its only real audience is a world where the lines between terrorism and state-spon- the teacher. Game players, in contrast, develop reputations sored violence are called into question.
in online communities, cultivate audiences by contribut- These rich virtual worlds are what make video games ing to discussion forums, and occasionally even take up such powerful contexts for learning. In game worlds, learn- careers as professional gamers, traders of online commodi- ties,3 or game designers and mod-ders (players who use program-ming tools to modify games). The Whereas schools largely sequester students virtual worlds of games are pow-erful, in other words, because play- from one another and from the outside world, games bring players together — competitively and of effective social practices.
cooperatively — in the virtual world of the game and in the social community of its players.
portunity to explore new identi-ties. In one well-publicized case,a heated political contest erupted ing no longer means confronting words and symbols that for the presidency of Alphaville, one of the towns in The are separated from the things those words and symbols re- Sims Online. Arthur Baynes, the 21-year-old incumbent, fer to. The inverse square law of gravitational attraction is was running against Laura McKnight, a 14-year-old. The no longer something to be understood solely through an muckraking, accusations of voter fraud, and political jockey- equation. Instead, students can gain virtual experience walk- ing taught young Laura about the realities of politics. The ing in a world with a mass smaller than that of Earth, or they election also gained national attention on National Public can plan manned space flights — a task that requires under- Radio, as pundits debated the significance of games that standing the changing effects of gravitational forces in dif- allowed teens not only to argue and debate politics but ferent parts of the solar system. In virtual worlds, learners also to run a political system in which the virtual lives of experience the concrete realities that words and symbols thousands of real players were at stake. The complexity of describe. Through these and similar experiences in multi- Laura’s campaign, political alliances, and platform — a plat- ple contexts, learners can understand complex concepts form that called for a stronger police force and a significant without losing the connection between abstract ideas and restructuring of the judicial system — shows how deep the the real problems they can be used to solve. In other words, disconnect has become between the kinds of experiences the virtual worlds of games are powerful because they make made available in schools and those available in online it possible to develop situated understanding. worlds. The virtual worlds of games are rich contexts for Although the stereotypical gamer is a lone teenager seat- learning because they make it possible for players to ex- ed in front of a computer, game playing can also be a thor- periment with new and powerful identities.4 oughly social phenomenon. The clearest examples are the The communities that game players form similarly or- “massively multiplayer” online games, in which thousands ganize meaningful learning experiences outside of school of players are simultaneously online at any given time, par- contexts. In the various websites devoted to the game Civ- ticipating in virtual worlds with their own economies, po- ilization, for example, players organize themselves around litical systems, and cultures. Moreover, careful study shows the shared goal of developing the skills, habits, and under- that most games — from console action games to PC strate- standings that are necessary to become experts in the game.
gy games — have robust game-playing communities. Where- At Apolyton.net, one such site, players post news feeds, as schools largely sequester students from one another and participate in discussion forums, and trade screenshots of from the outside world, games bring players together — com- the game. But they also run a radio station, exchange saved petitively and cooperatively — in the virtual world of the game files in order to collaborate and compete, create cus- game and in the social community of its players. In schools, tom modifications, and, perhaps most unusually, run their students largely work alone, with school-sanctioned ma- own university to teach other players to play the game at deeper levels. Apolyton University shows us how part of waiters or physicists, historians, and mathematicians.
expert gaming is developing a set of values — values that The way of thinking — the epistemology — of a prac- highlight enlightened risk taking, entrepreneurship, and ex- tice determines how someone in the community decides pertise rather than the formal accreditation emphasized by what questions are worth answering, how to go about an- swering them, and how to decide when an answer is suf- If we look at the development of game communities, ficient. The epistemology of a practice thus organizes (and we see that part of the power of games for learning is the is organized by) the situated understandings, effective so- way they develop shared values. In other words, by creat- cial practices, powerful identities, and shared values of the ing virtual worlds, games integrate knowing and doing. But community. In communities of practice, knowledge, skills, not just knowing and doing. Games bring together ways of identities, and values are shaped by a particular way of think- knowing, ways of doing, ways of being, and ways of caring: ing into a coherent epistemic frame.7 If a community of prac- the situated understandings, effective social practices, pow- tice is a group with a local culture, then the epistemic frame erful identities, and shared values that make someone an is the grammar of the culture: the ways of thinking and act- expert. The expertise might be that of a modern soldier in ing that individuals learn when they become part of that Full Spectrum Warrior, a zoo operator in Zoo Tycoon, or a world leader in Civilization III. Or it might be expertise in Let’s look at an example of how this might play out in the sophisticated practices of gaming communities, such the virtual world of a video game. Full Spectrum Warrior as those built around Age of Mythology or Civilization III.
(Pandemic Studios, for PC and Xbox) is a video game based There is a lot being learned in these games. But for some on a U.S. Army training simulation.8 But Full Spectrum War- educators, it is hard to see the educational potential of the rior is not a mere first-person shooter in which the player games because these virtual worlds aren’t about memo- blows up everything on the screen. To survive and win the rizing words or definitions or facts. But video games are game, the player has to learn to think and act like a mod- In Full Spectrum Warrior, the player uses the buttons on the controller to give orders to two squads of soldiers,as well as to consult a GPS device, radio for support, and A century ago, John Dewey argued that schools were communicate with commanders in the rear. The instruc- built on a fact fetish, and the argument is still valid today.
tion manual that comes with the game makes it clear from The fact fetish views any area of learning — whether phys- the outset that players must take on the values, identities, ics, mathematics, or history — as a body of facts or infor- and ways of thinking of a professional soldier if they are to mation. The measure of good teaching and learning is the play the game successfully. “Everything about your squad,” extent to which students can answer questions about these the manual explains, “is the result of careful planning and years of experience on the battlefield. Respect that experi- But to know is a verb before it becomes a noun in knowl- ence, soldier, since it’s what will keep your soldiers alive.”9 edge. We learn by doing — not just by doing any old thing, In the game, that experience — the skills and knowledge but by doing something as part of a larger community of of professional military expertise — is distributed between people who share common goals and ways of achieving the virtual soldiers and the real-world player. The soldiers those goals. We learn by becoming part of a community in a player’s squads have been trained in movement for- of practice and thus developing that community’s ways of mations; the role of the player is to select the best position knowing, acting, being, and caring — the community’s situ- for them on the field. The virtual characters (the soldiers) ated understandings, effective social practices, powerful know part of the task (various movement formations), and the player knows another part (when and where to engage Of course, different communities of practice have dif- in such formations). This kind of distribution holds for every ferent ways of thinking and acting. Take, for example, law- aspect of military knowledge in the game. However, the yers. Lawyers act like lawyers. They identify themselves as knowledge that is distributed between virtual soldiers and lawyers. They are interested in legal issues. And they know real-world player is not a set of inert facts; what is distrib- about the law. These skills, habits, and understandings are uted are the values, skills, practices, and (yes) facts that con- made possible by looking at the world in a particular way stitute authentic military professional practice. This simula- — by thinking like a lawyer. Doctors think and act in their tion of the social context of knowing allows players to act own ways, as do architects, plumbers, steelworkers, and as if in concert with (artificially intelligent) others, even with- in the single-player context of the game.
others, so analyzing the epistemic frame tells you, in ef- In so doing, Full Spectrum Warrior shows how games fect, what might be safe to leave out in a re-creation of the take advantage of situated learning environments. In games practice. The result is a video game that preserves the con- as in real life, people must be able to build meanings on nections between knowing and doing that are central to the spot as they navigate their contexts. In Full Spectrum an epistemic frame and so becomes an epistemic game.
Warrior, players learn about suppression fire through the Such epistemic games let players participate in valued com- concrete experiences they have while playing. These ex- munities of practice to develop a new epistemic frame or periences give a working definition of suppression fire, to to develop a better and more richly elaborated version of be sure. But they also let a player come to understand how an already mastered epistemic frame.
the idea applies in different contexts, what it has to do with Initiation. Developing games such as Full Spectrum War- solving particular kinds of problems, and how it relates to rior that simultaneously build situated understandings, ef- other practices in the domain, such as the injunction against fective social practices, powerful identities, shared values, and ways of thinking is clearly no small task. But the good Video games thus make it possible to “learn by doing” news is that in many cases existing communities of prac- on a grand scale — but not just by wandering around in tice have already done a lot of that work. Doctors know how a rich computer environment to learn without any guid- to create more doctors; lawyers know how to create more ance. Asking learners to act without explicit guidance — lawyers; the same is true for a host of other socially valued a form of learning often associated with a loose interpre- communities of practice. Thus we can imagine epistemic tation of progressive pedagogy — reflects a bad theory of games in which players learn biology by working as a sur- learning. Learners are novices. Leaving them to float in rich geon, history by writing as a journalist, mathematics by de- experiences with no support triggers the very real human signing buildings as an architect or engineer, geography by penchant for finding creative but spurious patterns and gen- fighting as a soldier, or French by opening a restaurant. More eralizations. The fruitful patterns or generalizations in any precisely, these players learn by inhabiting virtual worlds domain are the ones that are evident to those who already based on the way surgeons, journalists, architects, soldiers, know how to look at the domain and know how complex and restaurateurs develop their epistemic frames.
variables in the domain interrelate. And this is precisely what To build such games requires understanding how prac- the learner does not yet know. In Full Spectrum Warrior, titioners develop their ways of thinking and acting. Such the player is immersed in activity, values, and ways of see- understanding is uncovered through epistemographies of ing but is guided and supported by the knowledge built practice: detailed ethnographic studies of how the epistem- into the virtual soldiers and the weapons, equipment, and ic frame of a community of practice is developed by new environments in the game. Players are not free to invent members. Gathering this information requires more work everything for themselves. To succeed in the game, they than is currently invested in most “educational” video games.
must live by — and ultimately come to master — the epi- But the payoff is that such work can become the basis for stemic frame of military doctrine. Full Spectrum Warrior is an an alternative educational model. Video games based on example of what we suggest is the promise of video games the training of socially valued practitioners let us begin to and the future of learning: the development of epistemic build an education system in which students learn to work (and thus to think) as doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers,journalists, and other important members of the commu- EPISTEMIC GAMES FOR INITIATION AND TRANSFORMATION nity. The purpose of building such education systems is notto train students for these pursuits in the traditional sense of We have argued that video games are powerful con- vocational education. Rather, we develop such epistemic texts for learning because they make it possible to create frames because they can provide students with an oppor- virtual worlds and because acting in such worlds makes tunity to see the world in a variety of ways that are funda- it possible to develop the situated understandings, effective mentally grounded in meaningful activity and well aligned social practices, powerful identities, shared values, and ways with the core skills, habits, and understandings of a post- of thinking of important communities of practice. To build such worlds, one has to understand how the epistemic One early example of such a game is Madison 2200, frames of those communities are developed, sustained, an epistemic game based on the practices of urban plan- and changed. Some parts of practice are more central to ning.12 In Madison 2200, players learn about urban ecol- the creation and development of an epistemic frame than ogy by working as urban planners who are redesigning a downtown pedestrian mall popular with local teenagers.
of a community, games designed to transform an epistem- Players get a project directive from the mayor, addressed ic frame depend on detailed examination of how the ma- to them as city planners, including a city budget plan and ture epistemic frame of a practice is organized and main- letters from concerned citizens about crime, revenue, jobs, tained — and on when and how the frame becomes prob- waste, traffic, and affordable housing. A video features in- lematic. These critical moments of “expectation failure” terviews about these issues with local residents, business- are the points of entry for reorganizing experienced prac- people, and community leaders. Players conduct a site as- titioners’ ways of thinking.13 Building the common assump- sessment of the street and work in teams to develop a land tions of an existing epistemic frame into a game allows ex- use plan, which they present at the end of the game to a perienced professionals to cut right to the key learning representative of the city planning office.
Not surprisingly, along the way players learn a good deal For example, work on military leadership simulations about urban planning and its practices. But something very has used goal-based scenarios to build training simulations interesting happens in an epistemic game like Madison based on the choices military leaders face when setting up 2200. When knowledge is first and foremost a form of activ- a base of operations.14 In the business world, systems like ity and experience — of doing something in the world RootMap (Root Learning, www.rootlearning.com) create within a community of practice — the facts and informa- graphical representations of professional knowledge, offer- tion eventually come for free. A large body of facts that ing suggestions for new practice by highlighting break- resists out-of-context memorization and rote learning downs in conventional understanding.15 Studies of school comes easily if learners are immersed in activities and leaders similarly suggest that the way professionals frame experiences that use these facts for plans, goals, and pur- problems has a strong impact on the possible solutions they poses within a coherent domain of knowledge. Data show are willing and able to explore.16 This ability to success- that, in Madison 2200, players start to form an epistemic fully frame problems in complex systems is difficult to cul- frame of urban planning. But they also develop their under- tivate, but Richard Halverson and Yeonjai Rah have shown standing of ecology and are able to apply it to urban issues.
that a multimedia representation of successful problem- As one player commented, “I really noticed how urban plan- framing strategies — such as how a principal reorganized ners have to think about building things. Urban planners her school to serve disadvantaged students — can help school also have to think about how the crime rate might go up leaders reexamine the critical junctures where their pro- or the pollution or waste, depending on choices.” Anoth- fessional understanding is incomplete or ineffective for deal- er said about walking on the same streets she had traversed ing with new or problematic situations.17 before the workshop, “You notice things, like that’s why theybuild a house there, or that’s why they build a park there.” The players in Madison 2200 do enjoy their work. But more important is that the experience lets them inhabit animaginary world in which they are urban planners. The Epistemic games give players freedom to act within the world of Madison 2200 recruits these players to new ways norms of a valued community of practice — norms that of thinking and acting as part of a new way of seeing the are embedded in nonplayer characters like the virtual sol- world. Urban planners have a particular way of addressing diers in Full Spectrum Warrior or the real urban planners urban issues. By participating in an epistemic game based and planning board members in Madison 2200. To work on urban planning, players begin to take on that way of successfully within the norms of a community, players nec- seeing the world. As a result, it is fun, too.
essarily learn to think as members of the community. Think Transformation. Games like Full Spectrum Warrior and for a moment about the student who, after playing Madi- Madison 2200 expose novices to the ways professionals son 2200, walked down the same streets she had been on make sense of typical problems. But other games are de- the day before and noticed things she had never seen. This signed for those who are already members of a profession- is situated learning at its most profound — a transfer of al community, with the intention of transforming the ways ideas from one context to another that is elusive, rare, and they think by focusing on atypical problems: cases in which powerful. It happened not because the student learned more established ways of knowing break down in the face of a information but because she learned it in the context of a new way of thinking — an epistemic frame — that let her Just as games that initiate players into an epistemic frame depend on epistemographic study of the training practices Although there are not yet any complete epistemic games in wide circulation, there already exist many games that Schools and school systems must soon follow suit or risk provide similar opportunities for deeply situated learning.
Rise of Nations and Civilization III offer rich, interactive en-vironments in which to explore counterfactual historical claims and help players understand the operation of com-plex historical modeling. Railroad Tycoon lets players en- The past century has seen an increasing identification gage in design activities that draw on the same economic of learning with schooling. But new information technol- and geographic issues faced by railroad engineers in the ogies challenge this union in fundamental ways. Today’s 1800s. Madison 2200, of course, shows the pedagogical technologies make the world’s libraries accessible to any- potential of bringing students the experience of being city one with a wireless PDA. A vast social network is literally planners, and we are in the process of developing proj- at the fingertips of anyone with a cell phone. As a result, ects that similarly let players work as biomechanical en- people have unprecedented freedom to bring resources gineers,18 journalists,19 professional mediators,20 and graphic together to create their own learning trajectories.
designers.21 Other epistemic games might allow a player But classrooms have not adapted. Theories of learning to experience the world as an evolutionary biologist or as and instruction embodied in school systems designed to teach large numbers of students a standardized curriculum But even if we had the world’s best educational games are dinosaurs in this new world. Good teachers and good produced and ready for parents, teachers, and students to school leaders fight for new technologies and new prac- buy and play, it’s not clear that most educators or schools tices. But mavericks grow frustrated by the fundamental would know what to do with them. Although the majority mismatch between the social organization of schooling of students play video games, the majority of teachers do and the realities of life in a postindustrial, global, high-tech not. Games, with their anti-authoritarian aesthetics and in- society. In the push for standardized instruction, the general herently anti-Puritanical values, can be seen as challenging public and some policy makers may not have recognized institutional education. Even if we strip away the blood and this mismatch, but our students have. School is increas- guts that characterize some video games, the reality is that, ingly seen as irrelevant by many students who are past the as a form, games encourage exploration, personalized mean- ing-making, individual expression, and playful experimenta- Thus we argue that, to understand the future of learn- tion with social boundaries — all of which cut against the ing, we should be looking beyond schools to the emerg- grain of the social mores valued in school. In other words, ing arena of video games. We suggest that video games even if we sanitize games, the theories of learning embedded matter because they present players with simulated worlds in them run counter to the current social organization of — worlds that, if well constructed, are not just about facts schooling. The next challenges for game and school de- or isolated skills but embody particular social practices. And signers alike is to understand how to shape learning and we argue that video games thus make it possible for players learning environments to take advantage of the power and to participate in valued communities of practice and so potential of games and how to integrate games and game- develop the ways of thinking that organize those prac- based learning environments into the predominant arena Our students will learn from video games. The questions How might school leaders and teachers bring more ex- we must ask and answer are: Who will create these games, tended experiments with epistemic games into the culture and will they be based on sound theories of learning and of the school? The first step will be for superintendents and socially conscious educational practices? The U.S. Army, spokespersons for schools to move beyond the rhetoric of a longtime leader in simulations, is building games like games as violent-serial-killer-inspiring time-wasters and Full Spectrum Warrior and America’s Army — games that address the range of learning opportunities that games pre- introduce civilians to a military world view. Several home- sent. Understanding how games can provide powerful learn- land security games are under development, as are a range ing environments might go a long way toward shifting the of games for health education, from games to help kids current anti-gaming rhetoric. Although epistemic games of with cancer take better care of themselves to simulations the kind we describe here are not yet on the radar of most to help doctors perform surgery more effectively. Compa- educators, they are already being used by corporations, the nies are developing games for learning history (Making His- government, the military, and even by political groups to tory), engineering (Time Engineers), and the mathematics express ideas and teach facts, principles, and world views.
This interest in games is encouraging, but most educa- 9. Manual for Full Spectrum Warrior (Los Angeles: Pandemic Studios, tional games to date have been produced in the absence 2004), p. 2.
10. David Williamson Shaffer, “Epistemic Games,” Innovate, in press.
of any coherent theory of learning or underlying body of 11. David Wil iamson Shaf er, “Pedagogical Praxis: The Professions as Models research. We need to ask and answer important questions for Postindustrial Education,” Teachers College Record, July 2004, pp.
about this relatively new medium. We need to understand how the conventions of good commercial games create com- 12. Kelly L. Beckett and David Williamson Shaffer, “Augmented by Re- ality: The Pedagogical Praxis of Urban Planning as a Pathway to Ecolog- pelling virtual worlds. We need to understand how inhabit- ical Thinking,” Journal of Educational Computing Research, in press; and ing a virtual world develops situated knowledge — how Shaffer, “Epistemic Games.”13. Roger C. Schank, Virtual Learning: A Revolutionary Approach to Build- playing a game like Civilization III, for example, mediates ing a Highly Skilled Work Force (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997).
players’ conceptions of world history. We need to under- 14. Roger C. Schank et al., “The Design of Goal-Based Scenarios,” Jour- stand how spending thousands of hours participating in the nal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 3, 1994, pp. 305-45; and A. S. Gordon, “Authoring Branching Storylines for Training Applications,” in Kafai et al., social, political, and economic systems of a virtual world develops powerful identities and shared values.24 We need 15. Kurt R. Squire, “Game-Based Learning: Present and Future State of to understand how game players develop effective social the Field,” e-Learning Consortium, an X-Learn Perspective Paper, Masie Center, February 2005, available at www.masie.com/xlearn/game-based_ practices and skills in navigating complex systems and how those skills can support learning in other complex domains.
16. Richard Halverson, “Systems of Practice: How Leaders Use Artifacts to Create Professional Community in Schools,” Education Policy Analy- And most of all, we need to leverage these understand- sis Archives, vol. 11, 2003, p. 37; and idem, “Accessing, Documenting ings to build games that develop for players the epistemic and Communicating Practical Wisdom: The Phronesis of School Lead- frames of scientists, engineers, lawyers, political activists, ership Practice,” American Journal of Education, vol. 111, 2004, pp. 90- and members of other valued communities of practice — 17. Richard Halverson and Yeonjai Rah, “Representing Leadership for as well as games that can help transform those ways of Social Justice: The Case of Franklin School,” Journal of Cases in Educa- tional Leadership, Spring 2005.
thinking for experienced professionals.
18. Gina Svarovsky and David Williamson Shaffer, “SodaConstructing Video games have the potential to change the landscape Knowledge Through Exploratoids,” Journal of Research in Science Teach- of education as we know it. The answers to the fundamental questions raised here will make it possible to use video 19. Shaffer, “Pedagogical Praxis.”20. David Williamson Shaffer, “When Computer-Supported Collabora- games to move our system of education beyond the tradi- tion Means Computer-Supported Competition: Professional Mediation tional academic disciplines — derived from medieval schol- as a Model for Collaborative Learning,” Journal of Interactive Learning Research, vol. 15, 2004, pp. 101-15.
arship and constituted within schools developed in the In- 21. David Williamson Shaffer, “Learning Mathematics Through Design: dustrial Revolution — and toward a new model of learn- The Anatomy of Escher’s World,” Journal of Mathematical Behavior, vol.
ing through meaningful activity in virtual worlds. And that 16, 1997, pp. 95-112.
22. Kurt R. Squire and Henry Jenkins, “Harnessing the Power of Games learning experience will serve as preparation for mean- in Education,” Insight, vol. 3, 2004, pp. 5-33.
ingful activity in our postindustrial, technology-rich, real 24. Kurt R. Squire, “Sid Meier’s Civilization III,” Simulations and Gam- ing, vol. 35, 2004, pp. 135-40.
1. Constance A. Steinkuehler, “Emergent Play,” paper presented at the State of Play Conference, New York University Law School, New York City, October 2004.
2. Kurt R. Squire, “Game Cultures, School Cultures,” Innovate, in press.
3. As Julian Dibbell, a journalist for Wired and Rolling Stone, has shown, it is possible to make a better living by trading online currencies than by working as a freelance journalist!4. Constance A. Steinkuehler, “Learning in Massively Multiplayer On- line Games,” in Yasmin Kafai et al., eds., Proceedings of the Sixth Inter- national Conference of the Learning Sciences (Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2004), pp. 521-28.
5. Kurt R. Squire and Levi Giovanetto, “The Higher Education of Gaming,” eLearning, in press.
6. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Periph- eral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
7. David Williamson Shaffer, “Epistemic Frames and Islands of Expertise: Learning from Infusion Experiences,” in Kafai et al., pp. 473-80.
8. The commercial game retains about 15% of what was in the Army’s
original simulation. For more on this game as a learning environment, see James P. Gee, “What Will a State of the Art Video Game Look Like?,” k0510sha.pdf
David Williamson Shaffer, Kurt R. Squire, Richard Halverson, and
James P. Gee, “Video Games and the Future of Learning,” Phi Delta
Kappan, Vol. 87, No. 02 (October 2005): pp. 104-111.
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