Presentation Abstract

1
Presentation Abstract

• Integrating X Box into a critical literacy unit
• The benefits of incorporating educational games
  into learning are well documented, but what about
  the educational benefits of incorporating
  platform games into learning? This presentation
  will explore one primary schools investigation
  and evaluation of Xbox games (as part of the GIL
  Microsoft XBox Trial), and the possible
  educational application of these games within
  integrated units. Two units with a critical
  literacy focus will be explored.

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• From the enormous Space War of the 1960s through
  to Pong of the 70s, Space Invaders of the 80s,
  Sonic the Hedgehog of the 90s and most recently,
  Pokémon, computer games have become a central
  part of leisure time.
• http//www.gameonweb.co.uk/education/unit1.html
  (accessed 29 April 2006)

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Integrating XBOX into a critical literacy unit
Denise Tarlinton (dtarl1_at_eq.edu.au) CST,
Kurwongbah State School Interactive Games and
Learning Conference Friday 2 June 2006
4
Lets consider

• In 1995 Alan Luke stated that
• texts selected for classroom use were
  predominantly print-based, and often excluded
  popular culture and childrens cultures.
• Has anything really changed since 1995?

5
What are the facts?

• World of Warcraft's (online roleplaying game)
  worldwide customer base is currently at more than
  6 million players.
• One in every five households in Australia have a
  gaming console
• 2.5 million people play console games in
  Australia
• 72 are male, 28 female
• 45 are 0-18 year olds, 36 are 18-35 year olds
  and 36 year olds are 19
• Over 84 of 7-17 year old Australians own a
  computer game console (Nielsen 04)
• In 1996 a total of six Australian companies were
  developing electronic game software. By 2003 this
  number had increased to over 50 (House of Reps
  Jun 04)
• http//www.lamp.edu.au/wiki/index.php?titleACTUAL
  _SERVICE_USAGE_STATISTICS (accessed 1 June 2006)

6
What are the facts?

• By 2008 games will eclipse music and be the
  world's 2nd most popular form of entertainment.
  (Price Waterhouse Coopers)
• 38 of game players are female. (Gameplay)
• 72 of gamers play for more than 1 hour at any
  one time. (Gameplay)
• The global 2002 electronic games market was
  estimated at 40.8 billion, surpassing box office
  receipts of 39.6 billion (Price Waterhouse
  Coopers)
• Young men (18-34) play 12.5 hours of videogames a
  week, versus 9.8 hours watching TV (Nielsen
  Entertainment)
• Gamers spend over 700 a year on console games,
  PC games, and gaming accessories (IGN Gamer
  Study)
• http//www.lamp.edu.au/wiki/index.php?titleACTUAL
  _SERVICE_USAGE_STATISTICS (Accessed 1 June 2006)

7
Microsoft Xbox Trial

• 2005
• Middle Schooling initiative- way to bring popular
  cultural texts into the classroom
• Answer the question how can we best incorporate
  the Xbox and COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf)
  games into the curriculum?
• Critical literacy was one way
• Game study was the focus

8
Games in Learning Framework

• Game Study
• Genre
• Features
• Audience
• Purpose
• Influence
• Application

http//www.learningplace.com.au/uploads/documents/
store/resources/res_24029_diagram.gif (accessed
29 April 2006)
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Studying games as popular culture

• Students should be asking a range of critical
  questions ABOUT games - as they play them,
  respond to them and design and produce their own
  games.
• The Media Education Framework suggests that
  students should ask questions about the ways in
  which games
• Represent people, places and ideas
• Are used by audiences in particular ways for
  particular purposes and how these audiences are
  targeted as consumers and citizens
• Use particular technologies in processes of
  production, distribution and access
• Use particular types of languages in the process
  of communication
• Are produced, marketed and regulated by
  institutions (with a range of implications -
  economic, political and cultural)
• These are questions that can be asked about any
  game, regardless of  whether the game is
  considered of high or low "value".
• Engaging with popular culture in a critically
  reflective manner is crucial to the development
  of literacy.
• Michael Dezuanni (email, Games in learning
  Discussion List, Thursday, 27 April 2006 612 AM)

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Critically viewing games

• Students need the skills to critically view games
  to
• Deconstructs them
• Looks at ways to analyse the ideologies presented
  in them
• How those parts make up the whole game experience
• Explore how they are reviewed and rated by the
  experts.
• http//www.acmi.net.au/E40D6D8305A84144963B273DCE3
  1A79E.jsp

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Associated texts around games

• Fan sites
• Gaming magazines
• Reviews
• Official sites
• Blogs
• Wikis
• IM/ Chat
• (Prensky, www.marcprensky.com ,2005)

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Literacy Frameworks

• Luke and Freebodys Four Resources Model
• Bill Greens Three Dimensions of Literacy Model

Critical literacy practices are central to both
conceptualisations of what it means to be a
literate person in the 21st century.
http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit
.htm
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English Years 1 to 10 Syllabus

• The learning outcomes of the English key learning
  area contribute significantly to lifelong
  learning.
• Our aim is to help students achieve these
  outcomes through extended engagement with texts
  and language, and by developing a variety of
  literacy practices over their compulsory
  schooling.
• In English, students as lifelong learners
• develop knowledge and show deep understanding of
  the relationships between discourse, cultural
  contexts, social situations and choices of
  textual resources when interpreting and
  constructing texts
• think in complex ways to make connections among
  texts, analyse representations and patterns of
  use of resources, make inferences, synthesise
  information, consider the consequences of
  choices, and generate new possibilities for texts
• create and respond imaginatively to texts by
  playing with structures, exploring aesthetic uses
  of language, innovatively using technology, and
  exploring the effects of choices of textual
  resources
• actively investigate texts, making judgments
  about and challenging textual representations,
  drawing on analysis of patterns of use of
  resources to support hypotheses and to form
  generalisations
• participate confidently and constructively in
  interactions with others to meet individual and
  group needs, collaborating on tasks, taking
  responsibility for actions, defending decisions
  and negotiating conflicts
• reflect on their learnings about texts and
  language, considering the depth of their
  knowledge and the repertoire of practices they
  use to interpret and construct texts, and use
  these as a self-directed learner in new contexts.
• http//www.qsa.qld.edu.au/yrs1to10/kla/english/syl
  labus.html (accessed 1 June 2006)

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What is critical literacy?

• Critical literacy involves the analysis and
  critique of the relationships among texts,
  language, power, social groups and social
  practices.
• It shows us ways of looking at written, visual,
  spoken, multimedia and performance texts to
  question and challenge the attitudes, values and
  beliefs that lie beneath the surface.
• http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.
  htm (accessed 31.05.06)

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Critical literacy includes

• examining meaning within texts
• considering the purpose for the text and the
  composers motives
• understanding that texts are not neutral, that
  they represent particular views, silence other
  points of view and influence peoples ideas
• questioning and challenging the ways in which
  texts have been constructed
• analysing the power of language in contemporary
  society
• emphasising multiple readings of texts. (Because
  people interpret texts in the light of their own
  beliefs and values, texts will have different
  meanings to different people.)
• having students take a stance on issues.
• providing students with opportunities to consider
  and clarify their own attitudes and values.
• providing students with opportunities to take
  social action.
• http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.
  htm (accessed 31.05.06)

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What kinds of critical questions can we ask of
texts?

• These Critical Literacy Questions can be asked of
  most spoken, written, visual, multimedia and
  performance texts. They encourage students to
  question beliefs that are often taken for
  granted.
• Textual purpose(s)    What is this text about?
   How do we know?    Who would be most likely to
  read and/or view this text and why?    Why are
  we reading and/or viewing this text?    What
  does the composer of the text want us to know?
• Textual structures and features    What are the
  structures and features of the text?    What
  sort of genre does the text belong to?    What
  do the images suggest?    What do the words
  suggest?     What kind of language is used in
  the text?
• Construction of characters    How are children,
  teenagers or young adults constructed in this
  text?    How are adults constructed in this
  text?    Why has the composer of the text
  represented the characters in a particular way?
• http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.
  htm (accessed 31.05.06)

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Critical Literacy Questions

• Gaps and silences    Are there gaps and
  silences in the text?    Who is missing from
  the text?    What has been left out of the
  text?    What questions about itself does the
  text not raise?
• Power and interest    In whose interest is the
  text?    Who benefits from the text?     Is the
  text fair?    What knowledge does the
  reader/viewer need to bring to this text in order
  to understand it?    Which positions, voices
  and interests are at play in the text?    How is
  the reader or viewer positioned in relation to
  the composer of the text?    How does the text
  depict age, gender and/or cultural groups?   
  Whose views are excluded or privileged in the
  text?    Who is allowed to speak?  Who is
  quoted?    Why is the text written the way it
  is?
• http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.
  htm (accessed 31.05.06)

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Critical Literacy Questions

• Whose view whose reality?    What view of the
  world is the text presenting?    What kinds of
  social realities does the text portray?    How
  does the text construct a version of reality?   
  What is real in the text?    How would the text
  be different if it were told in another time,
  place or culture?
• Interrogating the composer    What kind of
  person, and with what interests and values,
  composed the text?    What view of the world
  and values does the composer of the text assume
  that the reader/viewer holds? How do we know?
• Multiple meanings    What different
  interpretations of the text are possible?    How
  do contextual factors influence how the text is
  interpreted?    How does the text mean?    How
  else could the text have been written?    How
  does the text rely on inter-textuality to create
  its meaning?
• http//wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/critlit.
  htm (accessed 31.05.06)

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Critical questions to ask of games

•  What seems to be the nature of the game's
  appeal?
•  How does it draw on existing myths and
  narratives?
•  How does it draw on other cultural forms?
•  How is it reshaping both of these and to what
  end?  
•  How does reading this text expand traditional
  definitions of  literacy - that is, What 'non
  literary stylistic elements contribute to  the
  whole?
•  What cultural values and ideologies seem to be
  presented through  the game?
•  What is the game 'selling'?
•  How does this game draw the reader/player in?
•  What questions or issues does the text raise
  for you?
• (Beavis, http//www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/english/docs
  /Beavis.doc, accessed 22.04.06) 

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Ideological analysis some questions to ask of
the text

• What are the assumptions about what is natural,
  just and right?
• What (and who) do these assumptions distort or
  obscure?
• What are the power relations? How are they made
  to appear as if they are normal or good? What
  negative aspects are excluded?
• Look for binaries, oppositions (good/evil,
  natural/unnatural, tame/wild, young/old). Which
  term of the binary is privileged, what is
  repressed or devalued by this privileging of one
  term over the other?
• What people, classes, areas of life, experiences,
  are 'left out', silenced?
• What cultural assumptions and what 'myths' shape
  experience and evaluation? What is mystified? An
  experience or event or thing is mystified when a
  broad cultural meaning obscures the particulars
  of that experience, event or thing this
  obscuring usually covers up or 'disappears'
  contrary or inconvenient facts, as in the
  examples I have given. To demystify, pay
  attention to the particulars, the specifics, the
  concrete reality, with all its blemishes and
  contradictions.
• How does the style of presentation contribute to
  the meaning of the text? Style always contains
  meaning.
• What 'utopic kernel', that is, vision of human
  possibility, appears to lie at the heart of the
  understanding of the ideology?
• http//www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/ideology.html
  (accessed 15 May 2006)

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Out of the Box

• Year 4/5 students
• Can computer games give me skills for real life?
• Xbox and games the focus for this unit
• Developed the hypothesis that computer games
  could provide them with skills for real life
• used qualitative and quantitative methods,
  observations, critical literacies and ICTs to try
  to support or refute the prediction. 
• students in small groups, created videos that
  they filmed and edited, to present their findings
  to key decision makers within the school
  community on the benefits of the computer game
  interactions they had noted throughout the term. 
  
• Deconstructed and analysed newspaper headlines
  and articles on the pros and cons of games and
  game playing. 
• Survey responses from parents and to a display
  during the school fete were all enthusiastic
  about the LEARNING that students were involved in
  around this particular series of activities.
• http//www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/curriculum/integr
  ated20planning/Diversity20and20Change20years2
  04-5/outofthebox.doc

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Ken and Barbie Really Real?

• Year 6/7 students
• How do media representations of gender position,
  marginalize and shape me?
• X-Box games considered as one of the many popular
  cultural texts (including TV and youth
  magazines) within this unit  
• Students worked in a design team to develop the
  concept for a new magazine that informs and
  educates young people about the issues which
  affect their lives. 
• Students explored and discussed the concepts of
  stereotyping, popular culture, gender, codes of
  behaviour, self concept, self esteem, identity,
  body image and peer pressure.   
• Specifically, the XBox was one of the texts
  students viewed to critique gender images/
  stereotypes that are portrayed in popular
  cultural texts. 
• http//www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/curriculum/integr
  ated20planning/Diversity20and20Change206-7/div
  ersity6-7.htm

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Super Sonic Video Games and Learning

• Game Study Unit/ Teachers Notes
• Developed by Annemaree OBrien (Screen Education)
  around Sonic characters but can be adapted for
  any computer game
• These activities invite students in Years 5-9 to
  reflect on the games they play, to
• examine and evaluate video games
• explore the development of game characters, in
  particular Sonic The Hedgehog
• create their own game characters
• Rationale
• Thinking and talking about video games encourages
  questioning
• Learning more about how games work and how they
  are made helps develops essential screen literacy
  skills and knowledge.
• http//www.acmi.net.au/global/docs/sonic_education
  _pack.pdf (accessed 31 May 2006)

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X-Play Game Review Task

• This game review task has been developed by one
  of our year 5 students working on a
  differentiated  Independent Project.  The student
  has developed a task sheet, lesson plan, graphic
  organisers, and sample XBox game reviews as part
  of this project.  He is currently mentoring
  students in year 4 and 5 on viewing, analysing
  and reviewing video games on the XBox. 
• www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/curriculum/gil/game_revie
  w_task.doc

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A brave new virtual world

• Most games tell a story, but with their changing
  narratives and action-based roles, games are so
  profoundly different from traditional
  storytelling that it is difficult to compare them
  to film or literature. Games culture does however
  speak powerfully to human emotion. Whether across
  the room, or across the globe, the internet
  allows players to create complex virtual
  communities in the world of the game - sometimes
  with millions of participants.
• http//www.acmi.net.au/BE10CCB57503435AB1237DF6CDE
  478AC.htm (accessed 1 June 2006)

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Worth Investigating

• Marc Prensky
• Catering for digital natives in the classroom
• Power of games to engage
• Access a variety of keynote addresses at
  http//www.marcprensky.com/speaking/default.asp
• James Gee
• Book What video games have to teach us about
  learning and literacy (2003)
• Video Games in Education
• Wealth of articles and resources to support the
  use of video games in education
• http//www3.essdack.org/socialstudies/videogames.h
  tm

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Why is youth culture left at the school door?
Violence, excessive stereotyping or gross
insensitivity in much popular culture invites
censorship, which in turn covers for teachers
discomfort and unfamiliarity with the content and
forms of youth culture. Teachers may also feel
uncertain of their role if popular culture is
used in the classroom- if teachers are no longer
the experts, what role should they
assume? (Asselin, 2001, Teaching Literacy From
and With Popular Culture, p. 47)