LNM is excited to announce that Prof Catherine Beavis will be presenting a seminar on Monday 26th October, in the Faculty of Education, Room 110. This is an open event to LNM members, Monash University and the broader academic community.
Title: Fighting for the faction: Statecraft X, games-based learning and play.
Abstract: Games are viewed as embodying core principles of good pedagogy and learning; however, it is essential that games are not understood simply as ‘learning machines’. Rather, good game play is active, socially situated and purposeful, and intimately linked with issues of ownership, commitment and identity. This presentation focuses particularly on the textual dimensions of games and game play, within the context of the New Media Age, Multiliteracies, and literacy constructed as design, and the ways in which the capacity to read and act upon multimodal literacies enables reasoning and analysis, and the successful progress of play. It takes the example of the citizenship education mobile learning game, Statecraft X, to explore and illustrate matters such as these. It explores and illustrates some of the multimodal forms of reading, literacy and interactions required to make sense of the game, the ways in which doing so enabled students to arrive at new insights and understandings about governance and citizenship, and the kinds of investment, reasoning and assumptions required to do so.
Professor Catherine Beavis
Catherine’s research expertise centres on the changing nature of text and the implications for literacy, education and schooling of young people’s engagement with digital culture and the online world. She researches in the areas of English curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; digital culture and computer games; digital literacy and new literacies and games-based learning. She has undertaken numerous research projects focused on english education, and on literacy, digital culture, young people and computer games. Her current Australian Research Council Project is Serious Play: Using digital games in school to promote literacy and learning in the twenty first century (2011-2014). Some of her previous work includes the ARC funded project, Literacy in the Digital World of the Twenty First Century: Learning from Computer Games (2007-2009).