Digital Fieldtrips
Janice Stewart | Girona University | On April 5, 2018
Thursday, 5 April 2018 , Olot
Digital Fieldtrips
The Faber Residency program worked with the teacher education students at Girona University who invited me to do a workshop. I considered the pedagogical possibilities of using internationally available and broadly accessible Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games—MMORPGs in the classroom. I suggested that using individually-created video game narratives as heterotopic cultural texts and instruments—conduits through which ideas can be disseminated, pooled, discussed, and examined—allows for a supple engagement with cross-cultural competencies, flexible languages, and a range of 21 C proficiencies. The seminar included many questions from students thinking through what it might mean to use these games in schools. Thoughts about the use of games in teacher education and the challenges to learning. We reflected on the question “Can it be played” in regards to social justice issues, like can you play the feminism game that would work to help with building knowledge. I really appreciated the thoughtful discussion with the students who not only engaged the ideas but did much of the work of translation.