Serious Play: Literacy, Learning and Digital Games (Digital Games and Learning)

Digital games, heretofore a rebellious out-of-school force for collaborative learning and participatory culture, have made their way to the often staid realms of formal schooling. Serious Play is an impressive, coherent, and timely report from the frontlines of this odd coupling so pregnant with perils and possibilities.

-James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies and Regents' Professor, Arizona State University, USA

This important study makes a major contribution to research and debate about the use of digital games in schools. Addressing a wide range of questions, from game-based literacies to coding narrative in Scratch and creativity with Minecraft, it nevertheless integrates a landscape which has long been fragmented and incoherent in educational debates. A welcome feature of the book is that its authoritative argument about games and learning rests on rich empirical research, respectful collaboration with teachers and students, and an enviable track record in this field of study.

-Andrew Burn, Professor of English, Media and Drama, University College London, UK

Serious Play details the results of a rich sociocultural investigation into the use of digital games in classrooms. Here, we see three leading education scholars tackle the contingency and complexity of technology, representation, identity, literacy, and play in the classroom-and how it connects to contemporary learning and teaching. A nice antidote to the simplifications often made, on both sides, as to the effects of games on learning.

-Constance Steinkuehler, Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, USA

Games are serious business. Watch anyone play a digital game and you soon realize that games are varied, draw on knowledge and skill, and are deeply motivating. Filled with gaming stories across varied contexts, Serious Play humanizes game play in consequential ways. Beavis, Dezuanni, and O'Mara offer readers a much-needed collection for contemplating how we see, feel, and live through games and the tremendous potential they have for remaking literacy research and practice.

-Jennifer Rowsell, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Multiliteracies in the Department of Teacher Education at Brock University, Canada

Drawing on data from the project of the same name, Serious Play provides fascinating insights into the opportunities and challenges of using digital games in the classroom. Scholarly and accessible, this is an important and authoritative volume that speaks to the concerns of the wider educational community. Driven by the hard work of teacher participants, Serious Play is important reading for all who are concerned with developing a relevant, contemporary curriculum.

-Guy Merchant, Professor of Literacy in Education in the Sheffield Institute of Education at Sheffield Hallam University, UK

This is a refreshing, in-depth look at game-based learning that puts teachers and students at the center of the field of study, while making seamless connections to theories of learning, gaming, consumption, and identity. The book moves well beyond questions about efficacy of games in relation to learning and addresses deeper questions about pedagogy and student identities that are highly relevant to educators and researchers today.

-Rebekah Willett, Associate Professor of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA