Call for Papers

/Currents in Electronic Literacy/ (ISSN 1524-6493) solicits article-length submissions related to the theme below. Submissions are due by Friday, January 15, 2010. Please consult our Submission Guidelines <http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/fall05/submissions.html> .

Spring 2010 issue: "Gaming-Across-the-Curriculum: Playing as a Way of
Learning"

“Good game design,” writes James Paul Gee in “Learning and Games,” “has a lot to teach us about good learning, and contemporary learning theory has something to teach us about how to design even better and deeper games.” The burgeoning field of pedagogical gaming has inspired emergent journals (GameStudies; Games and Culture), new institutions (e.g., the Game Studies Research Center at the IT University of Copenhagen), and interdisciplinary approaches. This issue of /Currents/ features guest editors Jan Holmevik and Cynthia Haynes of Clemson University’s Gaming Across the Curriculum (GAC) program, (http://gamingacrossthecurriculum.blogspot.com/), which examines current and potential uses of gaming within the academy. The issue will incorporate games created by students and faculty, best practices of the use of computer games in teaching, articles that theorize play and pedagogy, innovative approaches to cross-disciplinary collaboration using computer games, frameworks of GAC white papers, and so forth.

/Currents/ encourages unconventional and emergent modes of scholarship. The editors solicit articles, games (with instructions and background), GAC curriculum designs, and other scholarly treatments of “gaming-across-the-curriculum.” All submissions should adhere to MLA style guidelines for citations and documentation. Submissions should state any technical requirements or limitations. /Currents/ reserves all copyrights to published articles and requires that all of its articles be housed on its Web server.

It is the policy of /Currents in Electronic Literacy/ that all published contributions must meet the W3C accessibility standards. While all /Currents/ articles are accessible, readers are advised that these same articles may contain links to other Web sites that do not meet accessibility guidelines.

Contact: currents@cwrl.utexas.edu <mailto:interrobang@mail.utexas.edu>.

New Friends of GAC gadget!

It looks like our little network is growing, and to accommodate the networking nature of our project, we've added the Friends of GAC gadget! At the behest of our overlord, Cynthia, we'll be adding examples of people using games of various types in their projects.

Our first highlighted project is a little time-sensitive. For those of you out there in San Fransisco for the 4Cs conference, check out the Play-Write gaming group. They're engaged in a kind of scavenger hunt/alternate reality game to get people circulating and taking ownership in their con experience. I've been to a couple of conventions and conferences where something like this was going on, and it was a brilliant idea. Lots of fun, people get involved, and the way this one is set up, it looks like a great time. They're using several social networking tools, such as Twitter, Flickr, and Ning to help get people involved. It really looks interesting.

Gaming Across the Curriculum

Who are we? What are we doing here? We are Clemson University's team assigned to begin a cross-curriculum program to further the use of games, simulations, and virtual worlds to teach students. Our goal is to connect teachers across our campus and across the world to share their ideas, get people interested in games as teaching tools, and to get the word out. We're always looking for new ideas of integrating play and teaching, and we're always interested in talking to people who are getting students involved in their learning process with games and toys.

Updates to the Blog

In order to get this blog running, we've made a couple of changes with an eye toward professionalism, getting people involved, and, of course, play. Consider this GAC blog version 1.1.

• We've added a subscription option, so interested parties can stay up to date with the latest blog posts.
• We added team member profiles, so you know a bit about us.
  
• We changed the color scheme to look more professional.
• We have a nifty welcome message for newcomers!
• What kind of site would we be without a game to play? We added PacMan!

Let us know what you think!

The operational definition of G.A.C. ?

Here is the preliminary operational definition that Sean and I wrote today:

"Gaming Across the Curriculum (GAC) is a scholarly initiative started at Clemson University in 2007 that will identify current uses of computer games and virtual worlds in academia, as well as suggest avenues for further research into pedagogical gaming."

What do you think? Does this make sense?