Using Minecraft in Storytelling

Webinar revisited
This webinar was held by Chris Bailey, Sheffield University, UK on behalf of the CAMELOT Project
13th March, 10.30 – 11.30 am GMT

To watch the recording follow this link

Abstract: Storying in and around a Minecraft Community

Recent work around the use of Virtual Worlds in educational contexts has conceptualised literacies as communal processes, whilst considering complex notions of collaboration through participants’ multiplicity of presence. Screen-based virtual worlds can also be viewed as multimodal texts, constructed by multiple players. Shaped by these ideas, this presentation draws upon data collected during an extra-curricular Minecraft club for ten and eleven year old children, exploring the ways in which the players take up the narrative opportunities offered by the game, as they collaborate to build a ‚virtual community‘.

With a focus on the literacy events and artefacts generated in and around a virtual space, this presentation describes how this established, self-directed group of children used this environment to compose and create improvised stories. It explores how the literacies constructed through their interactions were influenced by resources drawn from their wider experiences, shaped by their experiments with in-game multimodal creation. The children’s interactions enabled them to form their own individual and collective textual landscapes, through a set of emotionally charged manifestations of literacy, played out in the hybrid virtual/material worlds.

 
For Chris‘ PhD research material on Minecraft being used with a year 6 afterschool club see http://mrchrisjbailey.co.uk/ 

Biography

Chris Bailey is a PhD student at Sheffield Hallam University. His PhD study is titled: ‘Investigating the Lived Experience of a Virtual World After School Club‘. This research stems from his previous work as a primary school teacher, where he taught across the primary age ranges. His research explores the ways in which children make meaning in and around digital environments, with a particular interest in the informal learning opportunities offered by social, digitally mediated gaming. He runs the Children and Video Games multidisciplinary discussion group at Sheffield Hallam University and blogs regularly about his work

Veröffentlicht in Uncategorized.

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert