Gaming SMALLab

This summer, in collaboration with Katie Salen and the Institute of Play in NYC, we received a grant from the Digital Media and Learning program at theMacArthur Foundation. The grant is supporting a partnership to bring together our work in mixed-reality learning with IoP's work in games and learning.

SMALLab has proven to be a really interesting space for kids, and this new collaboration, will push at the question of what game design might look like within its borders. Our project—“Gaming SMALLab”—will focus on the design of a pedagogical framework for game-like, mixed-reality learning. The Institute of Play has developed a game-based pedagogy that will guide the design and development of a suite of standards-based learning scenarios for middle school students and teachers, using the SMALLab environment. This pedagogy frames learning as both situated and game-like. By “situated” we mean that students are asked to “take on” the identities and behaviors of designers, inventors, writers, historians, mathematicians, and scientists in contexts that are real and/or meaningful to them. By “game-like” we mean an approach to learning that draws on the intrinsic qualities of games and their design to engage students in a deep exploration of subject matter, with 21st century learning at its core.