This volume is the first reader on video games and learning of its kind. Covering game design, game culture and games as twenty-first-century pedagogy, it demonstrates the depth and breadth of scholarship on games and learning to date. The chapters represent some of the most influential thinkers, designers and writers in the emerging field of games and learning - including James Paul Gee, Soren Johnson, Eric Klopfer, Colleen Macklin, Thomas Malaby, Bonnie Nardi, David Sirlin and others. Together, their work functions both as an excellent introduction to the field of games and learning and as a powerful argument for the use of games in formal and informal learning environments in a digital age.

This volume is the first reader on video games and learning of its kind. Covering game design, game culture and games as twenty-first-century pedagogy, it demonstrates the depth and breadth of scholarship on games and learning to date. The chapters represent some of the most influential thinkers, designers and writers in the emerging field of games and learning - including James Paul Gee, Soren Johnson, Eric Klopfer, Colleen Macklin, Thomas Malaby, Bonnie Nardi, David Sirlin and others. Together, their work functions both as an excellent introduction to the field of games and learning and as a powerful argument for the use of games in formal and informal learning environments in a digital age.

While many of us are concerned with the loss of communal spaces and ties that broaden one’s sense of self beyond the ‘me’ or ‘I’ and into the ‘we’ and ‘us’, less clear are the educational advantages of a community approach in terms of learning curricular content. The chapters in this volume explore the theoretical, design, learning, and methodological questions with respect to designing for and researching web-based communities to support learning. The authors, coming from diverse academic backgrounds (computer science, information science, instructional systems technology, educational psychology, sociology, and anthropology), are frank in examining what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support learning. Taken as a collection, these manuscripts point to the challenges and complex tensions that emerge when designing for web-supported community, especially when the focal practice of the community is learning.

While many of us are concerned with the loss of communal spaces and ties that broaden one's sense of self beyond the 'me' or 'I' and into the 'we' and 'us', less clear are the educational advantages of a community approach in terms of learning curricular content. The chapters in this 2004 volume explore the theoretical, design, learning, and methodological questions with respect to designing for and researching web-based communities to support learning. The authors, coming from diverse academic backgrounds (computer science, information science, instructional systems technology, educational psychology, sociology, and anthropology), are frank in examining what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support learning. Taken as a collection, these manuscripts point to the challenges and complex tensions that emerge when designing for web-supported community, especially when the focal practice of the community is learning.