Using the (im)materialities framework to trace the contrapuntal lines of allegiance and belonging for globally mobile children

This paper discusses the use of Burnett, Merchant, Pahl and Rowsell’s (im)materiality literacy analysis framework to explore online and offline literacies in the lives of globally mobile children. The voices of these children have been little explored in New Literacies research. Globally mobile ‘third culture’ children who attend International Schools are often foreigners where they live, yet have multiple sites of belonging, including digital worlds. In analysing the abundant data of a year-long multicase study, the theoretical lenses of spatiality, mediation, materiality, and embodiment, as proposed in Burnett el al.’s framework, provided a productive framework through which to explore the complicated intersections of literacy, identity, and digital worlds in these children’s lives. The paper demonstrates how the framework might be applied, focusing on two of the children in the study. Prompted by insights provided by the (im)materiality framework, a contrapuntal metaphor is proposed as a way to understand allegiance and belonging in the lives of these globally mobile children.     

Chapter 16:Harm Reduction

Summary

Working with clients with both substance abuse and other Axis I mental health concerns is becoming more and more common on a college campus as well as in the general population. By utilizing both brief therapy techniques and a harm reduction approach, the therapist engages the client where the client is ready to begin in an attempt to motivate the client toward healthier choices. This case study examines the inter-relationship among alcohol abuse, attention-deficit disorder, anxiety, and depression.     

Impact of compulsory participation of medical students in a multiuser online game to learn radiological anatomy and radiological signs within the virtual world Second Life

Competitive game-based learning within Second Life enables effective teaching of basic radiological anatomy and radiological signs to medical students, with good acceptance and results when students participate voluntarily, but unknown in a compulsory context. The objectives of this study were to reproduce a competitive online game based on self-guided presentations and multiple-choice tests in a mandatory format, to evaluate its development and student perceptions compared to a voluntary edition in 2015 (N = 90). In 2016 and 2017, respectively, 191 and 182 third-year medical students participated in the game as a mandatory course activity. The mean (±SD) score of the game was 74.7% (±19.5%) in 2015, 71.2% (±21.5%) in 2016, and 67.5% (±21.5%) in 2017 (P < 0.01). Participants valued positively the organization and educational contents but found the virtual world less attractive and the game less interesting than in the voluntary edition. The experience globally was rated with 8.2 (±1.5), 7.8 (±1.5), and 7.1 (±1.7) mean points (±SD) in a ten-point scale, in the 2015, 2016, and 2017 editions, respectively (P < 0.05). Competitive learning games within virtual worlds like Second Life have great learning potential in radiology, but the mean score in the game decreased, acceptance of virtual world technology was lower, and opinion about the game was worse with a compulsory participation, and even worse when dropouts were not allowed. Under the conditions in which this study was conducted, learning games in three-dimensional virtual environments should be voluntary to maintain adequate motivation and engagement of medical students.     

The Virtual Culture Industry: Work and Play in Virtual Worlds

This essay uses Horkheimer and Adorno's work on the culture industry to analyze virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. While artificial worlds have enormous potential to facilitate communication, transcend spatial boundaries, promote free expression, and protect marginalized groups, the utopian promise of these worlds is undermined by their mirroring of real-world market systems, the exploitation of labor, and blurring the line between entertainment and work. The culture industry thesis provides a useful starting point for theorizing virtual worlds and explaining why these places have become mirrors of real-world economic relations.     

Positional identities in educational transitions: connecting contemporary and future trajectories among multiethnic girls

The aim of this article is to study how young people view themselves as learners within educational trajectories, as an alternative approach to today’s emphasis on performance and standardisation. We study different learner positionings in transitions from one level of schooling to another, using the analytic concepts of ‘positional identities’ and ‘figured worlds’. The ethnographic data were collected over a two-year period as part of a large-scale ethnographic study in a suburban area of Oslo with a large percentage of families with immigrant backgrounds. We focus on two girls (aged 15) who represent different educational trajectories and positional identities. Their case histories illustrate how positional identities in educational transitions are a complex web of formal and informal influences beyond school. The students experience different trajectories and changes in positional identities as learners when entering upper secondary school, which have implications for their future orientations.     

Imaginative interaction with Internet games. For children and teachers

This article explores children's imaginative interaction with Internet games in the belief that an understanding of children's life experiences is essential to effective teaching and learning within the classroom. It is underpinned by the idea that imaginative play is, at least in some part, the work of children undertaking identity practice. It focuses on a small group case study of 8‐ and 9‐year‐old children, from diverse cultural backgrounds, who were regular players on free‐access commercial Internet games. As children frequently perform imaginative narrative play both privately and in groups triggered from experiences with novels, films and television, the research initially focused on whether similar activities resulted from experiences with commercially sponsored free Internet game sites. If so, to what extent might these texts also influence children's creative output? To explore this, the children attended a weekly after‐school computer club during which they played on Internet games. During the course of the club sessions, each child was observed and interviewed about the experiences they had resulting from the gameplay. Through consideration of the children's play and opinions, the teacher researcher developed valuable insights into her students and their worlds to the benefit of her practice.     

网上3D虚拟世界及其教育案例分析

网上3D虚拟世界能够充分挖掘计算机和通讯技术的技术潜能,适应新的学习理论的要求。本文对具有代表性的网上3D虚拟世界教育软件AWEDU的特点和功能进行了分析,并结合教育案例分析了其在教育中的应用价值,最后指出我国的教育技术工作者也需要研究网上3D虚拟世界及其在教育中的应用。