1. 1. Investigating the Lived Experience of a Virtual World After School Club. Chris Bailey
2. 2. My Background Teacher / Assistant Headteacher - primary age range Researcher - digital literacy, practitioner research, PhD - education, literacy, technology Club Leader - extra-curricular Minecraft Club
3. 3. Forthcoming Study 'Investigating the lived experience of a children's virtual world after-school club.' Year long ethnography of a Minecraft Club Approx 15 Y6 children (10 11 years) Classroom based, using laptops / ipads Building and inhabiting a virtual community
4. 4. What is Minecraft? Sandbox indie video game Building Blocks 'Virtual Lego' Survival / Creative modes Edu mod Virtual World
5. 5. Context New Literacy Studies (Street, 2003) Multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000) Hybrid sites (Burnett and Bailey, 2014) School Based Studies Virtual Worlds
6. 6. Focus Illuminate the experience and motivations of individuals who are compelled, motivated and engaged by participation in virtual world play. (OMara, 2012; Bailey and Moar, 2001; Merchant, 2009) Articulate how identities are formed and meanings are made by participants interacting in and around social, virtual environments. (Wohlwend et al, 2011; Dickey, 2011; Marsh, 2011) Explore how children negotiate the complex relationships between material and virtual place and space. (Dickey 2010; Ito, 2009)
7. 7. Background to the Club Child initiated club Flat, empty space Famework: Building 'a community space' 'Bradborough' Self guided / Adult input
8. 8. amazingly, we started off with just a flat land and we have produced this big community... Abigail Bradborough is a town which is relentlessly growing... where anyone can build.' - Joseph
9. 9. Self-guided activities Just a few examples of what the children did..... Made squid farms Built a hotel with a bar, swimming pool and sauna Made a library Erected a central statue - 'the butter God' Created a history for the village Enacted play based on popular culture references -Hunger Games, Baby Monkey, Kensuke's Kingdom Set traps for each other Created a rollercoaster Crafted 'armour and weaponry at the forge' Created a theatre and staged a performance of 'Mamma Mia'
10. 10. The Tornado - destruction of a community Adult input Topic Link Rules disappeared, Conventions Activities dispersed
11. 11. Designing an Research Approach / Complexities 1a. Why Ethnography? b. Why Participatory Ethnography? 2. Focus of observations (Photography analogy) 3. Re-conceptualising ethnography: a. For a hybrid site (on / off screen) b. For existing relationships 4. Methods outlined
12. 12. 1a. Why Ethnography? Longitudinal, ongoing, changes over time Detailed interpretation of an aspect of socially located, human experience (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011) Learning about a culture, describing what participants do and the meanings they ascribe to their actions (Wolcott, 2008, p. 71) 'Thick description' (Geertz, 1993) (Virtual / Connective? (Hine, 2000))
13. 13. 1b. Participatory Ethnography Participatory - my role in the club Participatory - children as researchers Taking account of the 'competing versions of reality and multiple perspectives' (Brewer, 2000, p. 108) Addressing the balance of power
14. 14. 2. Photographer's Dilemma Of all the objects in the world: why choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other?' (p. 6)
15. 15. 2. Photographer / Ethnographer's Dilemma Capturing a representation of the truth but there are decisions to be made: Where to look? When to look? What to capture? Which angle? Which perspective? Close-up or from a distance? Fixed or movable viewpoint? Edits and filters? Is the original more 'true'? Self - disappear or make visible? Complicated further by 'hybrid sites'
16. 16. 3a. Hybrid Sites Complex network of places and spaces. 'hybrid on/offscreen sites' / 'hybrid physical/virtual sites' (Burnett and Bailey, 2014) Fluid, not fixed. Participants inhabit a number of inter-related social realities (Merchant, 2009) resulting in a multiplicity of presence (Martin et al, 2012). The complexity can lead to 'an unravelling of certainties about researching literacies' (Burnett and Merchant, 2013) Necessary to focus on multiplicities that avoids the 'temptation to reify an event as a unit of analysis.' (Burnett and Merchant, 2013)
17. 17. 3b. Rethinking My Identity Renegotiating 'Burdened with pieces of ready-made identities' / required to extend and redefine already existing relationships (Nespor, 2010, p. 203) Establishing a researcher identity Positioning Hybrid role as the club leader and a researcher An adult who is open to contribution, co-construction and participation at children's invitation Responsibility towards the safety and wellbeing of the children Control? Performing Rehearsal - Clothing / Appearance Virtual me? Power balance Reflexivity Second level of reflection (Watt, 2007, p.83) - reflective research journal / blog
18. 18. Making a room for 'Ava the tiny babby'
19. 19. 4. Outline of Methods Selected to take account of different perspectives that represent the multiple modalities and interactions that will arise in this hybrid space. 1. Participant Observation (45 hrs) 2. Discussion Activities (5 hrs) 3. Interviews (8 hrs) 4. Collection of materials (ongoing)
20. 20. References Burnett, C. & Bailey, C. (in press). Conceptualising collaboration in hybrid sites: Playing Minecraft together and apart in a primary classroom. In: Burnett, C., Davies, J., Merchant, G. & J. Rowsell (ed.). New literacies around the globe: Policy and pedagogy. . Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge. BAILEY, Fiona and MOAR, Magnus (2001). The vertex project: Children creating and populating 3D virtual worlds. International journal of art and design education, 20 (1), 19-30. BARTHES, Roland (1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography. Macmillan. BREWER, John D. (2000). Ethnography. [online]. Buckingham [England], Open University Press.. BURNETT, Cathy and MERCHANT, Guy (2013). Points of view: Reconceptualising literacies through an exploration of adult and child interactions in a virtual world. Journal of research in reading, , n/a-n/a. COPE, Bill, KALANTZIS, Mary and New London Group (2000). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. New York, Routledge.
21. 21. DENZIN, Norman K. and LINCOLN, Yvonna S. (2011). The discipline and practise of qualitative research. In: DENZIN, Norman K. and LINCOLN, Yvonna S. (eds.). The SAGE handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage, 1-19. DICKEY, Michele (2011). The pragmatics of virtual worlds for K-12 educators: Investigating the affordances and constraints of active worlds and second life with K-12 in-service teachers. Educational technology research and development, 59 (1), 1-20. GEERTZ, Clifford (1993). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. London, Fontana. ITO, Mizuko (2009). Engineering play: A cultural history of children's software. The MIT Press. LAW, John (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. London, Routledge. MARSH, Jackie (2011). Young children's literacy practices in a virtual world: Establishing an online interaction order. Reading research quarterly,46 (2), 101-118. MARTIN, C., et al. (2012). Playing together separately: Mapping out literacy and social synchronicity. In: 226-243. MERCHANT, Guy (2009). Literacy in virtual worlds. Journal of research in reading, 32 (1), 38-56. NESPOR, J. (2010). Tangled up in school. New York, Routledge. O'MARA, Joanne (2012). Process drama and digital games as text and action in virtual worlds: Developing new literacies in school. Research in drama education, 17 (4), 517-534. STREET, Brian (2003). What's "new" in new literacy studies? critical approaches to literacy in theory and practice. Current issues in comparative education, 5 (2), 77-91. WATT, Diane (2007). On becoming a qualitative researcher: the value of reflexivity. The qualitative report, 12 (1), 82-101. WOHLWEND, Karen E., et al. (2011). Navigating discourses in place in the world of webkinz. Journal of early childhood literacy, 11 (2), 141-163. WOLCOTT, Harry F. (2008). Ethnography: A way of seeing. [online]. Lanham, Md; Plymouth, Altamira Press.
22. 22. Follow up / Feedback Blog: http://prmrytchr.co.uk Twitter: @mrchrisjbailey