RESCHEDULED Awesome Event Alert: Critical Gaming Night on Super Smash Bros. Melee. NOW on Feb. 13 @4pm

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE MASSIVE SNOW/ICE STORM, THE EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED. IT WILL NOW BE HELD ON WEDNESDAY FEB. 13, 4PM IN BL417.

I am so happy to announce the revival of Critical Gaming Nights, a student-run initiative that has yielded many fantastic conversations and play sessions in previous years. Here are the details:

"Bonds Between Players in Competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee" 

- presented by Augusto Schmitt

In this presentation Augusto Schmitt, international Master's student from Brazil, will be talking about the competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee player subculture, and analyze it through the lens of media studies, cultural studies and communication theories. Come to talk about this community and how they have managed to withstand the test of time, build themselves into something that wasn't intended by the developers, and grow stronger than the game's successors in the franchise.

Critical Gaming Nights are an occasional series of events that combine presentations of works-in-progress by digital game researchers (students, faculty, practitioners), informal group discussions, and game play sessions. Each game night focuses on one particular game (or game-related activity), and considers how that game can be analyzed using critical theories drawn from multidisciplinary fields of study. It is sponsored by the Critical Games Lab, a part of KMDI-Semaphore. 

These events are not only for academics, but for anyone interested in games, such as game developers, players, modders or enthusiasts who want to engage with new perspectives and questions relating to the social, cultural and technical dimensions of digital games and gaming. 

This event is more of a conversation than just a traditional talk, so take this as an opportunity to discuss and engage. There will also be a setup available for everyone to play and learn about the game firsthand in the later part of evening.

The event will be held in room 417 in the InForum, on the 4th floor of Bissell Building (140 St George St) from 4PM to 9PM on February 13th, 2019 (REVISED DATE). 

Spread the News: Seeking an RA to assist with preparing a big grant application for KMDI + Semaphore

RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITION WITH KMDI + SEMAPHORE

Professor Sara Grimes, Director of the KMDI and Semaphore, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, is seeking to fill a Research Assistant position focused on preparing a literature review and assisting with a large grant application. 

The RA will assist with research and activities relating to an upcoming grant application led by the Institute, its Director and Lab Heads, which will seek to establish a sustainable model for engaging in cross-sector, responsive research aimed at improving the lives of humans within an increasingly technologized information society. 

Qualifications: 

- Previous experience with both research and grant writing
- Formal training in common qualitative social science research methods

- Excellent written/communication skills

- Excellent organizational skills (including scheduling, note - taking, categorizing digital files and
  folders, etc.)

- Ability to work both independently and as part of a team

Preference will be given to PhD students (current or recent graduates), but Master’s students are also welcome to apply if all other criteria and qualifications are met. Qualified applicants must be available to complete a majority of the work in person at the University of Toronto St. George campus. 

Responsibilities:

- Conducting a literature review that incorporates both theoretical works as well as relevant
   previous academic research in the areas requested

- Assisting in the design and coordination of workshops and meetings aimed at establishing
   common themes, goals and methodologies among project partners;

- Assisting in writing portions of the grant application(s) (LOI and full application)

- Assisting in the supervision and coordination of Master’s and undergraduate level RAs

- Assisting in coordinating, communicating and liaising with project partners (e.g. ensuring partner
   access to project documents and online components, providing timely feedback to and from
   partners on deliverables, ensuring partners are reminded of upcoming due dates, etc.)

The successful applicant will be offered an initial contract of 200-275 hours, to be completed over the course of the Winter 2019 semester (with a possibility of renewal for the Summer semester, and beyond). Salary will be commensurate with experience, projected between $35-$39/hour. 

Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted for an interview.

To apply, email a CV and cover letter to Dr. Sara Grimes at sara.grimes@utoronto.ca by January 16, 2019. Questions may be directed to Dr. Grimes or to the KMDI Administrative Coordinator, Rekha Morbia rekha.morbia@utoronto.ca

Cool Event Alert: Loot Boxes: Video Game Gambling, Paying to Win, and the Question of Game Design, Talk by Drs. Mark R. Johnson and Tom Brock

Long time no see!

I am resurfacing after a pretty long hiatus from academic/public life, which included both a yearlong sabbatical (or research leave) and a (nearly) yearlong maternity leave. Work on Kids DIY Media is in full swing, as we are nearing the end of our data collection and analysis, and getting set to finalize our project reports, and I'll have more news on that in the coming months, along with some additional exciting announcements about the status of my book, courses, etc.

In the meantime, however, I'm so happy to be involved in this upcoming talk, hosted by Semaphore,  the Jackman Humanities Institute, and Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, which is happening on June 19th, 2018, 3-5pm, and will delve into some extremely key issues relating to pay-to-play models found in an increasing number of digital games. All of the details are below, and can also be found on the Eventbrite page for the event. I hope to see many of you there!

Loot Boxes: 

Video Game Gambling, Paying to Win, and the Question of Game Design

A Research Talk by

Dr. Mark R. Johnson (University of Alberta) and
Dr. Tom Brock (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Sponsored by the Semaphore Lab, Jackman Humanities Institute, and the
Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) 

This talk is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided.
Attendees are invited to join the speakers and organizers at a local pub after the Q&A.

Abstract:  A 'loot box' is a consumable virtual item purchased and redeemed within a video game to receive a random selection of virtual items. In the last eighteen months, their implementation in many major and independent titles has led to extensive controversy. For example, in April 2018, gambling authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands declared that loot boxes risk creating a new generation of problem gamblers, whilst China, the UK, US and Canada have expressed concern over whether that loot boxes lower the threshold of gambling by integrating 'games of chance' into otherwise skill-based gaming experiences. Despite public and policy outcry, research has not engaged with those who actually design and develop these systems: the voices of designers are missing from the debate. In this talk, Drs. Johnson and Brock will outline their present research program into this phenomenon, which is believed to be the first project to interview industry actors on loot boxes within video games development and integrate these voices into local, national and international debates about the regulation and funding of games development. They will outline their main research questions, interview data and findings to date, and potential directions for further investigation into loot box implementation, effects, and impacts on both policy and regulation, and video game players themselves.

Speaker Bios: 

Dr. Mark R Johnson is a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on the intersections between play and money, such as eSports, live streaming, fantasy sports betting, gamification, and loot boxes. He has published in academic journals including Information, Communication and Society, The Sociological Review, Convergence, and Games and Culture, and his first book, The Unpredictability of Gameplay, is due out in late 2018 from Bloomsbury Academic. Beyond academia he is also an independent game developer and a former professional poker player.

Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests include video games, social theory, digital cultures and political protest. Tom currently co-convenes the BSA Realism and Social Research Group and steers the BSA Theory Group. He is an Associate at the Centre for Social Ontology at the University of Warwick and is also the co-author of the edited book, Structure, Culture, Agency: Selected Paper of Margaret Archer (Routledge).

CFP Alert: Special issue of Information and Learning Science on "Youth and Computational Thinking"

The Journal of Information and Learning Sciences is currently undergoing a major revamp, and in this vein has a number of super exciting special issues coming up. Here is the CFP, cut and paste from the journal website, for an upcoming issue on youth, computational thinking and digital/computer literacy movements. The deadline is coming up soon (May 14).

*************
Learning to Code, Coding to Learn: Youth and Computational Thinking
Special issue call for papers from Information and Learning Sciences

A special issue of Information and Learning Sciences

Professor Jeannette Wing's provocative and influential article entitled "Computational Thinking" appeared in the March 2006 issue of Communications of the ACM; in the twelve years since, educators, computer scientists, policy makers, and technologists have been working to define this conceptual space, measure it, and assess the role that computer science can and should play in the education of young people. While Wing is by no means the first person to notice that computer science can play an important role in developing problem solving capacities in youth across the curriculum (see: Papert, 1980; Clements and Gullo, 1984; Harel and Papert, 1990; diSessa, 2001, to name just a few), her call to arms fueled increasing research attention and policy interest (e.g. Aho, 2012; Cooper and Cunningham, 2010; Guzdial, 2008; Wing, 2008).

Since that time, the Computer Science Education (CSE) movement has gained considerable momentum, led by a coalition of scholars, non-profits, and industry partners. Coding interfaces such as MIT's Scratch platform, Gamestar Mechanic, Kodu, and a host of others (Anton and Berland, 2014; Resnick, Maloney, Monroy-Hernandez, et al., 2009) have opened new possibilities for youth to develop their own interactive games.  The “Computer Science for All” Initiative begun during the Obama Administration suggests that the United States is not far behind France, the UK, and other nations in mandating coding for children beginning in the elementary grades. Programs and initiatives in the US context that contribute to these efforts include Code.org, Hour of Code, and the work of organizations including BlackGirlsCode, GirlsWhoCode, iRemix, Code Savvy, Globaloria, KidsCodeJeunesse, and others.

Scholars in formal and informal learning have been working to make computer programming more accessible to young people. According to a recent survey, coding is already a part of the formal curriculum of 16 countries in Europe (Balanskat & Engelhardt, 2014). Curricula in game design, such as those developed by Constructionist scholars and instructional design experts Yasmin Kafai, Idit Harel and their colleagues (e.g., Kafai, Peppler and Chapman, 2009; Fields, Searle, Kafai et al, 2012; Reynolds & Harel, 2011; Reynolds, 2016) have engaged thousands of young people across several US states in formal, intensive in-school introductory CS education coursework. Public and school libraries also present a context and opportunity to engage children in playful introductions to coding through drop-in making activities (Martin, 2015; Prato, 2017).

These initiatives, and the growing base of research evidence, offer support that the incorporation of computer science concepts in learning programs is an idea whose time has come. Computational Thinking, or CT, can be defined as "the process of recognising aspects of computation in the world that surrounds us, and applying tools and techniques from Computer Science to understand and reason about both natural and artificial systems and processes" (Royal Society, 2012 p. 29). We argue in this call for our special issue that Computational Thinking is a generative space residing between the learning sciences and information sciences, drawing on concepts of cognition and development (e.g., motivation, self-regulation), the system sciences (e.g., algorithmic representation, design of data structures), and areas of shared or interdisciplinary concern and interest (e.g., digital literacy, problem solving).

The guest editors are seeking high-quality, innovative articles to address conceptual, empirical, and theoretical issues in the broad area of computational thinking and youth: the who, what, where and why of learning to code. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
•    Critical, conceptual, epistemic explorations of code and coding
•    Relationship between computational thinking and literacy or literacies
•    Informal spaces for coding education, including libraries, museums, maker spaces
•    Design and architecture of learning platforms for coding
•    Innovative coding curriculum and pedagogy
•    Emergent and designed communities for learning computing skills and concepts
•    Learner assessment approaches and techniques
•    Effect of coding instruction on youth skills and behaviours
•    Equity, gender, status and identity issues in coding and computation environments


GUEST EDITORS:
Eric Meyers, University of British Columbia
eric.meyers@ubc.ca

Hong Huang, University of South Florida
honghuang@usf.edu

Submissions should comply with the journal author guidelines that are here. Submissions should be made through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system. Registration and access is available at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ils


DEADLINES
Initial submission due: 14 May 2018
First round decisions made: 30 July 2018
Revised manuscripts due: 10 September 2018
Final decisions made: 15 October 2018
Anticipated publication date:  Issue 2, March/April 2019

REFERENCES

• Aho, A. V. (2012). Computation and computational thinking. The Computer Journal, 55(7), 832–835.
• Anton, G., & Berland, M. (2014). Studio K: a game development environment designed for gains in computational thinking (abstract only). In Proceedings of the 45rd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. New York: ACM Press.
• Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12: What is involved and what is the role of the computer science education community? ACM Inroads, 2(1), 48–54.
• Berland, M., & Lee, V. R. (2011). Collaborative strategic board games as a site for distributed computational thinking. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 1(2), 65.
• Clements, D. H., & Gullo, D. F. (1984). Effects of computer programming on young children’s cognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(6), 1051–1058.
• Cooper, S., & Cunningham, S. (2010). Teaching computer science in context. ACM Inroads, 1(1), 5–8.
• diSessa, A. A. (2001). Changing minds: Computers, learning and literacy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
• Fields, D. A., Searle, K. A., Kafai, Y. B., & Min, H. S. (2012). Debuggems to assess student learning in e-textiles. In Proceedings of the 43rd SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. New York: ACM Press.
• Guzdial, M. (2008). Education: Paving the way for computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 51(8), 25–27.
• Harel, I., & Papert, S. (1990). Software design as a learning environment. Interactive Learning Environments, 1(1), 1–32.
• Kafai, Y. B, Peppler, K. A, & Chapman, R. N. (2009). The Computer Clubhouse: Constructionism and creativity in youth communities. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Martin, C. (2015). Connected learning, libraries, and connecting youth interest. Journal of Research on Young Adults and Libraries. http://www.yalsa.ala.org/jrlya/2015/03/ connected-learning-librarians-and-connecting-youth-interest/
• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic Books.
• Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., Silverman, B. (2009). Scratch: programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67.
• Reynolds, R., & Harel Caperton, I. (2011). Contrasts in student engagement, meaning-making, dislikes, and challenges in a discovery-based program of game design learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(2), 267-289.
• Reynolds, R. (2016).  Relationships among tasks, collaborative inquiry processes, inquiry resolutions, and knowledge outcomes in adolescents during guided discovery-based game design in school. Journal of Information Science: Special Issue on Searching as Learning. 42(1), 35-58.
• Royal Society (2012). Shut down or restart: The way forward for computing in UK schools. http://royalsociety.org/education/policy/computing-in-schools/report/
• Prato, S. C. (2017). Beyond the computer age: A best practices intro for implementing library coding programs. Children & Libraries, 15(1), 19-21.
• Wing, J. M. (2008). Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1881), 3717–3725.

Heads up: TIFF Kids Industry Forum (+ Film Festival) Coming Soon!

Hi All - It's nearly time for this year's TIFF Kids Film Festival. As always, this year's festival includes a number of digital media and games-related attractions, foremost among which is the DigiPlaySpace and AppArcade. Here's the promo text for the festival's associated Industry Forum, which includes presentations, workshops and a number of fun networking events. Please distribute far and wide. Hope to see some of you there. 

***************
Registration is now open for the 2017 TIFF Kids International Film Festival and Industry Forum. Passes offer exclusive access to Festival screenings, our two-day professional development Industry Forum, networking opportunities, workshops, roundtable discussions and our award-winning digiPlaySpace. We have two pass types available to help you customize your Festival experience.

Find out more about our pass benefits and how to register here: http://tiff.net/industry

At our upcoming TIFF Kids Industry Forum, hear talks by representatives from Amazon Studios, eOne, Québecor Contenu, Sinking Ship Entertainment, SoulPancake Productions, Telefilm Canada, and TVO!

Highlights include:
• A special edition of Breakfast at TIFF exploring the landscape of theatrical features produced in Canada
• Sesame Workshop discusses their research methodology and production practices
• An examination into the complex world of viral sensations, online influencers, and youth activists

Speakers will be announced on March 20, along with the full lineup on April 1!

Connected Creations and Wi-Fi Enabled Imaginations (Presentation Slides)

Last month, I had the immense pleasure of giving the keynote talk at the Digital Literacy and Multimodal Practices of Young Children (DigiLitEY) DigiLitEy Conference, a COST Project Meeting, which was held in Prague, Czech Republic. I know that the slides will soon be shared on the organization's website, but I also wanted to post them here so that they might reach a broader audience. See below (and/or on Slideshare). Thanks again to Jackie Marsh for inviting me, and for introducing me to this amazing association of early childhood researchers.

Connected Creations and Wi-Fi Enabled Imaginations: The emerging challenges and opportunities of digital play technologies for young children from Sara Grimes

Cool Conference/CFP Alert: Children's Media and Texts in a Mediatized World

Cut and paste from the original CFP, circulated this week on the Exploring Childhood Studies mailing list. Note: Deadline for 200 word abstracts is Dec. 1, 2016.

Call for Papers:
Children's Media and Texts in a Mediatized World

Conference at Aarhus University, Centre for Children's Literature
30 May – 1 June 2017

Children and young people live in a mediatized world in which literature, other visual and verbal texts, media and platforms converge and coalesce. Established notions of producers and users, target groups, genres and literary forms and experiences are thereby challenged.

Users and readers are ascribed with new forms of agency, while at the same time children confront an increased commercialization and demands for standardized schooling and academic achievements.

At this conference we wish to examine these challenges, bringing together scholars from children's literature studies, media studies and adjoining fields. For instance, children’s literature, in its many manifestations, must be seen as tightly interwoven with the broad spectre media cultures in which children and young people engage. 

Children’s literature and media must be understood in the light of contemporary developments, which enable new, cross-media publishing forms, as well as new modes of interaction and engagement between writers and readers, users and producers. Children and young people are in many cases producers and co-producers of media content themselves, and they often seem to cross traditional borders between digital and analogue media and texts in their everyday practices. 

These developments bring about analytical, theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges which will be addressed at this conference.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Children’s and young people's everyday life with (digital) media
• Children's literature in a new media landscape
• Children and young people as consumers and producers of texts and media
• Children's media and texts in family life and schools

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Rebekah Willett, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Ute Dettmar, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt
• Björn Sjöblom, Stockholms Universitet
• Philip Nel, Kansas State University

Deadline for abstracts (max. 300 words) and a 100-word biography: 1 December 2016
to Sarah Mygind, smyg@cc.au.dk

Notification of acceptance: 15 December

Conference organizers: Nina Christensen (nc@cc.au.dk) and Stine Liv Johansen (stineliv@cc.au.dk)