Institute of Play's blog

A new report entitled, "Enhancing Child Safety and Online Materials," released by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, suggests that online networks and social networking sites are not as dangerous as we have been led to believe. The result of a high-profile, multi-state task force created by 49 state attorneys general, the group examined the problem of sexual solicitation of children online. While the task force found that sexual predation on minors by adults was of a serious and continued concern, they concluded that the widely-held belief that youth are bombarded by unsolicited advances online was responsible for creating a false sense of "moral panic."

As the Institute of Play settles in to 2009, we optimistically look ahead to a year that will hopefully mark the opening of the proposed school Quest to Learn. The new year brings a re-newed focus and our current projects have provided the opportunity to read and research. One significant piece of research is University of California, Irvine Research Scientist, Mizuko Ito’s white paper “Living and Learning with New Media: Findings from the Digital Youth Project." In this exhaustive three-year study of online media use, researchers from the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley spoke with over 800 youth and conducted over 5,000 hours of online observations.

One of the study's most important findings is the breadth of learning activities that engage youth while online. Contrary to the widespread belief that youth are squandering time, Ito’s evidence notes that youth participation in “interest-driven” networks—where they share knowledge, explore new ideas and develop friendships—creates dynamic spaces where students acquire the social, technical and cultural skills of digital literacy.

On Monday December 15, 2008, the Institute of Play visited the Fieldston Lower School. At Fieldston, educational technologist Charles Vergara’s after school class of junior game designers were faced with the semester's ultimate challenge—a jury of professional game designers! The students, ranging from the third to the fifth grade, presented their games to a discerning panel of experts, including, members of Gamestar Mechanic’s design team, Greg Trefry, Charles Amis and Scott Price, and the Institute of Play’s Chloe Varelidi.

The class has been beta-testing Gamestar Mechanic, an online multiplayer world in which players both play and edit games, currently in development by Gamelab. Throughout the semester, the class’s science-driven curriculum has drawn parallels between game systems and ecosystems, studying short clips from the video Planet Earth to better understand complex game design ideas—such as "game mechanic" and "space"—as they appear in our natural surroundings.

On December 6, game developers and programmers, Mike Edwards and Kyle Li playtested a new game scenario in SMALLab-New York. The New York team travels to Arizona State University this week to work with their K-12 Embodied Media and Learning group collaborators.The two teams will be brainstorming new game-based learning scenarios all week!