Embodying, Designing, and Learning Multimodally with SMALLab

Alice Robison · Jennifer Clifton

Wed., June 10, 2:00–3:00, Inn Wisconsin (2nd floor, East/Southeast)

This presentation discusses the design processes of a small group of teachers and students building learning games in a 3D, embodied, and mediated learning environment called SMALLab. The Situtated Multimedia Art Learning Lab is an environment developed at Arizona State University (ASU) by a collaborative team of media researchers from education, psychology, interactive media, computer science, and the arts. SMALLab is currently installed in a lower-income suburban high school in the Phoenix metropolitan area; its use is for the design and implementation of embodied, multimodal learning scenarios in a variety of content areas.

During this specific part of a multi-phased, year-long project, three ELL and ESL teachers are working with ASU researchers to design and build games and learning scenarios for their students. In sum, students are expected to modify, design, and implement games of their own, which will then be played by students in other classes at their school. Finally, these students’ games will be tested and redesigned for use by Institute of Play, which is currently building a NYC-based middle school developed around principles of games and games-based thinking. A second SMALLab has been installed at the Institute of Play specifically for those purposes.

Based on my previous studies of the writing processes of videogame developers, I will use a combination of design studies and writing process methodologies to trace the composing processes of these ELL and ESL high school students and teachers as they invent, draft, revise, test, implement, and redesign games and learning scenarios with each other and with their peers. I will keep eye toward understanding how the students envision the SMALLab space’s use for their peers’ literacy learning, especially since they are all enrolled in a mandated, intensive English literacy program that requires them to work with each other for approximately 20 hours each week for the entirety of the school year. I hope to understand how and why they use SMALLab as a design space, and whether their designs inspire or hinder their peers’ learning experiences.