Pretend play in early years is considered key to the development of both children's and pre-service teachers' skills. Teachers' involvement in pretend play might be an effective tool for supporting children's play skills and self-confidence, communication, cooperation and decision-making. Drawing on qualitative interviews with pre-service and…

Playful learning has become a common practice in Denmark, across primary and secondary education, however, the phrase playful learning might sound like a paradox, because learning and play suggest opposite values. In playful learning, play is approached as a learning resource, able to foster understanding and critical thinking. In the Occupational…

This paper introduces the results of applying a gameful approach based on six playful activities as a tool to improve the learning process in higher education. A total of 850 students from different courses of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) were involved in the study. The strategy was evaluated through a participant observation (active and…

Preservice music teachers may devalue play as a teaching approach unless music teacher educators reintroduce them to play through role-playing, cooperative games, and other playful activities. I designed a 4-week unit on play as part of an elementary general music methods course. Student participants engaged in, reflected on, and planned play…

For centuries, the titans of educational reform--Plato, Rousseau, Dewey, Piaget, Erikson, Csikszentmihalyi and others--have championed the educational benefits of play. Yet many professors and administrators are boggled by the idea of playing academic games in college. They instantly dismiss faculty initiatives like "Reacting to the…

This article reports on an explorative case study which, in the first place, aimed to ascertain different types of foreign language play in online role-playing in "Second Life," and which, secondly aimed to describe how various sources of contextual support can explain this foreign language play. Students' written conversation was…

The growing interest in video gaming is matched by a corresponding increase in concerns about the harmful effects on children and adolescents. There are numerous studies on aggression and addiction which spark debates on the negative effects of video gaming. At the same time, there are also studies demonstrating prosocial effects. This paper…

Despite the speed at which Second Life has been adopted by universities and schools to teach courses, little educational research and theory addresses this multiplayer online "world." This case study explored undergraduate university instructors' teaching methods and tools within a virtual environment. It also considered whether instructors are…

This is an account of what a teacher educator learned from using the video game Neverwinter Nights with Drax, a high school student whose reading is like that of an elementary school student. Neverwinter Nights is a role-playing adventure game that requires reading print along with other meaningful signs such as sounds, artefacts, color, maps,…

During the past two decades, digital games have become an increasingly popular source of study for academics, educational researchers and instructional designers. Much has been written about the potential of games for teaching and learning, both in the design of educational/serious games and the implementation of off-the-shelf games for learning.…

Classroom management is a concern for preservice teachers (Charles, 2008). Teacher educators struggle to find the most effective ways to teach preservice teachers classroom management. Role-playing, combined with classroom management content, may offer a productive approach. As such, this study focused on the use of role-play with case studies to…

For a growing group of educators, the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment's massively popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is a place to go to relax, network, and discover potential learning strategies-- and slay a few monsters if they get in the way. The online role-playing game World of…

This is a case study of a conflict management intervention in two secondary schools in post-apartheid South Africa. The feature of the intervention that we examine is the use of play as an educational strategy. The literature attests that play can facilitate change by allowing learners freedom to change their behaviour and opportunities to explore…

This paper presents a study that used narrative inquiry to explore staff experiences of learning and teaching in immersive worlds. The findings introduced issues relating to identity play, the relationship between pedagogy and play and the ways in which learning, play and fun were managed (or not). At the same time there was a sense of imposed or…

Many online courses fail to promote the active construction of student knowledge or camaraderie among student peers. Accordingly, online course designers and instructors are challenged to promote purposeful peer student dialogue and establish a sense of belonging where all learners perceive themselves as stakeholders in the course community.…