This dissertation presents an ethnographic account of the launch of "The Downtown School for Design, Media, and Technology," one of the most prominent American school reform projects in recent years. Drawing on popular accounts about children and young people's pervasive affinity for digital media, and especially video games, the…

Despite the growing number of studies on video games, there are still gaps in video game research, especially when it comes to describing the situated (in situ) actions of gameplay. The study explores the locally-produced meaning-making practices of video game players, and analyzes gameplay as it occurs, not as a post hoc, reconstructed event, but…

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…