I want to share two recent publications that came out that I wrote focused on participatory learning in schools. Both focused on the alternate reality game I created as part of my dissertation research, Ask Anansi, these two publications look at the challenges and constraints of sustaining participatory learning within today\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n
First, in the most recent issue of Knowledge Quest<\/a>, I have an article titled, \u201cInform, Perform, Transform: Modeling In-School Youth Participatory Action Research through Gameplay.\u201d<\/p>\n Here, I focus primarily on how Ask Anansi functioned as participatory action research (PAR) and some of the limitations of YPAR within traditional school power dynamics. Buffy Hamilton, the special issue\u2019s co-editor wrote a great blog post about the issue here<\/a>. I would like to piggyback on what Buffy wrote and just say that this issue is full of really powerful work looking at participatory learning. I know many of my education-based colleagues may not necessarily be looking to publications from the American Association of School Librarians for PAR and YPAR resources, but this is a good one.<\/p>\n Next, the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab released the recent report, \u201cDesigning with Teachers: Participatory Approaches to Professional Development in Education.\u201d<\/a> In it, I wrote a chapter titled \u201cA Conversation with Anansi: Professional Development as Alternate Reality Gaming and Youth Participatory Action Research.\u201d Notice a trend here? This piece is a bit more playful than some of my other work, functioning primarily as a discussion of how args can function as teacher PD while also acting as a mock-interview with a talking spider. Henry Jenkins wrote about our working group\u2019s major findings on his blog here<\/a>. I am grateful to Henry, Erin Reilly, and Iona Literat for inviting me to participate in this working group.<\/p>\nTell people this is awesome:<\/h3>