Emergent Practices and Distributed Emotions in Educational Game Play

Abstract

This paper discusses the learners’ encounters with an educational game called DinoPlates, which intends to support playful learning for secondary level Earth science concepts. DinoPlates simulates and lets learners control the Earth’s processes and search for dinosaur fossils. We contend that the emergent interactions observed in playing DinoPlates may implicate a potential for liberalizing the social practices of the digital generation through an educational game play. Findings with Singapore secondary male students indicate that different pairs playing the game identified different practices for achieving their emergent goals. We discuss the opportunities that the design of DinoPlates affords for emergent interactions in game play, and the ways learners’ emotional resources influence their practices.