Written by: Rachel Yoho
Introduction: Jason Brennan’s Good Work if You Can Get It: How to Succeed in Academia paints a grim picture of academia, the job market, and the future for graduate students. While this likely is accurate, what may be more interesting about the book is how it portrays a compelling case study in positionality and privilege in the ivory tower.
Written by: Rhett Loban, Lecturer, Macquarie University.
Abstract: This article explores the evolution of wargames from historical tactical and abstract encounters to multivariable and complex historical representations often reflected in the video game genre of Grand Strategy. The article argues that, because of the increasing complexity of historical wargames, there is a need to shift the discipline to the digital space where such complexity can be retained and enable the player to focus on the game’s content rather than the technical process of wargaming itself. Grand Strategy video games can alleviate several efficiency problems of physical wargames, while simultaneously providing historical breadth by depicting war and peacetime history, and depth in terms of historical narratives and details. Grand Strategy games also have the potential to support learning outcomes of history units in higher education and can be used as pedagogical tools for the exploration of historical worlds. Grand Strategy video games, and digital wargames more broadly, provide rich, accessible and active learning platforms that can enhance our experience with wargaming and history.
Keywords: Grand Strategy, History, Political-Military Wargames, Black Boxing, Digital Wargames, Physical Wargames, Game-based Learning, Tabletop Wargames, Grand Strategy video game
Written by: Ann-Cathrin Faldet, Thor-André Skrefsrud, and Hege Merete Somby
Abstract: This paper discusses the pedagogical potential of a flipped classroom practice in which advanced virtual reality simulations are used to place pre-service teachers in work-related situations, such as a home-school collaboration. The paper applies a Vygotskyan perspective and discusses the simulation’s potential for contributing to pre-service teachers’ professional development. The article argues that, as understood through the lens of Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach to learning, virtual reality simulations may enhance pre-service teachers’ ability to learn through imitation, while also encouraging collaborative interaction and reflection. The aim in using virtual reality simulations in the flipped classroom is to counteract the reduction of pre-service teachers to passive interpreters and teachers to the providers of prescribed curriculums. We end the article by drawing attention to the potential limitations of the simulation when used as a flipped classroom practice.
Keywords: virtual reality simulations, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning, student-active learning, home-school collaboration, pre-service teachers training program
Written by: Michael Lithgow. Associate Professor, Athabasca University.
Abstract: What it means to be human, relevant and meaningful is no longer certain within emerging regimes where computational complexity and data analysis increasingly determine conditions of prosperity and authority. Preparing students for futures within this transforming landscape of emerging technologies and new patterns of social organization raises important issues of literacy, power and subjectivity alike. If the hailing mechanisms of the subject are largely modulated through digital and algorithmic protocols, what kinds of literacies might help expand individual and group influence over subject formation? Traditional approaches to digital literacy have tended to overlook techno-material aspects of network functionality, which risks diminishing the degree to which individuals and groups can extend influence over subject formation. This paper argues for an expanded approach to digital literacy that addresses the techno-material foundations and full range of computational protocols on which network societies depend. Learning to navigate and manipulate the material-discursive apparatus in network societies can help individuals and groups apperceive assemblages of biopower while expanding possibilities for shaping subjectivities in datafied contexts.
Keywords: digital literacy, datafication, subjectivity, power
Written by: Nicholas Leonard
Abstract: The continued development and emergence of creative machines and computational creativity provokes certain questions that audit ontological and epistemological assumptions. Creative artificial intelligence challenges computer scientists, digital artists, and art educators to clarify or reconceptualize their notions of cognition and creativity. The article starts by addressing the increase in AI algorithms in both daily life and formal education settings to begin highlighting the shared investment across domains. The focus is then narrowed down to highlight creative machines and digital artmaking. By exploring the statements and artworks from computer scientists and digital artists, correlations to art education pedagogical approaches are then constructed. This will then lead into a recognition for a need to challenge and examine the ontological and epistemological assumptions present in art education. Finally, a new material theoretical framework for digital art education pedagogy is proposed to reorient discussions to ask new questions regarding increasingly creative machines and the experiences and education of students in the visual arts.
Keywords: Art Education, Artificial Intelligence, New Materialism, Creativity, Cognition
Written by: Jessica McLean
Abstract: In the context of higher education, immersive media may provide a way to deepen students’ learning experiences and facilitate a sense of ‘being there’. Immersive media can also possibly contribute to decolonization if it involves Indigenous-produced content and generates increased appreciation of Indigenous knowledges that leads to student commitment to undermine colonial power. In doing so, radical digital citizenship can be extended. This article examines how immersive media can help educators develop appropriate learning experiences that support radical digital citizenship, a way of engaging with the digital that is defined as critiquing digital technologies which are oppressive and then developing emancipatory technologies to provide alternatives (Emejulu and McGregor 2019). Theoretically and practically, the arguments herein are inspired by Tuhiwai Smith’s imperative that decolonization in higher education must not be an empty promise but work to transform institutions, teachers and students. The convenience of using immersive media for learning is frequently emphasized in higher education, but the challenges of ensuring students can use immersive media are not often acknowledged, and the immersive media and pedagogy literature is just beginning to deeply engage with issues relating to decolonization. Drawing on an empirical study of the use of immersive media in a co-taught third year and Masters course, this article uses observations from in-class use of immersive media and a survey of students who actively engaged with, and thought about, the technology (n=71). Immersive media usage can extend the notion of radical digital citizenship by using existing technologies to help students understand and then challenge settler colonial relations and practices in their work and daily life.
