This book describes maker culture as it is manifested in particular socio-cultural contexts, and describes some of the underlying narratives behind the emergence of such cultures and hackerspaces. With reference to case studies, it invites a recasting of long-standing academic notions of industrialization, industrial location, urbanization, and regional divides. The volume approaches this emergent socio-cultural phenomenon from an academic perspective, and, as such, differs from existing studies in this field as it is the first to approach maker culture and makerspaces by tracing trajectories from academic literature. This will provide teachers and researchers with a more grounded foundation upon which to base their own work in this nascent, yet rapidly growing, field.

This book describes maker culture as it is manifested in particular socio-cultural contexts, and describes some of the underlying narratives behind the emergence of such cultures and hackerspaces. With reference to case studies, it invites a recasting of long-standing academic notions of industrialization, industrial location, urbanization, and regional divides. The volume approaches this emergent socio-cultural phenomenon from an academic perspective, and, as such, differs from existing studies in this field as it is the first to approach maker culture and makerspaces by tracing trajectories from academic literature. This will provide teachers and researchers with a more grounded foundation upon which to base their own work in this nascent, yet rapidly growing, field.

This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.

On May 21, 2010, Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt posted the following provocative questions online: “Can an algorithm edit a journal? Can a library exist without books? Can students build and manage their own learning management platforms? Can a conference be held without a program? Can Twitter replace a scholarly society?” As recently as the mid-2000s, questions like these would have been unthinkable. But today serious scholars are asking whether the institutions of the academy as they have existed for decades, even centuries, aren’t becoming obsolete. Every aspect of scholarly infrastructure is being questioned, and even more importantly, being hacked. Sympathetic scholars of traditionally disparate disciplines are canceling their association memberships and building their own networks on Facebook and Twitter. Journals are being compiled automatically from self-published blog posts. Newly minted PhDs are forgoing the tenure track for alternative academic careers that blur the lines between research, teaching, and service. Graduate students are looking beyond the categories of the traditional CV and building expansive professional identities and popular followings through social media. Educational technologists are “punking” established technology vendors by rolling out their own open source infrastructure. Here, in Hacking the Academy, Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt have gathered a sampling of the answers to their initial questions from scores of engaged academics who care deeply about higher education. These are the responses from a wide array of scholars, presenting their thoughts and approaches with a vibrant intensity, as they explore and contribute to ongoing efforts to rebuild scholarly infrastructure for a new millennium.

Worlds in Play, a map of the «state of play» in digital games research today, illustrates the great variety and extreme contrasts in the landscape cleft by contemporary digital games research. The chapters in this volume are the work of an international review board of seventy game-study specialists from fields spanning social sciences, arts, and humanities to the physical and applied sciences and technologies. A wellspring of inspiring concepts, models, protocols, data, methods, tools, critical perspectives, and directions for future work, Worlds in Play will support and assist in reading not only within, but across fields of play - disciplinary, temporal, and geographical - and encourage all of us to widen our focus to encompass the omni-dimensional phenomenon of «worlds in play.»

Every day, over a million images are uploaded to flickr. This is a striking example of the so-called »flood« of images that emerged with the beginning of the digital age. A generation of adolescents has already been socialised with this flood of images and deals with it on a daily basis, both in their networks and elsewhere. Art education thus faces significant challenges: art is the only school subject that deals with the problems inherent in images as images, making them the focus of pedagogic activity. This volume presents both the foundations for engaging with the phenomenon of the »image« in a competent and historically informed manner as well as the perspectives for art education that arise from these foundations. It is based upon the conviction that providing orientation in a world defined by images does not mean following solely a technocratic, functionalist or even neoliberal »concept of education«. Quite the contrary: »providing an orientation« for how to deal with images in a world that is dominated by them is a crucial part of the holistic development of young people's personalities. The volume's main focus lies upon the new functions taken on both by the image and by art more generally. It takes into account aspects of globalisation and participation and also includes more unusual views (often from a cross-media perspective) of art and its historical repertory, which even current image creation is unable to dispense with. The volume also deals extensively with architecture and the images it conveys.

A compelling examination of the practice and implications of modding as they apply to the best-selling computer game The Sims.

Are games worthy of academic attention? Can they be used effectively in the classroom, in the research laboratory, as an innovative design tool, as a persuasive political weapon? Game Mods: Design Theory and Criticism aims to answer these and more questions. It features chapters by authors chosen from around the world, representing fields as diverse as architecture, ethnography, puppetry, cultural studies, music education, interaction design and industrial design. How can we design, play with and reflect on the contribution of game mods, related tools and techniques, to both game studies and to society as a whole?

Looks at the emerging phenomenon of online journalism, including Weblogs, Internet chat groups, and email, and how anyone can produce news.

An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.