Educator to talk about digital games research

Suzanne de Castell, an education professor who specializes in the relationship between games and learning, will give a talk about her research next Wednesday.

De Castell is co-editor of Worlds in Play: International Perspectives on Digital Games Research published in 2007. She will give her talk, Departures and Arrivals: Making Real Time for Virtual Space, May 11 in the Senior Common Room, 021 Winters College, from 2 to 4pm.

 Suzanne de CastellDe Castell, a professor at Simon Fraser University, is a visiting professor this year at York’s Faculty of Education. As part of her research into games and learning, she helped develop the serious games Contagion, Epidemic and A Baroque Adventure: The Quest for the Arundo Donax.

     Right: Suzanne de Castell

As education migrates across media and into the virtual spaces of e-learning, digital games and virtual worlds, it is tempting for educators to give short shrift to what might seem trivial engagements and activities in these technologically generated environments. This talk traces, through a series of educational equity projects, how interventionist research and praxis are transformed across changing media and contexts. De Castell will examine what features are preserved, what new forces are set in play and what perils may be appearing on the horizon which make paying attention to virtuality of considerable, and very real, educational importance.

A reception will follow the presentation.

This presentation is sponsored by the Dean’s Office, Faculty of Education, in collaboration with the Graduate Program in Education.