Guest editorial

Pages541-546
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-10-2019-140
Date14 October 2019
Published date14 October 2019
AuthorSinem Siyahhan,Matthew Gaydos
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services
Guest editorial
Foregrounding play: an interdisciplinary dialogue on video games and learning
Introduction
Educators did not pay much attentionto video games until computers were introduced into
schools in the USA in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even then, it took another 10 years or
so for video games to be taken seriously as an important tool for teaching and learning.
However, in the past 15 years, we haveseen an exponential growth in the number of studies
that have investigated how people learn through video games across a variety of contexts.
Today, video games are integrated into classrooms and informal learning environments
such as libraries, museums and community centers. And more recently, the educational
potential of video games has been recognizedat the national level, and their widespread use
is further supported through initiatives such as White House Apps for Healthy Kids
Challenge and the National STEMVideo Game Challenge.
It is exciting to witness the shift in the perception of video games in our society from
being a distraction or merely a recreationalactivity to a powerful teaching and learning tool
for youth and adults. That said, many educators and researchers tend to approach video
games from an instrumental point of view and use them as a motivational context to teach
academic content and change studentsbehaviors. For example, libraries might integrate
video games to their collection to attract youth or they might hold workshops to design
video games to engage young people and teach them coding. However, the relationship
between games and learning, cannot solely be understood through this instrumental lens,
given the complexities of young peoples social practices with and around games (Barron
et al.,2014;Itoet al.,2009;Salen, 2008).
We, the co-editors of this special issue, believe that play has been considered an
epiphenomenon in gamesand learning research, and needs to be foregrounded in the pursuit
of effective designs and understanding the conditions that are necessary for the successful
game and learning experiences. The articles in this special issue address our call by
unpacking the relationship betweengames, play, and learning as well as connecting games
and play to theories, designs, processes and outcomesof learning. Collectively, they engage
scholars in an interdisciplinarydialogue on video games in ways that put play and learning
to the forefront at the intersectionof the informationand learning sciences.
Why games and learning in information and learning sciences?
Information Sciences is concernedwith presentation, collection, analysis, categorizationand
making sense of information, traditionally in the context of libraries. Learning Sciences, on
the other hand, focuses on understanding learning and designing learning experiences,
especially in the context ofschools. What these elds share in common is the impact digital
media and computer technology have on redening the boundaries of learning which now
includes the digital tools and communities.The ubiquity of digital interconnectivity and the
growing need to addresscomplex issues has made learning messy much messier than how
learning was historically conceptualized in the Information and Learning Sciences. What
people learn, how they learn, where they nd information and how they share and use
information are all situated within a complex network of relationships and tools that are
ever-changing, and new theories and research is needed to understand this complexity as
well as to inform the developmentof new congurations for learning.
Guest editorial
541
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.120 No. 9/10, 2019
pp. 541-546
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-10-2019-140

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