Digitizing Learning

Abstract

The adoption of video games as an alternative classroom resource is acknowledged in technology and multiliteracies discourses as a strategy for meaning-making and developing cultural knowledge. This chapter addresses how educators may be informed about strategies that can potentially reinvent traditional literacy pedagogical boundaries and how boys' meaning-making establishes new ways and practices shaping their learning processes. This multi-case study examined the experiences of four boys engaged with video gaming in two different contexts: a community center and an after-school video club. A number of findings emanating from this study, including the following: (1) boys use their video gaming practices for meaning-making and collaborative efforts; (2) boys apply their cultural knowledge as creative innovators; (3) boys demonstrate peer mentoring through storytelling, face-to-face interactions, or in their online community of practice; (4) boys make meanings using metacognitive literacy skills; and (5) boys focus on cultural preservation and narrative storytelling.