In the digital age, young people's most powerful learning opportunities often occur online, in experiences and environments created by people working outside of the K-12 school system. In a sense, the internet has given new life to an older, less formal approach to education, in which individuals seek out and learn from others who share their…

Background: Videogames and virtual worlds have frequently been studied as learning environments in isolation; that is, scholars have focused on understanding the features of games or virtual worlds as separate from or different than "real world" environments for learning. Although more recently, scholars have explored the teaching and…

Drawing on the New Literacy Studies, the authors argue that game literacy takes multiple forms and is embedded in different practices associated with particular games and gaming communities. They examine one specific game literacy practice that involves players of "The Sims" creating challenges for other players, and they identify how playing and…

The author builds on arguments he has made elsewhere that good commercial video games foster deep learning and problem solving and that such games in fact promote mastery as a form of play. Here he maintains that some good video games engage players with an important type of play, namely of play as discovery, of play as surmising new possibilities…