Abstract
Interpretations of the cultural meanings made by each of the boys in the study, based on their individual unique experiences engaging with video games, can provide readers with insights into how to approach adolescent aged boys' literacy development through game-based pedagogy. In this chapter the author describes how these four boys developed their multimodal ways of learning by engaging with visual perspectives of video games. The methodological approach documented what boys are saying, as much as possible, which is currently understudied in the literature surrounding boys and their video gaming practices. This chapter addresses some boys' out-of-school video gaming practices for meaning-making and gaining cultural knowledge. Studying the ways in which boys make meanings through multimodal ways of learning can offer insights into strategies for cyber culture that can potentially reinvent traditional literacy pedagogical boundaries and establish new ways and practices for building knowledge.
TopThe Boys In My Study
Four boys participated in my multi-site study of two ethnographic cases. First, I briefly describe two of the boys who were included in the community centre case; second, I describe the other two boys who were included in the after-school video club case.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cultural Meaning Systems: Are actions or ideas that are made up of different cultural terms that are meaningful to people ( Spradley, 1979 ).
Multiliteracies: Represents a concept that addresses literacy pedagogy as a design encompassing various interconnected systems, including environment, and people, which become part of the broader picture of cultural experiences. It involves teachers and learners using available resources to design activities of reading, seeing, speaking, writing, and listening ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ). Whenever this term is used, it is in reference to multiliteracies as articulated by Cope and Kalantzis, (2000 , 2009 ), Kalantzis and Cope, (2012) , and The New London Group (1996 , 2000 ).
Applying: Involves the learners demonstrating their acquired knowledge and applying it to real world situations. It represents how learners develop innovative and creative ways to demonstrate their meaning-making and knowledge ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ).
Operational Literacy: Represents how adolescents read both visual and print textual instructions and use and adapt semiotic systems to meet their needs ( Sanford & Madill, 2007 ).
Conceptualising: Represents learners’ cultural meaning-making experiences and thinking or building knowledge within the community of learners ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ).
Cultural Knowledge: Includes multimodal forms of meanings and modes of learning ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ).
Analysing: Is the part of the process in which learners establish relations between cause and effect and explain textual patterns and connections. It also adds a dimension to the knowledge process by extending the need for learners to constructively evaluate their learning and others' perspectives ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ).
Community Of Practice: Represents an online network of video gaming participants that could involve virtual gaming through massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), peer-based forums, chatrooms, and other social media ( Aarsand, 2010 ; Steinkuehler, 2006 ; Wenger, 1998 AU12: The in-text citation "Wenger, 1998" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
Experiencing: Represents the view that learners’ cognition is situated, contextual and cultural. Learners immerse in meaningful practices within a community of other learners ( Kalantzis & Cope, 2012 ).
Available Designs: (Also known as metalanguages) are modes of meaning based on an individual’s past and new experience of everyday life and how they apply it to their learning. These modes represent linguistic (written and oral language), visual, audio, tactile, gestural and spatial ( Cope & Kalantzis, 2009 ; The New London Group, 1996 , 2000 ).