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Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges

Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges

Guy Merchant
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 26
ISBN13: 9781466683105|ISBN10: 1466683104|EISBN13: 9781466683112
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8310-5.ch012
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MLA

Merchant, Guy. "Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges." Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media, edited by Barbara Guzzetti and Mellinee Lesley, IGI Global, 2016, pp. 291-316. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-8310-5.ch012

APA

Merchant, G. (2016). Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges. In B. Guzzetti & M. Lesley (Eds.), Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media (pp. 291-316). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-8310-5.ch012

Chicago

Merchant, Guy. "Virtual Worlds and Online Videogames for Children and Young People: Promises and Challenges." In Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media, edited by Barbara Guzzetti and Mellinee Lesley, 291-316. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-8310-5.ch012

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Abstract

Online virtual worlds and games provide opportunities for new kinds of interaction, and new forms of play and learning, and they are becoming a common feature in the lives of many children and young people. This chapter explores the issues that this sort of virtual play raises for researchers and educators, and the main themes that have emerged through empirical investigation. I focus on children and young people within the age range covered by compulsory schooling, providing illustrative examples of virtual environments that promote play and learning as a way of underlining some key areas of interest. Drawing on work from a range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives the chapter emphasises how these environments have much in common with other imagined worlds and suggests that looking at the ways in which the virtual is embedded in everyday contexts for meaning making provides an important direction for future research.

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