This Ain't Your Teachers' Old School

Lori Shyba

Extended Abstract

This new media and and videogame design work spawned the following findings:

1. The students' interactions with technological environments can lead them to construct new forms of knowledge.

2. That computational technology can influence students' social and moral reasoning about social relationships, including the student/teacher relationship.

3. That new media and videogame design and creation can generate new forms of personal and collaborative expression.

4. That due to students and teachers being on the same learning curve on many of these projects, mutual learning and creativity emerged.

Key to the success of this project was the faith in the process of collaborative discovery on the part of the teachers who, for the most part, parked their diffidence about pervasive technology at the door. Projects that metaphorically assisted in turning the Old School into the New School were "Are you Smarter than a Willow Park Grade Fiver (About the Wetlands)"; The Forensics Adventure Game, Airport Mystery Edition and Petstore Edition; The Canadian History Face-to-face Web-blogs, and the Interactive Mathmall Cinema Game.