Prelim questions

I met with Richard Halverson in Learning Sciences today to discuss my research plans and to see whether he'd have any interest in being involved. He does. I actually walked away feeling simultaneously pretty good about what I'm doing, and a bit depressed about the amount of work I still need to do to form a dissertation-worthy question. He says the difference between narrative and a dissertation is that the former is story-based, and the latter is question-based (I'm not sure I understand the subtlety of it yet, but I tend to split hairs and live out most of my life's perspective in the gray areas of definitions).

At any rate, I'll meet with Jim Gee later this week to see if he'd be interested, and if so, I'll have my committee, and begin to flesh out and fine tune the sorts of questions I'll address.

So far, my questions are limited to "possible prelim exam questions" -- where upheaval is underway. For example, I'm wondering if the question:

What is the history of handheld computers and gaming in formal and informal learning environments?

should instead become

Give a brief overview of the history and importance of space and place in Education and Gaming?

What I want to get at the hugeness of space and place in both fields, and how little research there is on it. for example, in games, moving in (virtual or physical) space and meaning-imbued places are central to game play -- from piece-moving board games (Monopoly's "go directly to Jail") to outdoor active games (Kick the Can's jail) to fantasy (D&D's dungeons) to video games.

In traditional formal education space and place play huge roles in the structure of the system (from walking or busing to the school building, standing in lines, storing books in one's locker, sitting in one's assigned desk, as well as things like the arrangement of the desks, etc.) but not in the content-delivery, or, for the most part, in the research on learning.

Of course, space and place are part of our everyday life, and constitute many of the Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), so it seems to me that they should be a bit more foundational in ed research.

I think the second question,

How can the space/place and culture of a community be taken into account in the design and implementation of a location-based augmented reality game?

can stay as it is.