This week, I have been reading... Digital games and libraries , James Gee (2012) Emergent digital authoring: playful tinkering with mode, media and technology , Becky Parry and Lucy Taylor (2021) An interview with Gunther Kress , Eve Bearne (2005) Makerspaces in early childhood education: principles of pedagogy and practice , Jackie Marsh at al (2019) Quite an eclectic list of reading for this week. I intend to adopt a more systematic approach to reading but, for now, I am happy to keep an open mind and read through things that have been in my #toread folder for a while. A summary in ten words: Playing with digital technology invites rich social interaction and learning. Word of the week: tinkering  How much I understood: 65% (Gunther Kress dragged down my average) *** Quite an eclectic list of reading for this week. I intend to adopt a more systematic approach to reading but, for now, I am happy to keep an open mind and read through things that have been in my #toread folder

  This month I began a PhD at the University of Sheffield. At last! I have wanted to start a PhD for a long time and have waited for the right opportunity to arrive. Working alongside the exciting team at the School of Education in the area of digital literacy was too good an opportunity to miss.  The focus is children’s identities as authors through digital technology. In teaching children about creative writing, I have had ample opportunity to reflect on how they might experience authoring texts in school, at home and at play. Digital texts - such as videogames and films - are hugely important components in how children experience storytelling and yet these experiences are largely neglected by schools. As a keep computer game player myself, I am curious about the way playing sandbox (e.g., Minecraft) and openworld games and creating naratives within them might mirror storytelling in print. And, of course, I am interested in what schools might learn from it. As my fieldwork will be ca