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Connecting Youth to Online Resources through Mentorship

April 26, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 4.26.13:

Those interested in learning more about fashion can look no further than YouTube for countless online guides and other resources. For example, thousands of YouTube videos provide instructions for fashion styling and make-up as well as how-to’s to learn sewing, sketching, and step-by-step guides to create various garments.

YouTube video that provides a step-by-step guide to design a high waisted skirt.

Some researchers, however, argue that new media users are subject to a phenomenon called attention scarcity due to information abundance1. Attention scarcity results in two related outcomes of importance to connected learning. On the one hand, online resources are incredibly numerous and offer seemingly unlimited potential for skill-building across a variety of subjects. On the other, the vast amount of information available may be a hindrance to identifying key materials most useful for tasks at hand. To address attention scarcity, participants at Fashion Camp, where I conduct my fieldwork, believe that online materials are most helpful to youth when they have other supports and mentors to guide them through online resources. Opportunities for skill-building need to be sharpened and guided by purpose and interests in order for it to be productive for learning.

For example, Jimmy2 is a 4th grader who has a passion for fashion and has attended many of the Fashion Camp courses on sketching, sewing, and design. While an avid technology user and video game player (his father noted that he picks up computers, iPads, and video games very quickly), he did not know how to integrate online media into his own design practices before receiving instruction at the camps:

“I didn’t really know that many websites before Fashion Camp, and Polyvore was one of them. I’ve just been looking up pictures of different fashion garments to get inspired to sketch new ones. I just sketch them to work on my drawing.”

Although Jimmy is a skilled technology user with great passion for fashion design, he did not know which websites to use to improve his skills. The Fashion Camp teachers recognized that students, like Jimmy, may not have been exposed to digital literacies around fashion, so they provided technical resources and integrated Polyvore, a fashion media platform. While the camps direct students to online resources, they also construct the websites in particular ways that render them useful for skill building. Fashion Camp teachers integrate Polyvore, an online social forum for fashion garments, into many of their design lessons. Anne, the camp owner and manager, teaches students how to use the website to refine their fashion skills:

“[With Polyvore] you create an inspiration board around an outfit, including mood and style. So for a styling class it gives them the ability to do that. I can’t take them to a store and say ‘style this look,’ but with Polyvore they can create an entire mood, the way, say maybe a magazine stylist would have to create a mood for a photo shoot.”

By itself, Polyvore stands as an interesting website that allows users to identify and purchase fashion garments. However, with Anne’s support and mentorship, the website is transformed into a tool for learning that students like Jimmy use both in the classroom and at home to refine their design skills. Anne believes that new media can be a great support for fashion design learning, but learning through these tools without mentors is difficult – “no matter how many YouTube videos you want to watch.”

Parents also provide their children with support so that they may best identify and take advantage of online resources for fashion design. Lily, a 4th grader, was trying to learn how to use a sewing machine at home after receiving lessons on sewing machines at the camp. However, their sewing machine at home was a different model than what Lily used at the camp. Her mother, Daria, explained that she and her daughter explored different media and search engines together to figure it out:

“We used the CD package, the manual online…and we put them on to learn the basics. And what we still couldn’t get we looked up on Google and YouTube. [On YouTube] people have instructions for the videos. I look through it and make sure it relates.”

Daria also believes that investigating online resources together with her daughter allows her to filter suitable content:

“She can’t go on the computer by herself. I have to because I have to make sure it’s kind of appropriate. You look something up and you never know what’s going to pop up.”

Parents, together with their children, can explore online resources together to identify useful and age-appropriate material for student learning. As with Lily and Daria, student and parent can focus their engagement with media on interests and expertise development while the child’s interest is driving the shared inquiry and evaluation of online resources. Fashion camp participants, including students, teachers, and parents, provide examples of how interest-driven learning can occur in an openly networked setting through strong intergenerational ties and mentorship. While youth may find useful online resources on their own given the opportunity, teachers and parents can be important guides for new media-supported learning.

(1) See Hargittai, E. 2000. “Open Portals and Closed Gates? Channeling Content on the World Wide Web.” Poetics 27(4):233-256 and DiMaggio, P., and Hargittai, E. 2004. “From unequal access to differentiated use: A literature review and agenda for research on digital inequality.” Pp. 355-400 in Social inequality, edited by K. Neckerman. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

(2) All group and individual names have been changed to protect the identity of respondents.

Connected Parents: Sharing Classroom Practices through Social Media

February 22, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 2.22.13:

Classroom and afterschool programs sometimes organize competitions or recitals as a way to connect parents and friends with student achievements, generating excitement and motivation for all involved. Fashion Camp provides an example of how openly networked practices with new media, or environments that design links between institutions, home, and interest communities, engage parents with student classroom practices. For example, the Fashion Camp Facebook page is host to a great deal of content shared by Anne1, the business owner and camp facilitator. Some updates are event-specific, advertising upcoming camp events (“Join us Saturday for the Sketching Workshop!”) or displaying recent news about the camp from other media outlets. The bulk of the content shared on the page, however, consists of colorful photographs and video taken during the camps themselves. A common form of the photographs is a split screen that includes three images: an instructor giving a lesson, students applying the lesson to their particular assignment, and the student showing their final product.

After speaking with Anne, as well as parents of camp attendees, I learned that the Facebook page provides a key link between parent, teacher, and classroom experiences. Camp updates through social media provide parents with a window into the minutiae of their child’s educational practices, and also serve to engage parents with the material that students learn in the classroom. The camp facilitates connected learning through openly networked practices with social media, rendering classroom activities more transparent and visible to intergenerational audiences. Platforms like Facebook allow student work to gain public and parent recognition.

Many parents send their children to Fashion Camp because they themselves know very little about fashion, design, and sewing, but want to support their child’s interests. Yet Anne expressed that conveying to parents exactly what they do in the classroom is a challenge given public perceptions that frame fashion as frivolous:

“There are a lot more [camps] popping up that are sewing-based…but it makes me cringe when I see these because it’s like, ‘Come and play dress-up, look in the mirror, look at how pretty I am, walk the runway, let’s put makeup on,’ and we do nothing of the sort here, you know? I want to take the skills behind fashion—sketching, sewing, designing, creating—and put them to work in projects that are applicable for a ten-year-old.”

For Anne, connecting classroom practices with other audiences allows her to demystify the structure and content of what they do. In order to connect parents with the learning activities in the classroom, Anne shares updates from the classroom with parents on their Facebook page:

“Parents are kind of like, ‘Okay, [students] do what?’ So along the way I’m taking pictures, you know, like, ‘Hey look…the sketch is right here on the cutting table. And here’s the little girl with her dress, and she’s putting studs on and you can literally see…whatever we’ve done. Then take another picture and it’s the girl at the sewing machine and then the girl wearing the dress. To me, it couldn’t be more clear what we’ve just done. And the comments, you’ll see they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh,” “Wow!”

For Anne, the camp’s social media presence accomplishes dual purposes: it engages parent audiences with upcoming camp events and publicity, and it also accomplishes the difficult task of connecting parents with the many dimensions or stages of classroom practices. In Anne’s words, it shows parents “we’re a learning space…if the parents come and drop their kids off, by the very end they’ve missed the stages. So this is a good way for us to communicate that.” Dispelling preconceived notions about the pursuit of certain interests and their academic relevance is a theme across our other cases, as well (Starcraft, WWE). Through use of new media, Fashion Camp is able to render their activities openly networked to parents and make learning activities much more clear intergenerationally.

Exploring the camp Facebook page reveals the parent impact of connecting classroom practices through social media. The page’s wall includes image after image of different students working on various projects: receiving lessons, sketching, sewing, and showing off their final work.  In one example, a parent reacts to her child’s work being showcased through an image on the Facebook page. The image includes a split screen of students’ work on sketches, sewing, and modeling their completed garment. Georgia, the mother of the displayed student, leaves a comment on the picture:

“My daughter had the best time of her life and couldn’t stop talking about the camp event all day long. Thank you for giving her such a terrific environment to express her creativity and learn about fashion design!”

In another example, Joanne commented on an image of students studying fashion magazines and other media:

“My daughter came home today and expressed that this was her favorite class by far!”

And in yet another example, Linda left a comment on a picture of students sharing their designed garments on dress forms, or miniature models for creating designs:

“Look at all the smiles in this picture. Those girls had the best time this morning!”

Parent reactions demonstrate their excitement in viewing the intersection of their child’s own interests with academically relevant practices. In all cases, parents used social media to engage with different stages of the learning practices that students pursue during their Fashion Camp lessons. This reflects a tenet of Connected Learning through an emphasis on openly networked design: educational practices should be crafted with mind to the many dimensions of students’ lives, including not only the classroom activities but also the important connections youth have at home.

Social media provides new means for parents to become connected to student learning, and celebrate their child’s achievements in a friendly, public forum with other parents. As these examples show, new media enable unprecedented forms of parent involvement with student learning experience by making these practices visible intergenerationally. In particular, with activities like fashion design — including sketching, sewing, and garment construction — social media provide a new venue to share and receive feedback.

(1) All group and individual names have been changed to protect the identity of respondents.

Augmented Learning through Fashion Design

January 11, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 1.11.13:

There was a lot to take in on my first day at Fashion Camp. Although the formal lessons weren’t scheduled for another few minutes, I had apparently arrived late for the first lesson: the teacher was talking with five youth about the latest trends. One young woman, about 13 years of age, said that she was into “ombre.” The teacher expressed that ombre is “very in right now,” and that they happened to have ombre polka dot fabric at the camp. She told the girls that they might consider incorporating ombre into their drawing lessons for today after they had learned how to draw croquis (or mannequins, as I later discovered). I leaned over to the teacher and asked her what ombre print is. I noticed the girls started to giggle. She left the table, grabbed a large bolt of fabric on the other end of the room, and brought it over to show me. “Ombre print fades,” she said. “See how the polka dots are saturated on one end of the fabric but then fade to a lighter shade of pink on the other end?”

In the lessons that followed, I began developing my fashion vocabulary and learned how it describes not only academic-relevant techniques (requiring skills in math, design, and an understanding of cultural history) but also a broader relationship to the fashion industry and production. The fashion camps provide important settings for researchers interested in new media and learning across diverse educational contexts. During my ethnographic participation in these camps for the past four months, I have learned that the camp leaders do not see their work as strictly new media technology-driven. In fact, they believe that some skills needed in fashion design (including sketching, creating and using cutting templates, and competency with sewing machines) are often best learned through a mixture of mentorship during in-class activities as well as augmented learning through new media. In this way, the camps provide interest-driven, girl-centered learning contexts that are supported by new media in ways specific to the learning objectives at hand. By augmenting learning with new media, teachers are able to expand the range of their lessons and provide learning opportunities tuned to the skill level of the student. Like the hundreds of students from Southern California who attend the camps to pursue their interest in fashion, I, too, was starting from the ground up by learning fashion sketching in a room with people at different levels of expertise.

A couple of hours into our drawing lesson, the teacher explained that sketching is not just about drawing something pretty but it is also a blueprint for you and for others, as well:

“Say, for example, you need to send the design to a company that produces garments. One way to do this is by creating dotted lines called stitching lines. They tell the company where to sew the fabric.”

Figure 1: My attempt at sketching a t-shirt that includes stitching lines (- – -), or marks that indicate where to sew the fabric.

Students learn how to sketch in ways that are inherently tied to collective understandings of design and production. In the above example, stitching lines are composed of small darts, or dashes, that indicate where to sew. We also learned how to draw symbols for types of fabric, such as wool or leopard prints, using combinations of markings and labeling. Additionally, most sketches must be constructed with mind to their three-dimensional final product. For example, we learned how to draw ruffles on skirts to indicate how they would look and fit when produced and inverted.

Figure 2: An example of how sketching must be done with mind to three-dimensional final products. Stitching lines on the corner of a folded fabric (drawing on right) results in fitted pleats when sewed and inverted (drawing on left).

As shown in Figure 2, stitching lines on a folded piece of fabric will result in pleats once the fabric has been sewn and flipped inside-out. While students are sketching on a two-dimensional pad of paper, their designs are inherently social: they are learning to convey to others how garments are constructed in three dimensions and how others are involved in different steps of the production process.

Teachers at the camp also use new media as a way to augment their lessons, providing new challenges and opportunities to learn for students at different skill levels. One way the camp engaged in augmented learning practice was through their lesson on designing themed collections. As a designer for a fashion company, the teacher expressed that her drawing process is a lot like her process in the industry:

“I need to run my designs by my boss, and to convince your boss that your drawing is worth producing it helps to create a story around it so it’s easier to understand your outfits. This story can take the form of a theme.”

The teacher instructed students on how to build garments around themes at their own pace while using fashion magazines and websites like Polyvore. Polyvore is a new media-centered web community that allows users (both fashion companies and everyday people) to share images of fashion designs they enjoy. One way the teacher suggested students could use Polyvore was to find a picture of a piece of jewelry they like and then draw a whole collection around that specific garment or piece of jewelry. Another way, she suggested, was to find outfits on Polyvore and then redraw them, over and over, using different colors and patterns. In this way, new media is used to augment the learning process. Students at different skill levels are able to learn a complex set of skills and fashion vocabularies using resources, both online and offline, to enhance their learning.

In my subsequent posts on this case, I plan to discuss how fashion camps operate as an interest-driven, peer-supported, and production-centered learning community focused on academically oriented skills such as math, design, and history. Additionally, through interviews with not only teachers but also the youth and their parents, I hope to examine how connected learning principles may occur across different levels of the learning ecology: these camps operate as one of many locations where youth learn about fashion. However, the fashion camps are a key nexus in the learning process to build specific skills, design garments, work with peers, and provide mentorship.

And they usually leave with a cool new skirt, too.

“I want everyone to know ;)”: Negotiating Online Publics for Learning, Production, and Self-Promotion

January 11, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 10.26.12:

During my fieldwork in Sackboy Planet, an online community of LittleBigPlanet2 players, I frequently observed community members sharing their designed levels with others and for various purposes.1 Usually, players share their levels-in-progress on the website’s forums for feedback from others players to improve their skills and designs, to promote their own content, and to participate in level design contests that have exciting rewards. Most often, levels were shared in areas of the forum designated for self-promotion. But on occasion players would share their content elsewhere on the website in order to strategically garner the kind of attention they want to their projects.

One such example of this can be seen in a post in the forum created by a community member named Sacklad. His post, which existed in a highly visible section of the forum designated for feedback on level design, was among the most popular posts in the section. The post, however, did not in its entirety meet the rules of this section of the forum. The administrators of the forum leave notes, called sticky posts, that set the terms for what can be shared in this section of the forum. Without these rules, discussion would be too unwieldy and difficult to navigate for people looking for other kinds of content or conversations. The first third of the 150+ pages of responses to the Sacklad’s post is devoted to topic-appropriate talk about idea development and designer recruitment for his own project, but after a certain point Sacklad stopped soliciting new ideas and new teammates. Instead, he used the remaining 100 pages of posts to share updates about the game and entice readers to follow the project until its release. Some community members became irritated that the thread drifted from the stated topic, and requested that they move their discussion to a private group. However, Sacklad felt that keeping it public was important:

“EVERYBODY JOIN THE PRIVATE GROUP!! NEVERMIND BECAUSE THIS THREAD IS STAYING! LOL!!

I said that because I want the rest of Sackboy Planet to know that this project is still in development…and by the way, this is the most visited thread on the site…I want everyone to know ;)”

In order to promote his own content, Sacklad strategically navigated not only the rules of Sackboy Planet that restrict certain kinds of off-topic discussion but also the publics of the online community. In doing so, he developed an approach that functioned similarly to the use of a megaphone in a crowded room: he was able to generate an incredible amount of interest in his work while part of a community saturated by others’ projects.

Sometimes players preferred sharing their levels-in-progress in less public environments, and they used different content sharing mediums as well as privacy settings to reach the kind of audiences they were looking for. Instead of posting on the forums, Luchadoro created a blog post in the online community announcing his project and requesting feedback:

“I need a group of testers to play my level, identify bugs or problems with the game, and submit these errors to me. If you are interested I will send you a private message containing a highly secret code needed to access and play the level. Then you can find some friends (three, for the most fun!), play the level a lot and share any problems with me!”

Blog posts exist in a separate area of the website, and while most are viewable to the public they are less readily visible than the forums. Moreover, Luchadoro used privacy settings within the game design itself to require a code or password to view his project. I asked him why he used blogging and passwords instead of simply posting in the forums:

“I wanted to make sure [the level] was bug-proof and that everything worked smoothly. And I also wanted to award players with a preview of the level. I wanted feedback. That was my main goal.”

The use of blogs and codes allowed him to solicit feedback and avoid sharing a level that had lots of bugs, or problems, in its design. I followed up by asking him if he would have received the same kind of feedback if he posted in the much more public forums. For Luchadoro, the use of blog posts and privacy settings in the game design enabled him to reach his desired audience:

“I would have gotten feedback I think. But for one thing the level could have had a lot of bugs. And for another it’s much easier to get feedback if you actually ask people for feedback. It’s way more likely to get detailed, very informative feedback. Actually I got a message for two full pages of feedback, so it was worth it. After about six testers I turned everyone down.”

By sharing his level-in-progress through blogs, a quasi-public medium on the website, and using game codes, or privacy settings in the game that restrict who sees your project, Luchadoro strategically navigated online publics in Sackboy Planet to reach his desired audience. Moreover, he sought this particular audience because he was not ready to share it with everyone yet – it had bugs and was still in development. While the website does officially designate spaces to share levels for feedback, those spaces reach a very broad public. Luchadoro used blogs and passwords to innovatively negotiate online publics in Sackboy Planet to create a context for level development and learning most ideal for him.

While these examples stand as interesting cases that show how gaming and online communities can provide multiple avenues to share work, solicit feedback, and learn, scholars of new media and culture may find them interesting, as well. Members of Sackboy Planet have the opportunity to not only consume game content but alsoprosume – players produce levels for others to play, as well.2 Moreover, on Sackboy Planet attention can be rather scarce. Not every created level is played by everyone and receives feedback and commendation, a reflection of a form of inequality termed attention scarcity.3 But sometimes attention scarcity is not simply about the need to reach any audience but it is rather a problem of reaching the intended one amid a larger crowd. In her research, boyd (2008) shows that teens navigate multiple channels of communication online for varied purposes and with different consequences.4 Similarly, members of Sackboy Planet strategically negotiate online publics to share their work with peers and overcome dimensions of attention scarcity, creating the kind of experience they seek as community participants and budding level designers.

(1) All group and individual names have been changed to protect the identity of respondents.

(2) Rizter, G. and N. Jurgenson. 2010. “Production, consumption, prosumption.” Journal of Consumer Culture. 10(1): 13-36.

(3) Hargittai, E. 2000. “Open Portals or Closed Gates? Channeling Content on the World Wide Web.” Poetics. 27(4): 233-254.

(4) boyd, d. 2008. Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics. PhD Dissertation. University of California-Berkeley, School of Information.

Special thanks to Rona Sheen who assisted with data collection and analysis for this post.

Gender and Sexism in Online Gaming Communities

January 11, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 9.12.12:

While news about sexism in gaming came as a shock to many media outlets in recent months, researchers of gender and game culture were not surprised. In fact, much scholarly work over the past decade has documented how sexism, racism, and homophobia persist in many online communities, including gaming communities.1 There are some recent studies, however, including discussion of Starcraft communities by my colleague Yong Ming Kow, that reveal the persistence and success of some female gamers. In this post I hope to briefly review some perspectives on gender and sexism among gamers and in online communities, an important barrier to examine in the interest of understanding connected learning environments, and conclude by comparing and contrasting some of my own data from online communities of LittleBigPlanet2 players. I conclude by arguing that questions still remain as to whether we are seeing online communities embrace gender equitable social standards, how women gamers negotiate gender status in these communities, and why.

Recent data suggests that while interest in gaming among young female players is growing, young women are still playing console and handheld games at rates far less than are young men.2 Two related perspectives provide leads as to why this may be the case: the cultural barriers of the community impede the proliferation of women gamers, and the enabling or constraining effect of gender categories that women adopt as gamers. With regard to the first suggestion, recent news coverage has demonstrated that many online contexts can enable sexism towards women not unlike that faced by women in many face-to-face contexts.3 One important example is Anita Sarkeesian, who after posting youtube videos that critique sexism online, was vociferously condemned through comments and emails, her life was threatened, and people posted violating pictures and video games in her likeness that simulate violent assault. Social codes may exist in online communities that do not restrict but rather condone sexist behavior. This suggests that cultural contexts can matter in shaping whether or not sexism is allowed.

The second perspective argues that as young women grow and adopt dominant, age-specific gender identities that place restrictions on gaming, fewer women play games. This perspective assumes that cultural ideals of femininity and womanhood that exist in the context of the child (situated locally, nationally, and globally) inform whether and how gaming is taken up by players. In this view, collectively endorsed ideals of womanhood do not accommodate most forms of gaming or gamer identity; for a woman to be a gamer she may not be taken seriously, and may not even be a “real” woman at all. Contemporary research on technology, gender and selfhood finds that technologies can become gendered through their cultural appropriation, and that women differ in the ways that they engage with technology. Most pertinent to the cases at hand, Royse et al. (2007), in their study of women gamers, find that women adopted three types of gendered selves with regard to gaming.4 Some women, like those Kow identifies in his post, are “power gamers” who play many kind of games and employ gaming technology in ways that contest and produce different kinds of gendered selves that enable gaming. “Moderate gamers” used games casually as distractions, and typically reinscribed gender divisions. And lastly, “non-gamers” saw games as a waste of time, and reproduced a gendered femininity opposed to gaming altogether. No research to date has quantitatively examined the whether these identities are adopted in different magnitudes and can be used to explain observed gender differences in statistics, but it remains a likely possibility.

Like Kow’s post on female players in Starcraft II player communities, I did not find many active and/or prominent women gamers in the online communities. However, among the few that I identified, I found that they did adopt variations of “moderate gamer” and “power gamer” identities, and these variations informed the kinds of activities that they pursued in the online community and in the game. One moderate gamer, Julie, was an active leader of a game-based competition modeled after the “Survivor” television series; as part of her job, she oversees the organization of the contests that occur in both the game and in the forums, and handles conflicts between players.5She was not interested in other aspects of the game, such as level design, which is widely held by the community to be the most desirable activities and skill sets. Julie could not pinpoint exactly why she was not interested in level design – she simply was not interested. Mary, another player, is respected by the community for, and prides herself in, her regular welcoming of new members on the Introductions page of the community. Her own created avatar wears a dress and has lipstick, which many consider to be female-identifiable clothing. She also favors community management and social upkeep over level design. These two players represent women in the community who are not typical game players, but rather engage in community- and game-level activities not atypical of women in other settings.

One player who stood out in my data was Abby, who was well known among the community as a respected level designer. She considers herself quite tech-savvy, much more tech-savvy than most women she knows. She confirmed that there are very few other women who are gamers, let alone level-designers, but she saw this as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. Abby, whom her older brother introduced to the game, reflected that gamer guys treat gamer women much differently than they do other boys, noting that the majority of them think it is really cool when a girl is a gamer. It gives her more attention among gamers:

It’s fun to win against a bunch of guys in a game (i.e. Call of Duty) because at the beginning, they just think ‘Oh she’s a girl, she probably isn’t a real gamer.’

For Abby, the position of woman gamer identity affords an “underdog” effect in a community dominated by male gamers. Moreover, this effect reveals the cultural assumption in this context that the categories of “woman” and “gamer” are not assumed to be typical.

Although my sample of observed and interviewed women gamers is small (N=3, people!), data reveals that cultural assumptions persist among community members regarding the lack of alignment of the female gender category and gamer identity. These assumptions may permeate among the identities of women themselves, but certainly persist in the cultural context of the players. A more interesting question may be how online communities vary in the extent to which these supposed competing codes of “woman” and “gamer” are policed; LittleBigPlanet2 online communities typically have low barriers for entry across a number of skill and status characteristics (including age, nationality, and skill), and may be less sexist than other online contexts such as those in which Anita Sarkeezian endured gender-targeted violence. Identifying characteristics of online communities that maintain low barriers for entry, including the maintenance of a gender-inclusive environment, is an important goal for research on peer-supported learning and engagement.

(1) Gray, Kishonna L. 2012. “Intersecting Oppressions and Online Communities.” Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 15, Issue 3, pp. 411-428.

(2) Kaiser Family Foundation. 2010. “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds.”

(3) Newitz, Analee. 2012. “The Great Geek Sexism Debate.” io9.

(4) Royse et al. 2007. “Women and games: technologies of the gendered self.” New Media & Society, Vol. 9 (4): 555-578.

(5) All individual names have been changed to protect the identity of respondents.

n00bs, Trolls, and Idols: Status and Social Regulation in Online Communities

January 11, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research blog, 8.7.12:

Q: how do you know someone is a n00b?

A: If they’re like “ZOMGZ PLAY MY LEVELZ PLZ! YOU WILL LOVE IT! OMG!” XD

Q: hahahaha. so all caps probably!

A: Or all lower case XD

Q: ah, like me 🙂

A: run on sentences 😛

A: XD

The above excerpt is from an interview with a community member at a popular online website for LittleBigPlanet 2 players, Sackboy Planet (1). In an earlier post, I shared my first experiences with the Playstation 3 game and reflected on the learning opportunities of its community-driven, companion online communities. In the above example, I asked questions of my respondent using all lower-case lettering; little did I know that this was considered by members of Sackboy Planet to be indicative behavior of “n00bs,” or beginners. On Sackboy Planet, community members actively identify and police behavior to uphold an etiquette of interaction idealized by the community. “n00bs,” along with other labels such as “troll” and “idol,” are classifications used strategically by members to develop a shared culture and purpose through peer interaction on Sackboy Planet.

When I first visited Sackboy Planet and registered with the community, I was automatically directed to the “Introductions” section of the website. I scrolled through hundreds of posts where other new members posted a brief introduction about themselves to the rest of the community. New users often share brief stories about why they joined the website or what their favorite things are about the game. Some new users, however, write introductory posts that direct people to their created levels or other user-created content (some examples of content are discussed here), but they are met with responses that offer correctives to their language: “Before asking people to subscribe to your Youtube account, please tell a little more about who you are.” Others respond in kind: “Let people get to know who you are first before asking us to look at your creations.” Community standards of talk are expressed and enforced through interaction online, requiring certain ways of communicating in order to maintain legitimacy. Before users demonstrate this base level of literacy they are overlooked. Interviews with group members revealed that there was more to this than simply a few rules about introductions. After asking one member what determines who gets heard most on the forums, they expressed that “if it appears to be a ‘n00b’ then their post will mostly likely be skimmed or skipped.”

What, exactly, is a n00b? Are there other status labels that exist in the community? How are they determined, and what impact do such labels have on interaction more broadly? These were questions I began to think about as I found that identity categories exist within the online community that are attached to particular kinds of talk and behavior. Through interviews and forum participation, I found that three main categories permeate the forums – n00bs, trolls, and idols – and community members strategically employ them through interaction to identify “good” and “bad” forum behavior, informing not only the status of other members but also the valuation of their shared content. As in the quote at the beginning of this post, n00bs use forms of grammar that do not meet the standards of English used by other members of the forum, such as use of all capitals or all lower case lettering. n00bs are also often described as immature, or children, or both. On Sackboy Planet, n00bs, along with trolls, represent the least reputable members of the community. One interviewed member described to me how he was labeled a troll and was harassed by community members after he called someone a n00b in a forum thread. In these online contexts, trolls are members who actively insult other members and are perceived to intentionally cause harm, creating threads or posts that irritate or defame others in the community.

While n00bs and trolls represent unsocialized and unwelcome types of members, respectively, idols are the embodiment of community ideals. When asked about one popular user on Sackboy Planet, a member expressed that “He was my idol. The levels he made were so awesome I wanted to know his secret. What was he able to do that I wasn’t?” Idols are celebrities who are often considered to be role models that motivate other members to improve their craft and succeed. Idols can take a number of forms, though on Sackboy Planet they are often skilled level designers, or are well known for other roles such as organizing popular social events or serving as curators of undiscovered content in the level databases. In interviews, idols describe many perks of their status: “Celebrity status helped me reach more people and I could find those people I work well with.” Idols gain exclusive access to other celebrity players to collaborate with on projects. Additionally, content created and shared by celebrity players is almost always readily viewed and evaluated, whereas n00bs and trolls have a more difficult time getting similar attention to their creations. Interestingly, while n00bs and trolls are labels tied primarily to certain ways of talking or acting in forums, idols’ status is also fueled by the perceived skill or service to the community.

Community-informed status categories, such as n00b, troll, and idol, are used by members to distinguish “good” and “bad” behavior in the forums and to cultivate a peer-supported community centered on their shared interest and purpose. These categories allow typical users to socialize new members (n00bs) into the norms of the website, police unwelcome behavior (trolls), and sacralize community ideals (idols). The cultural etiquette on the forums dictate whose “voice” is heard in the community, and also whose user-generated content is viewed, shared, and celebrated. In sum, these labels are employed to inhibit unwelcome types of interactions on the forum and reward good behavior. Although Sackboy Planet provides an example of how these categories are used to ward off hostility and maintain low barriers for entry to unskilled players, these standards are by no means universal to all online communities. In fact, the meaning and use of terms such as n00b and troll may vary and be applied to different types of behavior. Persistent stigmatization of n00bs or the elective isolation of skilled idols from new members that need mentorship may act as barriers to an integrated learning community. On the other hand, established idols may also participate as active and engaged role models, energizing the community around shared set of interests and creating an ideal environment to play and learn.

(1) All group and individual names have been changed.

Welcome to Sackboy Planet: Learning Among LittleBigPlanet2 Players

January 11, 2013
blog, Connected Learning
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Originally posted on the Connected Learning Research Network blog, 7.20.12.

When I first started playing LittleBigPlanet2, a Playstation 3 game created by the company Media Molecule, I was both excited and frustrated. I was excited because the graphics, characters, and story of the side-scrolling platform were stunning and engaging. I controlled a character named Sackboy, an adorable humanoid creature made of fabric, as he navigated puzzles and dispelled baddies on the way to saving his home planet, Craftworld, from an evil inter-dimensional vacuum cleaner. But I became frustrated as I discovered some of the more creative and challenging features of the game, including the level design editor. I tried to design the simplest elements of a level — such as creating fireworks — and failed miserably. My fireworks didn’t look like fireworks at all, and I felt as though I was a disappointment to my Sackboy and the Craftworld universe.

After spending more time in Craftworld, I discovered that many other players just like me were creating levels and sharing them with other players. Players were creating all sorts of levels, including similar side-scrolling games, remakes or remixes of old games like Tetris or The Legend of Zelda, and creating music videos or producing their own movies.  To my surprise, I found a level created by a user who had not only figured out how to do fireworks, but assembled an entire recreation of the Disney fireworks display. I was in awe. Reinvigorated by not only the potential of the game but also of my peers, I desperately Googled to find out whether other players had shared information or guides, so that I could learn more about how to use the editor. It was then that I discovered Sackboy Planet, and both my appreciation of the LittleBigPlanet2 and engagement with the level editor have never been the same (1).

The over 1,000 active members of Sackboy Planet (23,000 have registered since its launch several years ago) collectively produce and curate in-depth tutorials and informational YouTube videos for new learners.  Moreover, sections of the website are devoted for “feedback to feedback,” or users reciprocally providing assistance to others as they work through issues with their designs. The editor provides a low barrier to entry by making basic level creation as simple as dragging a paintbrush across a canvas. However, it also allows for incredibly complex creations using logic, math, spatial relations, sophisticated camera control, and musical composition, resulting in a very high ceiling for achievement. In this way, LittleBigPlanet2 provides an academically-oriented context for players.  Moving back and forth between the game and Sackboy Planet, players engage in production-centered level design and share their creations both in the game and in forums on the Internet, such as Sackboy Planet. They can earn publicly visible badges for creating popular levels.

My research interests in peer-supported contexts make LittleBigPlanet2 and Sackboy Planet ideal environments through which to study learning. For the past 9 months I’ve been conducting ethnographic fieldwork on LBP2 creator communities, centered on Sackboy Planet. After just a few short weeks of hanging out on Sackboy Planet, I became acquainted with a major community ritual: contests. The first time I visited the contest section of Sackboy Planet I was stunned by its level of activity. There are routinely hundreds and sometimes over a thousand responses to contest threads soon after they are posted. The most popular contests provide opportunities for community members to submit original level designs created through the game’s level editor. Contest judges select a theme that must be used in the submissions, such as recreating an old video game or developing a unique movie production. As the contest continues, submitted levels are played by not only the judges but also the entire community. Peers provide supports through comments that say “Great job!” or “Try to improve this part of the level”; contestants often revise their levels as they receive feedback from community members before they are evaluated by judges and the winner is announced.  Rewards for winning also vary, and have included badges and small gift cards. However, a primary motivation behind the contests is the opportunity to share creations with an engaged community which supports players’ hard work at improving their craft.

Sackboy Planet embodies an interest-powered learning community, and provides a number of exciting mechanisms, such as contests, for learning and improvement through a shared purpose.  Together, LittleBigPlanet2 and Sackboy Planet provide the tools, contexts, and supports needed to develop a shared culture and purpose through peer interaction.

(1) All group and individual names have been changed to protect the identity of respondents.