Seeding and Nurturing Community Game Making Practices to Facilitate Learner Agency

Seeding and Nurturing Community Game Making Practices to Facilitate Learner Agency

Research Questions - April 2024

~1. What pedagogical tools and processes are available to support novices to overcome barriers to participation in game coding processes?~

What ~barriers~ contradictions arose in participation in this research’s game coding processes and what pedagogical tools and processes are available to address these contradictions?
How can game design patterns support the development of coding practices with novices?
How can learners build agency in an evolving community of game makers?

Introduction

This chapter explores emergent cultural and community activity, deepens discussion on interpersonal activity and implications for dimensions of tool use on learner agency.

Notes on structure of the chapter

The guiding direction of this chapter is on how participants use the created and emerging cultural and practical tools of this game making program, particularly in reference to the building of agency? Thus mostly addressing RQ4. However to do this, the chapter builds on the work of previous chapters and in doing so discusses aspects of all three research questions.

The first section explores the community behaviour of the group of game makers and some of the specifics of their design processes. The processes include: emerging use of narratives and graphics which drawing on home funds of knowledge; playtesting as a social process; play testing and embodied participation in the games of others; community concepts and norming behaviour emerging during playtesting; the development of flexible divisions of labour;

The chapter then continues the work on chapter five by discussion the emergence of flexible and complex design behaviours.

A discussion follows which deepens the analysis in chapter four detailed and overall design context, tensions and evolution of tool use. Particular attention is givent to the implications of design decisions and scaffolding approaches to tool use. It also begins to ask questions about the possible application of this approach to classroom contexts.

The chapter ends with a discussion on wider concerns of designing for learner agency. Here I synthesise analysis on processes which support learners to develop agency in this game making community and the role of different levels of authenticity.

Planned and emergent activity (in introduction to discussion)

The previous chapters have described interventions in design that can be characterised on a spectrum between those planned and introduced by myself as a facilitator and those which were emergent, i.e. invented or adopted by participants as a response to the contradictions covered in chapter four.

In line with the concepts of formative interventsion and DBR elements of the introduced design changed responsive to learner need as the design evolved through iterations. Some introduced processes outlined here were very minimal in embryonic form but extended significantly by participants.

Some sections here including discussion on element of the introduced drama processe explore how facilitators can encourage emergent processes as part of an introduced design. This discussion chapter uses this conceptual spectrum as a way to explore an analyis of different aspects of agency aand inclusive pedagogies.

Observations and Evidence on emerging cultural practices (cultural dimension)

CHECK TO SEE IF ANY SHOULD BE IN CHAPTER 4 - THAT IT IS DISCUSSION-Y ENOUGH

NOTE THIS NEEDS A QUICK INTRODUCTION TO MAKE A TRANSITION - LINK THIS PART AND RECONNECT IT WITH CHAPTER 4.

Introduction to this section

AT theory emphasises that the process of activity does not start in a vacuum. This helps justify the formative intervention process which is active in intervention and in the initial shaping of activity. In an educational context, this can involve introduction of tasks as starting activities to shape. This is justified conceptually from a view of not restricting participant agency in that some form of activity should be suggested in order for them to make a rational choice as to weather to participate. It follows that this activity should encourage the communication that participant choice is significant in the design.

THIS IS ALSO INTRO - REMOVE? REDUCE? Planned activities introduced by myself and those by participants. However the distinction is not so neat, as explored in the last chapter. In later stages, game design patterns were collated into an organised collection with accompanying resources and a navigational menu. However, many of these patterns however, we introduced initially by participants who recognised them and wanted to add them to their own games.

Emerging use of narratives and graphics which drawing on home funds of knowledge

While the potential to add graphics was a core affordence of the starting processes of the templated game, the process of designing and sharing and the peer commentary on the process emergered as the sessions evolved.

The literature review outlined the potential of home interests as funds of knowledge, especially informal learning. This learning design provided participants with different ways to input and explore their home interests in the narrative and graphical elements of their created games. For example the choice of game characters allowed the expression of identity. Other designed elements for example audio and graphical effects or written messages added to the overall aesthetic or polish of the game.

Video evidence indicated that conflicts involved between learner expectations and their technical abilities are helped by the use of the starting template. The constraints of provided game elements and implied narrative structure of the template accelerated the initial creative process.

One pair Clive and Pearl, the grandparents of Toby, included a narrative message at the start of their game. This process surfaced the expertise of the family as beekeepers, sparking interesting conversations with other participants.

 var starttext = "This is a game which pits a honey bee against a swarm of Asian hornets,  which are alien invaders attacking bee  hives in the UK and which beekeepers are trying to stop spreading  here. Try to guide the bee to collect all the flowers without being caught by the hornets.
 Use the arrow keys to move the bee. Press return to START.";

In another example, Mark and Ed designed a game around the character of a train driver that needed to collect coal. In subsequent post course interview Mark describes the impact of the child feeling like they could bring their own identity and interest into the project. “I know just your eyes lit up when you realised you could expand your interests into gaming.” See Appendix 4.x (Mark and Ed working with home interests)

Other participants expressed pride over their graphical creations. In this excerpt parent Molly has spent time creating a pixel art representation of an alien. The full exchange (see appendix 4.x) sees Molly cultivating a sense of ownership over the graphical element that she has created. There is also the development of a growing sense of competency in this area of asset design. She notes she is an “expert pixel”.

Molly: We’re finished.  Right what’s next? Now I’m an expert pixel? Now I have to figure out how to get it in there, don’t I? Without losing it. I’ll be very upset.
Sonia: Have you saved it?
Molly: No I’ve not saved it.
Sonia: Save there. (points to relevant button on screen)

The growing mastery of this area also seems to help drive motivation to complete the next challenge. The sense of ownership spurs the technical process of saving projects. Her pride in her work and concern surrounding losing it provokes a fellow parent to show her how to save her work.

Summary: Home Funds and RQs

This research supports findings of other research which highlight value of incorporating home interests in games, coding and media projects [@resnick_mothers_2012; @papert_mindstorms:_1980]. It also aligns with PBL literature which advocates the personalisation of projects and the value of exploring concepts using home funds of knowledge [@moje_maestro_2001]

This research indicates that in particular, allowing participants to incorporate home interests can be highly motivating in early stages of the design process. It can also sustain the coding activity later in the process encouraging participants to overcome problems in order to share the personalised object created.

In addition, the tacit knowledge of children as game players gives them access to varied affordances in the process of feeding back.

There is also evidence here that frictions involved in dealing with participant expectations of the genre and professionalism of the game they will create, are helped by the use of a templated game. Both in terms of the technical platform and the implied narrative and creative frame which scaffolds the initial creative process. This supports existing research on the value of constraints in facilitating rapid creative improvisation in the areas of music and drama. The domains of programming, game jams and hackathons also use constraints in a similar way [@gabler2005prototype]. HOW TO EXTEND?

Discussion on playtesting

As explored in the literature review and previous chapter, playtesting is a rich and varied learning opportunities which encourages community-building behaviour.

Community concepts and norming behaviour emerging during playtesting

NOTE THERE IS SOMETHING HERE ABOUT ME STEPPING BACK AND LETTING THE COMMUNITY EVOLVE.

Ed gives a more technical explanation from involving the naming of the variable jump speed.

Other children come and play the game but only for less than a minute before leaving. Towards the end of the playtesting process, as one child leaves, Molly comments “It’s so frustrating.” This suggests an evolving understanding that her game is frustrating to players rather than pleasantly challenging.

The indirect norming behaviours … described in previous chapter … mirror observations seen in the work of Rogoff and colleagues[@rogoff_cultural_2003] on learning in community settings. There is an apparent tension in play here between encouraging individual agency of expression within the game and an evolving community tendency to norm peoples games to be more playable, specifically that player movement should conforming to wider expectations.

To better understand this process it is relevant to locate the source of these wider expectations and to evaluate their utility here. This is attempted in the discussion section of the chapter.

What we can draw from the data at this stage is that playtesing provides many leverage points to facilitating learner agency and discuss the limits of designs. IN addition, playtesting is a process that allows participants to demonstrate informed criticality as a player and guide the creations of peers via gameplay feedback.

Discussion on Drama Process

Discussion on conflicts associated with authenticity of audience

Learners may not find coding a project a motivating project if it is only a private activity with no authentic audience

Making for peers has value but can be amplified and scoped using a fictional or controlled external audience often via scenarios.

Play Testing - each lesson can help with short term motivation of having a game product ready for others to play. Showcase events help longer-term motivation towards and aid prioritisation as learners near the end of their project.

The process of starting with a broken but playable template game allowed learners to be able to share their game with others from the start of the coding process.

As a designer I identified this tactic as a way to address learner disengagement if game coding is taught from scratch via a step by step instructions from first principles, especially in younger ages.

Similarly, in my journal notes, I reflect on the difficulty of interrupting the flow of making activities once they are underway. I thus began avoiding stopping making to share points to the whole class and avoid demonstrating key concepts on the screen.

Discussion on dimensions of authenticity and Process Drama

Returning to the work of drama processes, Heathcote [@heathcote_drama_1994] warns against asking participants to genuinely make items in the processes explored. To do so, she argues, would expose their inexpertness in the cold light of day.

“if they are makers of things (for example, shoes, ballgowns, or aircraft) they must never (within the fiction, that is) be asked to create the actual objects. If they had to do this their in expertness would become immediately apparent.”[@heathcote_drama_1994, p. 18]

Authentic tools in settings where students may find their novice skills lacking can negatively impact on experiences of self-efficacy and thus agency. While this is clearly the case in factory-based drama process, the value of digital tools allows students to to work with more authentic practices.

CALL BACK TO AUTHENTICITY OF LAST CHAPTER - LINK TO AGENCY

In chapter four the use of coding tools and the impact on instrumental agency was explored.

Authenticity in project approaches can profitably be applied to tools, processes and project goals [@hung_engaged_2006]. Authenticity in goal here is clear. Participants make a real digital game. The authentic goal of making a game allowed participants to draw on tacit knowledge and navigate within implicit bounds reducing the need for intrusive instruction which might negatively effect feelings of agency.

As explored in this chapter and in chapter four, the authenticity of the tools and processes involved are more complex.

Playtesting processes are authentic and often informed by existing real experience as game players. These observations are in-line with existing research outlining the value of playtesting in game-making [FIND] and to address cultural barriers to coding cultures [@disalvo_glitch_2009].

There are examples of the authenticity of the audience being used by participants

Suzanna uses the imagined audience to norm behaviour.
Olivia (Th) imagines the impact of her game on real students as a motivational factor and one which drives design decisions. The use of code playgrounds and js? structured along design principles which align with affordance theory.

THEREFORE - WHAT IS THE KEY POINT HERE?

While authenticity in coding context is potentially off-putting or prohibitive if too complex, it is motivating if linked with real life competencies and culturally relevant activities and outputs. In this context there is an explicit link between participant feelings of self-efficacy and their growing experiences of agency.

Educators should be aware of this tension and help resolve it by developing their competency and using simplified professional tools. The benefits to leaners are increased experience of agency, through x, y and z. And the development of an activity systems which has the following benefits / characteristics.

While this is broadly in line with PBL theories, and constructionism the use of CHAT perpective on agency brings some useful tools to the researcher and practitioner. CROSSREFF - list the benefits here.

Discussion on making types and process drama / side missions

The process of exploring identity via side missions in this way surfaced the cheekiness of some young people and the pleasure they took in demonstrating their playful mischievousness. I began to make journal notes on this subject and talk to other games study practitioners. I began to ask the question can the surfacing maker types (as per player types) encourage awareness and celebrate the emerging practices that the community was producing.

As an example some players created impossible or overly easy game levels. They appeared aware of implications for game balance but is taking pleasure in this seeming destruction of the key challenge of the game as an act of disruptive play. They seem to take pleasure from ignoring concepts of what should be done to maintain game balance and from the sense of shock from their current audience her parent. Going against this convention is a type of playful destruction in this context. The process mirrors play theory concept of playing against the game or dark play [@sutton-smith_ambiguity_2001].

Discussion on Drama Process and Agency

Aitken’s and Heathcote’s terms follow in italics. Within a fictional context a responsible team is contracted into a commission by a client. The facilitator frames curriculum elements as productive tasks and plans for tensions to arise involving: authentic contexts, messiness of learning, maintaining learner interest and resilience to overcome the grappling and struggling involved. The following sections explore some of these key concepts via the example in vignette.

Positive affective space within a drama process

The work in this research around designing and coding in role and creating a playful context and language mirrors work done in learning languages to reduce learner anxiety by leveraging the potential for drama processes to create positive “affective spaces” [@piazzoli_process_2011; @stinson_dol_2006]. The drama process can be viewed as magic circle [@stenros_defence_2012; @whitton_playful_2018]. A magic circle is a concept which transmits the idea that game players enter a loosely bounded play space where they accept arbitrary play rules and enter a social contact to adopt a playful attitude.

The experience of myself and participants being more comfortable performing some of the activities in role is facilitated by contracted together into a playful agreement where risk of perceived failure is reduced. In my journal notes, I observed, that when listing boundaries to activities within role, it felt similar to outlining the rules of a game rather that constricting their behaviour. Thus, I felt more relaxed restricting choice in role via the proxy of a playful encounter compared to my previously I concerns surrounding participants feeling overly controlled.

In addition, I believe part of my hesitancy in shifting activity from participant-led game making to reflection, or accessing documentation, stemmed from worrying that the learners would also find this shift in objective, from the organically developing design and play testing activity system to an externally imposed system of reflecting on progress, would be jarring, potentially disorientating and reduce learner engagement and positive affect towards the overall process. In other words, provoking a feeling that the fun’s over, it’s back to school. I propose that the drama fiction eases friction between competing activity system objectives.

Reflection on reflecting in role

It doesn’t look like we’ve got anywhere but we have!

While drama scenarios can aid reflection both in or out of drama, O’Neill and Lambert outline the value of in-drama reflection, noting it is “likely to be more powerful than end-of-session discussion, since it allows individual and group insight to be articulated as part of the context” [-@oneill_drama_1982, p. 144]. In line with this intervention, they propose one way of achieving in-role reflection is to introduce an additional character that acts as an external audience. In this intervention however, main activities happen only weakly in role, whereas the end reflection highlights the fictional frame of the making more strongly.

Using the terms of student agency explored in the literature review, here we can see the use of the drama narrative used as a second stimulus both by facilitator to help convene learners and to help them participate in reflection, and project sharing [@sannino_principle_2015].

LINK TO EXISTING RESEARCH More links to the limits of reflection processes and the challenges of critical approaches in PBL.

Discussion on mediated chat and potential for addressing contradictions in activity

Writing in role.

MOVED The start of playful chat with aliens process began when Ed in a moment of free time expanded the use of space initially imagined to address technical needs by initiation a playful interaction which, while in the motivation to support different learner identities, was a novel, volitional action in this context. It is helpful to expore this interaction using AT and TADS terminology. Ed is in conflict, not able or wanting to engage in his existing creative activities while his father has a social break. Using the secondary stimulus of a text chat with fictional aliens, he writes a playful personal question to the aliens as an expression of volitional action to play, casts out an experimental kedging anchor. By co-incidence, I was on a different computer, saw this question, and was able to respond in real time. Thus, by getting a response, Ed’s kedging anchor caught onto an anchor point and Ed was able to resolve this conflict of inactivity and in doing so both amuse himself and other other with humorous self-expression, and open-up a novel, child-centred activity for the whole group which could also address potential issues of alienation from the culture of serious coding expressed by other participants.

Discussion on emergent elements of guided participation

This section describes and discusses some of the emergent, flexible and adaptive design practices that I observed in video data.

I also outline the rationale behind my responses to them.

Encouraging peer learning and varied working practices

This section discusses some of the outcomes stemming from interventions and emergent participant responses in the area of peer and individual working practices.

In chapter four, one of area of contractions was the dysfunctional group work which was freed up by allowing greater atomisation and greater scaffolding of tool use.

These tensions of allocated roles and dysfunctional group work are mirrored in similar research - FIND THIS ON PAIR PROGRAMMING

These tensions were were highlighted in the end of P1 feedback and in some practitioner interviews that I conducted. FIND THIS IF SO

In contrast in P2 and P3 there is flexibility of interaction which suits informal moments of playtesting.

Chapter five outlined examples of GDPS being used as a lingua franca in playtesting sessions for a variety of collaborative work from feedback to direct requests for help from peers.

ARE THERE ARE OTHER STUDIES WHICH ENCOURAGE THIS?

This informal, unguided approach is also present in some Game Jams.

In addition to ad-hoc partnership work and collaboration

Beyond design cycle stages

As explored in the literature review design stages as a conceptual design tool is common in CS education, e.g. Resnick’s creative learning spiral [@resnick_all_2007, p. 2]. While I did not ask learners to follow prescribed design stages, in data analysis I created a coding theme based on a design cycle framework: Ask / Imagine, Plan, Create, Test, Improve, Share. When coding I observed that naturalistic practice rarely matched the progression of the design cycle. The stages were instead fragmented and sometimes happened in parallel. In many interactions I observed improvisational approaches which incorporated ideation, planning, implementation and testing in space of a minute or so. If I had encouraged participants to follow prescribed design stages this may have restrict this flexibility in practice. This concern is echoed in research which critiques a similar, staged approach to creative writing in primary education using a writing cycle approach. [@kuby_rhizomatic_2016]

In a closer review of key literature claims of of the value for participants of following design cycles are implied but not supported. Instead stages is are proposed as a tool to “discusses strategies for designing new technologies” [@resnick_all_2007, p. 2]. the following writing discusses the value of flexible approach to design processes observated in my research.

Supporting Digital/Game Jamming

While the concept of Game Jams are established, the free form flexibility of the Jam process is often left to the skills and evolving practices of the participants.

This section explores the process of jamming in the context of game making. While the processes identified are often improvised, there is a group element of the process where makers pick up techniques from other makers in the group. I propose the value of facilitators noticing and nurturing potentially productive practices.

I propose that this process can have value in other areas of digital making.

Flexible design practices are often present in recorded data. Younger participants in particular developed impressively fluid practice demonstrating extremely rapids shifts between code editing, game testing, authoring assets in online tools and migrating files often while talking with peers. Older participants also showed rapid, responsive creativity. Clive quickly incorporated a boost to player health after a level after being given feedback during playtesting. In exploring sound making software Ed and Mark start a process of tinkering and messing about with the capability of the tools which spurs creativity. The joint jamming created two different soundtracks. This sparks a new proposal to incorporate different soundtracks for different levels. Pairs often adopted a similar spirit of improvisaion. For example parent Dan makes a suggestion - “Use paper to design?” - to which Toby replies “I’m just going with it.” ### These observations of the value of flexible design processes, invite discssion on how best to conceptualise and support these flexible approaches. Game Jams are accelerated events encouraging creative collaboration and innovation. While the event’s premise is to promote collaboration, these events are inconsistent in their support and scaffolding of collaborative approaches [@goddard_playful_2014].

Other relevant perspectives include rhizomatic design approaches [@de_freitas_classroom_2012]. Research exists on the promise of rhizomatic approaches design thinking in creative educational programmes [@biffi_chasing_2017-1]. However researcher identify significant competencies required including to “identify and synthesize the body of technical and even complex knowledge into a feasible structure” [@biffi_chasing_2017-1, p. 972], which are not well-aligned with the age group of this context.

Instead, I propose that the tools, process and the community in this study mutually encourage an improvisational approach often referred to as jamming.

There are disparate resources available for game jams but due to the adult centric audience and mix of abilities they are less guided in nature than many supported design processes aimed at school age audiences.

NOTE - Explore jamming in relation to lit review concepts and data of the chapter.

MOVE THIS CLAIM LATER. Claim: The data in this chapter shows the value and further potential of mixing the more mature techniques of MoE and other process drama techniques with the ethos of game jams.

Recent research posits that Game Jams can be profitably used in formal education contexts [@aurava_game_2021], although there is scant guidance on how to address potentially problematic issues (list these). A complementary approach would be to significantly adapt the overall Game Jam format and to add greater scaffolding to the process as in the learning design of this research.

The potential of emergent “non-productive” activities

NOTE - Within the concept of jamming, activity which is casual seemingly non-productive can still transmit useful information to guide collaborative practices.

Much time in sessions was spent on activities that did not fit nearly into an accepted design stage, for example: opening software tools; navigating to correct locations; and finding past assets. These processes often involved significant effort and collaboration between participants. For example the migrating assets between authoring tools, converting to correct formats, evaluating new tools, and finding previously created assets. These are practices that I am personally familiar with. I call them digital laundry or digital housekeeping. Things that at times can be low attention span. Faff time is even less productive switching on the computer and waiting for the internet to connect, waiting for a family member to finish their rushed lunch or navigating to the right location in creative software.

Skills to perform these activities were at often distributed between different family members. For some adult re-enforcing their identities as project managers, and for young participants forming identities as digital specialists. I noted in analysis of data that along with frustration there are also moments of creativity, and there are bonding moments which appear to be helped by this activity which is at times quite unfocused but also shared. In retrospect, many of the social missions explored above encouraged activity outside of established design stages. For example the lively discussion about game playing in response to the mission to find out the favourite games of 3 other people.

The process of swapping graphical assets used a shared Piskel gallery and games area which served to keep individuals informed in directly of progress being made, and to spark curiosity in the creations of others.

In addition, I observed that navigating these essential but non-creative tasks in a collaborative and playful way can reduce learner anxiety and help maintain a positive affect to the overall creative digital process. This observation is supported by an example in the next chapter available in appendix 5.x - an extract of which is included below.

Participant Dialogue	Participant Gestures & Activities
	Nadine has just rapidly demonstrated how to bring a created graphical element into the game
Molly: How did you do that so quickly? I’ve got to like, carefully…	Molly makes hand gestures to show a sense of hesitant keyboard use)
	A parent peer next to Molly laughs. Nadine, the child of Molly bounces up in place and smiles broadly.

In summary, it is of value to create spaces to leverage the potential of these in-between moments for participants. This a concept is developed later in this discussion.

The interaction of emergent / flexible deign practices and the collection of Game Design Patterns

THIS SECTION SHOULD BE DEVELOPED.

BRING IN A SUMMARY OF LEARNING FROM THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER ON GDPS.

In the previous chapter we explored the use of GDPs as a possible response to the challenges to project work and the lack of domain specific frameworks.

The nature of the framework provided by game play design patterns can be explored through the lens of agency and authenticity.

They are authentic - There is choice - and interaction - contribution to the overall object.

<!– #### Comparing the activity patterns of this family to others

NOTE - MOVE / REINTEGRATE? OR REWRITE AS A LINK TO THE NEXT SECTION? NOTE - This more general observation may be part of the previous chapter

We can compare this pairs pattern of activity with other pairs / families.

The parent here is much more commonly rooted to the computer than other parents.
This meant they engaged far less in play testing of other games and found it harder to gain attention for direct support.
This grouping sometimes left early having completed more in code development than others but completed less social activities.

Discussion

The parent had indicated that she considered herself a “planner” as a maker type which is confirmed by less social Interactions

The observations above show the importance of recording the whole room. Some participants will roam to observe the work of others, to socialise, to gain attention of others for support or for feedback. When analysing data using 360 recorded video side-by-side with the screen captured data, the participant can be followed around the room and their activity can be noted even when away from their activity. –>

Discussion on authenticity and agency in relation to (personal appropriation?) of tool use

Discussion on authenticity and agency concerning tools and resources

This chapter has exposed the tensions that developed in the activity systems and subsequent evolution the tools used include code authoring environment, supporting resources of printed and digital format. This section begins to analyse these tensions in more depth, in particular the intersection of authenticity in tool use and participant agency.

Increased scaffolding of tools can increase instrumental agency but at what cost?

Increased scaffolding of learner resources and tools can increase instrumental agency for novice coders but at the potential cost of reducing access to the tools and processes of authentic creative communities. Many of the design adaptations described in this chapter align with motivations of constructionist design principles explored in the Literature review [@resnick_design_2005]. Techniques or concepts which are embodied in both the Scratch software and the adaptations to the tool set of this intervention include:

reducing barriers to entry through techniques to avoid code syntax errors
increasing engagement with a code authoring environment that provides live feedback of the results of code output
supporting immediacy of creative process by providing a library of assets.
The use of black boxes?

IT FEELS LIKE IT WOULD BE GOOD TO TRY TO SQUEEZE THIS BIT INTO CHAPTER 4 ? PERHAPS via some ADDITION TO A TABLE AT THE END OF CHATPER 4

While these elements of ethos are aligned, the process of supporting novices to use an authentic, text-based language and authoring tools used by professional community required more specific adaptations (o) : creating simplified but extendable starting template; highlighting code variables as key design affordances; using a grid structure to visually facilitate level design; and simplifying the syntax and the structure of the game code.

Of particular relevant to the process of this design is the constructionist design principles, choose black boxes carefully. Resnick [@resnick_reflections_2005] explains the designing of black boxes as the process of as abstracting away areas potentially problematic areas of the production process. Black boxes allow the learning design to steer participants towards the exploration of certain concepts and away from those that have been hidden.

The black box design decisions of use of tools and documentation create a kind of border between the participants experience with the protective environment of the scaffolded learning experience and a more open ecology of learning from code in the wild; specifically via the use of authentic developer focused tools, processes and documentation. A significant drawback of using a bespoke tool for novices is that attempts to progress by stepping outside of that protective area risk culture shock and alienation from the newly unfamiliar environment.

Different black boxes for different goals

My design decision to build the toolset as structure on top of authentic tools and languages can be likened to creating a protective harbour to shield new users from the complexity of the underlying configuration of interrelated web-technologies and instead highlight design affordances that facilitate creative agency.

Participants are able to leave the protective harbour by accessing more authentic documentation and moving beyond existing templates. The experience may be involve choppier waters but the tools and processes remain familiar.

The potentially awesome impact of lifting the lid on authentic technologies

Lifting the lid on hidden technologies and concepts in hands-on, exploratory processes can be empowering for participants. Ratto explores this via critical making [@ratto_critical_2011], a process which playfully surfaces Latour’s [@weibel_making_2005; @latour_cautious_2008] concepts of shifting matters of fact to matters of concern by exposing taken for granted artefacts as objects that have been designed (for better or worse). Conversations between participants showing an inspirational or engaging impact on previously unknown technology. For examples, exchanges among participants that communicated a sense of awe of how much effort and coding must be involved in a professional game based on the relative complexity of the code of their simple game.

Pearl: It just shows you what goes into these games.
Student Helper 3: Think about how much effort goes into.
Pearl: You just take things for granted don’t you?

Exploring different dimentions of agency in tool use (using the concept fo dual stimuation)

The distinction between instrumental forms of agency and more authorial/ transformative variants were explored from the perspective of AT in the methodology chapter.

Design decisions of tool use can to increase agency in practical terms by providing affordances or by removing barriers to use. Conceptually these practical dimension can be framed as instrumental agency or removing aspects of negative liberty caused by technical barriers [@matusov_mapping_2016, p. 433].

I now turn to explore tool use to engendering authorial and transformative agency [@engestrom2006development; @haapasaari_emergence_2016; @sannino_formative_2016].

An illustrative design tension emerged surrounding which kind of documentation to prioritise. After initially steering participants directly to code snippets, I subsequently directed them instead to step by step tutorials which also included a link to the code snippets. I shifted between prioritising instruction-based practices and more piecemeal, bricolage inspired (see LR) developer practices. Whilst the process of instruction is problematic in terms of learner agency this vies with the practicality to establish a common understanding and shared framework for production.

The motivations for creating starter templates are similar for both educators and professional template creators. The goal being to want to shield new users from the complexity of the underlying configuration of interrelated web-technologies and instead highlight design affordances that facilitate creative agency. This strong alignment with authentic, professional practice may help learners transition to other forms of web coding projects, due to the similarity of as this element of practice.

The concept of dual stimulation can help illuminate the design and pedagogical tensions related to authenticity of tool use to shed light on dimensions of participant agency.

In research on the use of wiki technology by students Lund and Ramussen [-@lund_right_2008-1] caution against mismatches between the first and second stimulus; interpreting project tasks or objectives as the first stimuli, and the tools used to the as secondary stimuli.

WHERE BEST TO ADD THE SERIES PART - THE MANY - AND LINKING TO MAKING TYPES TOO They also outline the importance of awareness of the likelihood of multiple stimuli in modern technical working environments. While Sannino’s [@sannino_principle_2015] work on the volitional aspect of the process of double stimulation cautions ‘double stimulation cannot be subsumed to the general idea of mediation by symbolic tools’ [-@sannino_principle_2015, p.2], it shares the a perspective that there is value in exploring the process to explore participants development of agency in professional and educational settings [@sannino_formative_2016].

Introducing additional tools in the form of documentation to the initial coding environment and template provided in early stages introduced tensions between the opportunities for independent development and the additional complexity of the process.

Traditional, printed, instruction-based software manuals are in decline partly due online documentation but also due to the increased intuitive nature of their design [@pogue_user_2017].

This decreased need for secondary documentation minimises the possibility for task / tool mismatch. As outlined above, to avoid the barriers experienced when searching authentic, developer-focused documentation and the support forums, I created bespoke code examples in an online collection. This curated replication of authentic process of finding and incorporating code snippets into the starting template was supported the development of skills used in professional coding communities. The careful alignment between navigational documentation and the participants driving objectives of the mid-level activity system of implementing a game element, also helped avoid mismatch between task and tools described above, a theme explored in more detail in chapter five. CHOICE - AUTHORIAL IN THE P1 AND P2 PROCESS OF CHOOSING DESIGN PATTERNS - BRIEF - BEYOND INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES AT LEAST

THIS SHOULD SHIFT TO A CULTURAL SECTION?

Agency in response to a series of second stimuli

Learner agency in the form of choice over the the chosen activity is present not only in the dimensions of the difficulty and theme of the game features they wished to add, but also in their approach to undertaking it. KEEP THE FOCUS ON TOOLS HERE - SIGNPOST TO OTHER SECTIONS IF NEEDED.

Some approached objectives in a methodical manner, others socially and others embracing a playfully disruptive stance. Some decided to focus extensively on the creation and implementation of graphical assets and level design. While the distributed nature of the toolset, hindered peer learning in P1 as too many tools were introduced, in P2 it helped build authentic digital literacy skills. Some young participants became remarkably swift and adapt at thus transforming chains of actions into a fluid operation. Learners who had mastered the skills were asked by others for help, becoming domain experts, and thus providing additional affordances in the learning community and building an identify as specialist within its. It is of value to examine specialisation can be seen through the lens of double stimulation. The choice to specialise, marks a form of transformative agency. Participants craft for themselves a specialist status which becomes shared and celebrated by the group. Further examples are explored in chapter five.

Asking questions about the challenge of applying this model to classroom environments.

This chapter has narrowed down form cultural observations to guided particpation and then personal appropriation of of tools and practices.

Is this a good section to begin to ask how appropriate is the 3M approach (summarise in the next chapter), to a classroom setting?

In a classroom setting the personal appropriation would have different expectations. The recreation of concepts and knowledge for testing purposes or even more formative assessment is quite different from the more naturalistic approaches outlined here. DISCUSS MORE.

Conclusion to this section

There is alignment with other research in terms of how

authenticity of tools can be problematic and needs design adaptation, often black boxing
this process merits attention and alignment with overall project aims of the designer
Challenges encoutered by students in tool use can result in productive and creative responses in development of productin cultu4res (explored later)
ideally emergent and producing a culture series of

Discussion on designing for learner agency

I propose that learner agency entails the practice of designing and facilitating effective and engaging creative and technical learning environments.

Nurturing agency by creating space for emergent practices

THIS SECTION IS STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT

This section continues to explore tensions surrounding support learner agency, useful conceptions of agency, and starts to explore recommendations for researchers and educators working in this area. As previously explored, varied conceptions of agency exist including: instrumental, authorial and transformative agency [@matusov_mapping_2016]. (See methodology chapter). As a learning designer, design decisions to create a sheltered harbour, increase the instrumental agency of learners allowing them to experience a feeling of control over their creative process.

Adopting analysis which aligns authorial agency and transformative agency, there is a potential tension between instrumental agency and transformative agency. A design which minimises possible conflicts also reduces the potential for participants to solve them both individually and collective responses.

Thus, I propose that key areas of the learning design should be more open in structure to encourage the emergence of participant responses and novel practices. The concepts of affective space and magic circle previously explored in the context of drama process as a way to encourage participants to improvise from a starting structure are of value to provide guidance to practitioners in the domain of informal digital design.

The freedoms and restrictions of playgrounds

In this research, similar metaphors have emerged in the pedagogical and technical process surrounding the concept of playgrounds and gardens. In the previous section the use of a curated set of design patterns can be referred to as a walled garden or sandbox. The process of checking the performance of games is called playtesing. The web-based environment which reduce the complexity of web development and provide community and immediate feedback are named code playgrounds. While some of this language is specific to the creation of games, other terms are also prevalent in non-game coding.

These metaphors invite a connection to play theories concept of as the magic circle. Play theorist outline the value of stepping into a more controlled area of voluntary experimentation where the fear of failure is reduced. Game rules are norms which seed participation in community processes. The playful context of the game’s magic circle can facilitate participants to adapt norms and rules to their own playing styles. Through this lens, the interaction of playtesting, code playgrounds and a sandbox of game patterns emerge as a key practices to facilitate and maintain learner agency. The discussion of the next chapter explores the intersection of these elements in more detail.

Affordances and anchors

NOTE - MOVED HERE from methodology

Sannino augments the concept of transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS) with a metaphor of a sea vessel warping using kedging anchors.

We may think of the second stimulus as an anchor. Anchors are commonly understood as stabilising devices to prevent a vessel from moving. However, not all anchors have this function. Beside the heavy-weight anchors, there are also kedge anchors serving the purpose of ‘warping,’ that is, pulling the anchor once it has settled on the ground, for moving the vessel away from a problem area. [@sannino_transformative_2022, p. 4]

In this metaphor emphasises the active volition of participants to overcome tensions and blockages in learning. In our context learners would throw an anchor of intention out into the learning environment to then pull on to Not all throws will be successful. The anchor may slip or it may catch on something in the learning environment that allows the leaner to pull

Affordances in the learning design can be viewed in this frame as a catching point for these anchors [@hopwood_agency_2022]. An effective learning environment provides a sea bed with many rocks (affordances) for warping anchors (volitional acts of participant agency to transform learning) [@aagaard_teacher_2022].

TADS and the associated metaphor of warping anchors is normally applied in settings of group action.

Extending the metaphor - anchoring in sheltered harbours

This chapter has discussed affordences of a bespoke and mutually designed learning exeriences and their impact on learner agency. At times, Sannino’s metaphor of a kedging anchor thrown by participants to pull themselves out of a conflict or blockage in their process has been used. The metaphor is useful to explain the active process of participants seekig to resolve conflicts and problems in their creative processes. However, much research employing this metaphor is often used in less-structured workplace settings. As such, the designed nature of the environment is less relevant. This section proposes an expansion of the metaphor to encompass concerns of a more structured learning design.

NOTE - THIS SECTION MOVED FROM METHODOLOGY

Sannino augments the concept of transformative agency by double stimulation (TADS) with a metaphor of a sea vessel warping using kedging anchors.

We may think of the second stimulus as an anchor. Anchors are commonly understood as stabilising devices to prevent a vessel from moving. However, not all anchors have this function. Beside the heavy-weight anchors, there are also kedge anchors serving the purpose of ‘warping,’ that is, pulling the anchor once it has settled on the ground, for moving the vessel away from a problem area. [@sannino_transformative_2022, p. 4]

In the original metaphor the casting of the anchor is random, experimental. It is unsure if the anchor will catch on anything under the surface. However, in this design, participants aim for affordances as visible anchor points. In the design above such anchor points include: regular play-testing; the use of documentation; and highlighed variables and level structure in the quick start stage.

To aid learners agency, designers notice existing paths of participants and add explicit anchor points and make them visible to learners. The process is on-going and mutual. Additionally, this work happens in an facilitated environment. Design decisions server to clarify common problems areas, thus making the water clearer to better see anchor points. The job of the designer is in part to identify the causes of turbulence and thus create support in a sheltered space of a harbour.

Many design decisions were made to create a supported, simplified coding environment. Relevant examples from the previous chapter include: using an online code playground; skirting use of specialist terminology; hiding away un-needed complexity in the code template.

While it is important to acknowledge the danger that such support may make learners run into trouble if coding other projects outside of this supported space, the use of authentic code language makes this less of an issues than with specialised coding environments aimed at novices [@hagge_coding_2018]. Thus to make one addition to the metaphor this design is like a sea-harbour, tools like Scratch are like a swimming pool.

Summary on metaphors around creating space

KEEP METAPHORS TO THIS CHAPTER - BUT EXPLORATION OF THE IDEAS AS A SUMMARY FOR PRACTITIONERS IN NEXT CHAPTER?

The title to this chapter was Seeding Game Making Communities to Facilitate Learner Agency. This evolved to Seeding and Nurturing Game Making Communities to Facilitate Learner Agency. It could be extended to Rewilding metaphor to reflect the importance of leaving learners to evolve their own processes as a form of authorial and transformational agency, albeit within the forms of pedagogical walled gardens explored in this chapter.

The growing /agricultural metaphor can be compared with the metaphor for agency used in the discussion which is more nautical in flavour, led by Sannino’s work on TADS and kedging anchor metaphor which is extended to incorporate a protected habour for novices in a creative environment. Similarly in the literature there is a thread around play-spaces and playgrounds. One common thread here is the importance of a sheltered learning environment and somewhat curated set of affordances.

The process of Playtesting and working towards an external audience.

Some of the processes for building community were more mutual - collecting requirements

Creating documentation Other processess

Of course this may make learners run into trouble if engaging outside of the harbour or in real situtations.

Synthesis on implications for project based practice to encourage agency

Previous chapters explored varied understandings of agency.

Divining authentic frameworks

The process of discovering the framework of GDPs explored in chapter five merits exploration from the perspective of replicability.

Is there is something particular about the format of the game product to be designed that particularly suits this process. What other products does it suit?

What are the broad implication for the use of this frameworks in other domains.

PERHAPS ONE FOR FINAL CHAPTER

Keeping hard fun hard

Hard fun is a well used concept in creative computing education.

A relevant challenge is the difficulty of structuring resources in a way which can support the diversity of the directions in which participant want to progress their design. My results Drawing from authentic resources can be chaotic and create problematic errors.

Where participants lacked the concepts and technical language needed to find external support materials, the combination of the starting code template and a selection of curated code and documentation examples helped address this.

However, in designing out conflicts the facilitator may reduce the capacity for participants to profitably address them, both as individuals pair or collectively as a group. There is a balance here for the facilitator to take an appropriate position on.

Some parents were aware of this tension as outlined in appendix.

There is a potential tension between instrumental agency and transformative agency.

Implications in conceptualisations of forms of agency

This thesis has explored agency through the following concepts: instrumental agency, authorial agency, and transformative agency through double stimulation.

This section contributes observations from this research process with the following aims.

to serve other researchers undertaking similar work using activity theory and design based approach
to help practitioners be research informed

Conclusion

In AT terminology, this chapter has in a general sense returned to the concrete (see Marx / Blunden). Chapter four outlined a design narrative where tools were chosen and adapted by myself and Participants in response to local context. Chapter five explored the emerging organisational unit of GDPs, and how they were used as meditational strategies. This chapter has explored emergent cultural and community activity, and deepened discussion on interpersonal activity, and then returned to discuss implications for dimensions of concrete tool use on learner agency.

It’s dialectic innit. We call it praxis. The methodology chapter outlined some of the challenges of this approach, particularly in the thick description of context, and the challenge of then satisfying the goal of generalisability / and overall utitlity.

The final chapters aims to address this with research outputs, implications and recommendations for facilitators and researchers.