Int. J. Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, Vol. 1, No.

2, 2013 145

Digital communities and videogames as educational

tools in participatory culture

Laura Méndez
Faculty of Psychology,
Open University (UNED),
Calle Juan del Rosal, 10 Madrid-28040, Spain
E-mail: lmendez@psi.uned.es

Pilar Lacasa* and María García-Pernía

Faculty of Humanities,
University of Alcalá,
Aulario María de Guzmán, Calle San Cirilo s/n,
Alcalá de Henares, 28801-Madrid, Spain
Fax: (+34)-91-885-50-05
E-mail: p.lacasa@uah.es
E-mail: mariaruth.garcia@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: This study examines how innovative educational contexts facilitate

the development of new literacies in a participatory culture. The study was
carried out in a Spanish secondary education school, where students used
online conversational environments and video games. The data were collected
from a workshop carried out in an English class. It was conducted in two
scenarios, inside and outside the classroom. While students were playing, they
talked about the game, planned their actions and took decisions together.
Moreover, they participated in a virtual conversational space to support the
game’s sessions by facilitating reflective gaming among the participants. The
results show that social relationships evolved from a social network, in which
individual contributions are important, to an online community in which the
group was predominant. Participation made it easier for students to approach
the discourse and the rules of the game and enhance the new literacy training
process.
Keywords: social network; online communities; videogames; new literacies;
innovation.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Méndez, L., Lacasa, P. and
García-Pernía, M. (2013) ‘Digital communities and videogames as educational
tools in participatory culture’, Int. J. Social Media and Interactive Learning
Environments, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.145–163.
Biographical notes: Laura Méndez has been a Teacher at several different
educational stages. She currently teaches at the National Distance Learning
University subjects related to educational psychology. She has always been
interested in learning environments and the social-cultural characteristics that
define them. This interest has driven her to explore the virtual environments
and the new spaces of relationship and learning enabled by technology. One of
her greatest concerns is laying bridges between the university and other
educational environments.

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

146 L. Méndez et al.

Pilar Lacasa is a Researcher at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Alcalá

(Spain). She coordinates Culture, Technology and New Literacies Research
Group since 1998 (http://www.uah-gipi.org/ingles.htm). Her research focuses
on videogames, new emerging communication technologies and classic
European and US movies as educational tools. Her research work has been
developed from a social-cultural approach and published in Culture &
Psychology, and Linguistics and Education, among others. She has been a
Visiting Researcher at Comparative Media Studies (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2007/2008).

María García-Pernía’s main interest is focused on analysing the role played by

communication tools, which are quickly transforming the society, in the life of
children and youngsters. From issues as diverse as programmes for a safe
mobility, video games as cultural and educational objects, she tries to look for
answers that may help educators, parents and teachers when facing the different
challenges posed by digital tools on everyday life.

1 Introduction

This paper shows how a social network (Play and Learn) and a commercial video game
(The Sims 3) become educational instruments supporting new forms of literacy and
reflection when introduced in a high school classroom. The rationale for this work relates
to the search for educational innovation by creating scenarios that present new forms of
communication mediated by certain digital technologies, specifically online
communication environments and video games. The presence of digital tools in the
classroom itself does not generate an innovative process. Some of these instruments
become sources of power for human activities, for emerging and cultural practices
organised by the goals according to which people use these tools. To analyse these
practices as part of a formal educational context, mediated by digital instruments and the
goals of people using them, the first step is to transform schools and bring them closer to
real life outside.
First, we chose social networks and video games as educational tools was due to them
being present in the everyday life of young people and they can be tuned into a bridge to
make connections between what people learn in and out the classroom. Second, it was
important to contribute to the training of people to be critical towards new media, video
games being one of them; people have to be active participants, capable of reconstructing
their messages and constructing knowledge from them. Third, we have taken the concept
of participatory culture, understanding that people must be considered not only as
recipients of messages, but also as producers for new and global audiences.
From this perspective, the general purpose of this study is to design educational
contexts where social networks and new media, in particular video games, facilitate the
development of new literacies in the context of participatory culture. Two specific aims
are proposed: First, to explore the transformation of a social network, created in the
school and moderated by the teacher, on an online community of gamers, where the
knowledge of the game is distributed among all participants; second, to examine how
youth’s participation in these online environments empowers specific discourses related
to the consciousness of the video game’s rules and problem solving processes arising
from the game.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 147

This paper is organised in the following parts. The first one is the theoretical
framework, focusing on the concept of digital learning contexts. The methodology
section focuses on an ethnographical approach and on how data were collected and
analysed. The results obtained from the conversations’ analysis, in the classroom and in
an online environment, show how communicative practices conducted in a formal
educational environment are transformed. The conclusions allow us to reflect on the
significance of these changes and also on the limitations of the study and the possible
future research derived from it.

2 Conceptual framework: digital contexts for learning

Young people not only spend their free time playing video games, but are also present in
social networks, forums and chat rooms. These elements are present in virtual
environments and contribute to generate a participatory culture. This paper introduces
these digital scenarios in the school considering two elements: Firstly, video games,
generating ideas and specific ways of thinking; secondly, social networks and online
communities that allow us to share these reflections. Such elements are considered
educational tools that facilitate the acquisition of new literacies. Specific concepts that
served as starting point for defining the theoretical model behind this experience are
shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Digital communities and videogames in educational contexts (see online version
for colours)

First, we understand social networks and online communities as a framework from which
we explore media education as a form of participatory culture. These virtual scenarios
allow young people to participate by becoming producers of new types of discourse
(Jenkins et al., 2009). Second, in these digital settings students talk, think and produce
texts about video games, a particular semiotic domain, using the terms of Gee (2003).
Adopting his perspective, we analyse how students express their thoughts about the game
in relation to its internal grammars; moreover, we explore classroom conversations and
online social relationships, considering that both of them relate to external grammars of
the game. The consciousness of the internal grammars becomes easier when external
grammars are considered as educational tools, in this case conversations in the classroom,
social networks and online communities. Finally, new forms of literacy are examined, as
148 L. Méndez et al.

related to the grasp of consciousness of oral and audio visual discourses, as much as to
the conscious control of the rules and the problem solving strategies related to the game.

2.1 Social networks and participatory culture

2.1.1 Learning in participatory culture
The concept of participatory culture, which has recently been extended to embrace the
idea of ‘convergence culture’, gives us a theoretical framework for approaching online
environments as educational tools. It focuses on a challenging approach for media
education in the 21st century.
Jenkins et al. (2009) approach participatory culture and introduce relevant ideas
regarding education in digital worlds. First, they consider that the digital world expands
the barriers of expression. Why do schools traditionally limit children’s forms of
expression? How to change this situation? Second, the presence of these digital
instruments also creates new forms of civic engagement among young people who reflect
and confront mass media critically. Third, the network society generates new learning
environments, where learners are involved in informal mentorship relationships. Young
people and adults learn from each other; thus, those who traditionally were teachers are
now apprentices, even though they can keep their role as guides in learning situations.
Finally, the idea of social connection also acquires new forms of collaboration in the
digital universe that raises new challenges to the relationships between individuals and
the social world.

2.1.2 Social networks vs. online communities in educational contexts

As part of this participatory culture, specific environments emerge allowing people to
conduct public discussions in virtual spaces (Papacharissi, 2011). Social interaction
provides opportunities for people to get acquainted, to become familiar with one another,
and to build new knowledge. We assume the conception of learning as a collective fact
versus the classical idea that limits it to an individual process. When introducing social
networks and online communities in the school context, it turns into an educational
environment where teachers and students interact, collaborate and exchange their goals
(Renninger and Shumar, 2002; Schlager et al., 2009). Their roles are often transformed;
even the mutual relationships among them are symmetrical (Henri and Pudelko, 2003).
In this context, we distinguish between social network and online virtual communities
(Fiore, 2007). It is a conceptual difference according to its opposite social-psychological
foundations: If the dynamic force of communities is to maximise social control on
individuality (i.e., hetero directivity), the compelling force of networks is to maximise
individual control on sociality (i.e., self-directivity).
“From this perspective, communities are closed entities in which agents feel the
pressure to conform to social rules and roles, whereas networks are less
bounded containers and adhocracies, open to being exploited by agents for
individualistic purposes” (p.860).
We focus on these two concepts, social network and digital communities. We are not
looking to establish absolute contrasts, but rather to show the differences that can occur
between scenarios that are positioned across a continuous line. We wonder, more
specifically, what differences may exist between the processes of knowledge generated in
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 149

one or other of these two extremes. At least three characteristics differentiate these two
social contexts, focusing now in social networks. First, knowledge is distributed over the
network; authors seem to be dissolved in the community. Second, the distribution of
knowledge is associated with social roles played by participants in the network; hence
distribution also means sharing the division of labour. Third, the fact that well-defined
personalities are diluted in the network will result in the removal barriers which are also
intergenerational. Finally, those who usually teach hold a certain social power, not
always explicit, but helping to shape social relationships.
Let us now see what a community is. Those who have tried to provide an answer to
this agree that people belong to a group with shared values, goals and behaviours. There
are three defining characteristics regarding this concept. First, there is a sense of
membership, which does not exclude differences among its members, but accepts that
they help to improve the quality of interactions and products that come from it. Second,
in a community there is an interaction similar to ‘face to face’, organised around
everyday and common goals. If they do not exist, interaction cannot occur. Thirdly, the
community is a group capable of reflecting on itself; this community is ‘self-reflective’.
Finally, a community is related to the concept of participation in joint ventures that give
meaning to their activities.
We can go back to Fiore’s (2007) ideas to insist on a new dimension that
differentiates community networks, especially significant in this work. He refers to the
role of discourse in each of them:
“At every moment, boundaries and identities of community are reaffirmed
through language and communication so that communication inside
communities can be visualized as a centripetal force that channels the new
knowledge production vertically. On the other hand, communication inside
networks develops along divergent lines and ends up bridging different
universes of meaning to generate new paths of meaning; it can be visualized as
a centrifugal force that makes the new knowledge production develop
horizontally” (p.860).
To sum up, according to these authors, horizontality in the construction of meaning
prevails on communities, which takes place collectively, whereas networks are all about
individualisation.

2.2 Semiotic domains: external and internal grammars

2.2.1 Semiotic domains, videogames and school contexts
While recognising that digital technology can make students not only consumers but also
producers of popular culture, the question we ask now is, what are the best strategies to
make students develop more advanced ways of thinking and skills related to new forms
of literacy in order to enable them to control the discourses they use? In this context, it is
useful to consider the concept of semiotic domain as introduced by Gee (2007). Semiotic
domains are meanings that make sense in the context of the culture of specific social
groups. In addition, these meanings are attached to specific communities and ways of
acting. We consider that knowledge construction involves realms in which these codes or
representations are used. In that sense, teaching and learning from the video game include
negotiating a multiplicity of discourses in specific semiotic domains when people are
involved in gaming practices. Adopting this perspective let us now focus on the process
150 L. Méndez et al.

of knowledge that takes place inside and outside the classrooms. The thinking processes
present when people play video games are tied to experiences of goal-oriented action in
the material, social and cultural world. Furthermore, these experiences are not just related
to abstract concepts, but also to something somewhat more similar to dynamic images
tied to a perception of the world and of their own body’s internal states and feelings.
Therefore, those who learn to play a video game learn a new semiotic domain.
Whoever plays must learn to think according to certain rules. Some of them are specific
to each game and others are common to all of them. Most include complex and elaborate
worlds in which the action takes place, and whether they are similar to real world
scenarios or purely imaginative. In a way, this is a new form of literacy, which takes
place in a time that is clearly marked by the dominance of audiovisual languages. The
school cannot remain indifferent; teachers have to consider the educational principles
underlying the practice and design of these new discourses to incorporate them into their
teaching.

2.2.2 Internal and external grammars

There are two different ways to look at semiotic domains: internally and externally. Any
domain can be viewed internally as a type of content or externally in terms of people
engaged in a set of social practices:
“Semiotic domains have what I call design grammars. Each domain has an
internal and an external grammar. By an internal design grammar, I mean the
principles and patterns in terms of which one can recognize what is not
acceptable or typical content in a semiotic domain. By an external design
grammar, I mean the principles and patterns in terms of which one can
recognize what is and what is not an acceptable or typical social practice and
identity in regard to the affinity group associated with a semiotic domain”
[Gee, (2007), pp.28−29].
People’s activities help to design external grammars as a set of social practices and
identities that influence the internal grammars. It is important to note that internal and
external grammars of semiotic domains are mutually interrelated. In this research, we try
to make it easier for students to become aware of the internal grammars as a form of
intentional learning and teaching, supported by external grammar, social networks in this
case. We look for new forms of literacy, through an explicit awareness of discourses that
are present in new media.
To understand why internal and external grammars can be related to processes of
knowledge construction, we may consider video games as cultural objects facing certain
challenges by putting into practice problem-solving strategies. Nitsche (2008) refers to
video games as tools that hide the operational logic of a code that a non-expert has
difficulty in understanding. Gamers look at the screen and see the result of that code. In
short, rules always exist behind the player’s fantasy, and they can be expressed in
different languages depending on the system that supports the game. In general terms,
the rules relate to player activity in two ways, firstly by posing limitations beyond which
the gamer cannot go, and also by opening up new possibilities. There is no doubt that if
there is something video games involve from an educational point of view these are
problem-solving processes, closely related to internal grammars.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 151

2.3 New literacies and control of secondary discourses as learning tools

Let us focus on the concept of literacy, which has a long tradition when exploring how
people communicate in specific contexts. We are interested in those models which focus
on the relationship between oral and written language by considering that literacy is a
way of controlling secondary discourses in the contexts where they are produced. Among
the most relevant ideas based on this perspective is Gee’s (1991) approach, which was
made long before. The idea of discourse, according to him, was “a socially accepted
association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to
identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network” (p.5).
Because speech is given a meaning from the context in which it is generated, individuals
shape a discourse every time they act or speak. Given this perspective, it is sometimes
helpful to say that individuals do not speak and act, but that historically and socially
defined discourses speak to each other through individuals.
Moreover, we need to emphasise some ideas that have emerged over the last 20 years
and are still valid today. Literacy is a way of being conscious of one’s own discourse, a
tool for controlling the tools we use and to transform them in more complex modes of use
allowing new and more complex activities of thinking in communicative and interactive
contexts (Barton, 2007; Dobson and Willinsky, 2009). But how do people control their
own discourses? To answer this we need to consider the distinction between two
processes: acquisition and learning. Acquisition is a process of acquiring something
subconsciously through the exposure to models and a process of trial and error without a
process of formal teaching. It happens in natural settings, which are meaningful and
functional. This is how people come to dominate their first language. Learning is a
process that involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching, though not
necessarily from someone officially designated a teacher. In real life, both processes
actually occur simultaneously most of the time. From this point of view, Gee (2010b)
considered the oral mode to be primary discourse; secondary discourses are developed in
association with practice, which is developed through secondary institutions, outside of
family and friends. In that context, Gee explained that “literacy is control of a secondary
uses of language (i.e., uses of languages in secondary discourses).” At this point, he
proposes a definition of literacy that we would like to emphasise here.
Finally, we wish to emphasise the relations between these new forms of literacy and
learning specific contents, which may be expressed through multiple discourses. We must
consider that a discourse control affects not only the ability to communicate through
those discourses, but also in the learning process of their contents. Piaget (1974) noted as
the grasp of consciousness of a thinking process transforms the representations that
people construct of the problem. Several authors refer to the idea that people learn to
teach and solve problems, playing a video game, when they reflect on their experience in
that situation and express it through different discourses (Clark and Gaza, 2012; Shaffer,
2006). It is a process of knowledge construction, a reconstruction of the lived experience,
enabling new world representations by attributing new meanings.

3 Methods

In this paper, research is understood as a situated activity, that locates the observer in the
world, as immersed in the processes of meaning’s constructing (Denzin and Lincoln,
152 L. Méndez et al.

2011). An ethnographic point of view is adopted, combining narrative and analytical

interpretations (Bal and Boheemen, 2009), looking to overcome contrasts between them
(Bruner, 2002).

3.1 The context

The project has been carried out in a secondary education school located in a
neighbourhood near Madrid, Spain. Since 2008, the research team has been present in
this school supporting teachers and students to use commercial video games as
educational tools. Previous experiences look for creating innovative literacy
environments when mass media used in everyday life, such as social networks or
commercial video games, are introduced in the classroom in order to develop new
literacies and specific ways of thinking (Lacasa et al., 2008, 2009).
The present study is part of a broader research carried out during the 201−2011
school year. That time, we focused on a workshop carried out during the English class,
supporting the students and their teacher. The workshop included 13 girls and 14 boys
aged 12−13. Most of them were used to playing video games, but only three people had
previously played The Sims 3. The teacher was highly experienced in her subject
(English) and, like her students, was also a usual gamer, even though she had never
played this specific game before.

3.2 The video game workshop

The research team worked with the teacher, participating in the preparation and
monitoring of the workshop, which had three main objectives. The first one was defined
by the teacher: developing English skills by telling and describing (both orally and in
writing) a fictional world. The second and the third one, suggested by the research team,
were the following: on the one hand, improving the students’ new literacies during the
game session by controlling multimedia discourses; on the other hand, thinking and
solving problems collectively, by being conscious of the rules of the game and
participating in the virtual world of The Sims 3.
This workshop was conducted in two scenarios: inside and outside the classroom
(see Figure 2). In the classroom, students played in small groups with The Sims 3, using
Nintendo Wii. In this scenario, the work sessions took place over two months, a total of
seven sessions which were 50 minutes long replacing traditional English classes. Students
were organised in small groups. They faced the virtual world of The Sims, taking
multiple decisions, creating the main character and living in a virtual world. While
students were playing, they talked about the game, planned their actions and took
decisions together by using English. At the same time, the students participated in
asocial and digital environment, the forum “Jugar y Aprender” http://www.uah-
gipi.org/red/(from 2011-04-01 to 2011-05-26). More specifically, they participated in a
virtual conversational space (forum, including 139 messages), created by the teacher and
the research team to support the games sessions, by facilitating reflective gaming among
participants. Using English, they shared what they did during the game and their
problems to meet the game’s objectives.
Table 1 describes the activities carried out in these two scenarios. Information is
organised according to different moments of the workshop.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 153

Table 1 Classroom activities and forum participation

Activities Scenario: inside the classroom (playing and discussing)

Talking and At the beginning of the workshop, the teacher helped her students to
motivating approach the game. She introduced and explained the ‘task’: choosing
(Session 1) characters and designing a virtual life.
Playing video game. Students played The Sims 3. First, they created their characters by
Game development deciding on physical appearance and personality. Then, they had to
(Sessions 2 and3) build a house to live in. In order to do this they took decisions together
and solved the game’s challenges collaboratively.
Reflect When each session ended, each group presented to all participants what
(Sessions 4 to 7) they had done with their Sims. They shared their problems. Oral
conversations helped them to become aware of their actions during the
game, and to overcome the challenges and strategies to solve specific
problems. This approximation to the elements, which define the rules of
the game, was complemented by activities outside the classroom
(participation in the forum).
Activities Scenario: outside of the classroom (forum). 130 interventions
Communicating After the fourth session, the students began to participate in the forum
through a network created for this project. In the early days, their messages focused on
(in relation to answering the teacher’s questions, telling their peers what their avatars
Sessions 4 to 7) were like and expressing their opinions about The Sims 3.
Building knowledge After the fourth session, the forum became an online conversation
in a network where players shared their knowledge about the video game and, in a
collaborative way, designed strategies to solve the challenges and
problems in the game. The use of this network and the written language
they used provided an elaborated approximation to the discourse and
the rules of The Sims 3.

Figure 2 Reconstruction of the workshop (see online version for colours)

154 L. Méndez et al.

3.3 Learning from commercial video games: The Sims 3

The Sims 3 is a social simulation video game that offers the players a scenario to
construct and develop the game’s actions. The player acts as manager, controlling all
variables and resources, becoming the director and the author of the game’s plot from
multiple perspectives. Therefore, The Sims 3 creates a virtual world to live a parallel
universe, where The Sims may lead a new life in which there are possible multiple
activities that are typically carried out in real life: i.e., finding a job, looking for a partner,
raising a family. One of the most important features of this game is that it offers the
possibility to define not only the characters, but also the environment in which they live
and act between endless creative possibilities.

3.4 Data collection and analysis

All the sessions of the workshop were video-recorded. Moreover, at the end of each
session the teacher produced a summary, which describes what happened, thus enabling
multiple interpretations of the same activities. Also, we had photos taken by the teacher
and by the students while they were playing. This photo collection includes images of
avatars together with the students who had created them. Moreover, we conducted
interviews with the teacher every week (at the beginning, in the middle and at the end).
We also conducted a collective interview with students at the end of the experience. In it,
they exposed their views on what they had learned playing with the video game in the
classroom and participating in the forum.
Data analysis in this paper focuses on the second scenario, that is, on the online
conversations that take place in online environments, more specifically, the forum created
for the project. A similar analysis can be explored in previous works of our research
group (Lacasa et al., 2008). Following closely the approach of ethnography (Hamera,
2011) and educational sociolinguistics (Gee and Green, 1998), we took some
methodological premises in relation to the data analysis that should be taken into account:
• First, we focused not on isolated individuals but in activities organised by cultural
patterns that took place in specific environments. We were interested in the activity
that the students and their teacher carried out in the social network (forum). From the
adopted methodological perspective, we explored the goals which give meaning to
these activities related to social and cultural processes.
• Second, in order to analyse patterns of activity, the contributions of each participant
must be considered as dependent from each other and from the context in which they
emerge.
The discourse analysis was carried out by using HyperRESEARCH 3.0 based on the
following principles (Bloome, 2008; Gee, 2010a):
1 participation in digital conversations generates sharing thinking processes, being
present through the forum entries
2 shared representations of the rules and goals of the game are elaborated by
participating in the forum
3 collective elaboration of the strategies, present in conversations, help to reach the
game’s challenges.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 155

4 Results

The main result of the discourse analysis process was related to the transformation of the
online social space. According to the Fiore’s (2007) distinction, at first, the forum was a
social network and later became an online community.
At the beginning of Session 4, when the virtual social space was created, and
considering the social relationships among the participants, it was observed that the
teacher’s role was to guide, encourage and lead student participation. This moment had a
limited duration and a restricted number of posts (4 days/13 posts). During the first days,
the teenagers individually answered to a question posed by the teacher. As we said
before, her main goal was that the students could develop their English writing skills.
Later on, the forum activity was extended for a month, greatly increasing student
involvement. Their posts answered to different goals, even though the teacher was not
directing and organising the forum. It was no longer about developing writing skills in a
foreign language, but rather, it answered to the students’ need for sharing meanings about
the game. As we can see in this analysis, as the days progressed, the students gained
leadership and the teacher’s intervention decreased to become invisible.
Figure 3 summarises these two moments, how the forum was transformed from a
social network to become an online community (Fiore, 2007). This helped develop
literacy skills, which focuses on the awareness of semiotic domain of the game or what
Gee (2003) defined as internal grammar.

Figure 3 Participation in the forum and approaches to the game (see online version for colours)

4.1 First moment: talking about The Sims

The forum began with a first post by the English teacher asking the students to write their
experience with the game in English and to describe the characters they had created. The
goal of the teacher is clear, and makes sense in the school context:
156 L. Méndez et al.

“Hello everyone. Now we can start talking about The Sims 3. You’ve already
created your own avatars. What is your avatar like? Why did you create it that
way? See you on Monday. Good luck.” (The teacher. 01.04.2011. 14:05)
This entry is related to the same educational goal that she expressed in a previous
interview with the research team. At that time, she explained in an interview with the
researchers that her main goal was related to the foreign language curriculum: students
must develop specific skills to make descriptions and fictional narratives. Besides, she
wanted the students to be able to argue and justify their decisions and opinions in written
form. In the first moment, the teacher took the role of guide and host of the forum. With
her intervention, she imposed an educational goal, which determined the students'
intervention. For this reason, students self-corrected their written expression in order to
meet the academic requirements to write correctly in English.
“Sorry, I want to say ‘when’ and not that symbol” (White. 01.04. 2011. 15:35)
“Sorry, I wrote ‘oly’, and I want to say only.” (Cee2a. 03.04.2011. 19:44)
We observe two interesting aspects to define this forum as a social network. The first one
relates to how participation is organised. The teacher and her students were related
asymmetrically. Individuals were more important than the group as a whole and the
teacher was the only audience. The second one refers to the contents of the messages.
Most of them responded to the request made by the teacher, asking for descriptions of
their avatars and interesting thoughts about the game. However, they are individual
interventions (no Q&A): although there was not a shared construction of knowledge yet,
some posts helped the students to approach specific elements of the game.

4.1.1 What is my avatar like

The messages below reflect the nature of the descriptions that most students created.
These descriptions focus on the similarity or discrepancy with the real aspect of their
authors. In the first two messages, the students (Nuria and Monii) are submerged with
their avatar in the virtual universe:
“Hello!! I think that the Sims 3 is a game in which, in a way, is reflected the
real life and we can experience things that maybe will happen to us in the
future because: we have to take care of the things of the house, take care of
ourselves because if we don’t do that we die, we have to interact with other
Sims... My avatar is similar to my and I have created it that way to try to be
more like in the real life. See you! Bye!!” (Monii2a. 03.04.2011. 16:12)
“My avatar is like I want, I try to do it like me, but is a little bit complicate.
Bye, Nuria.” (Nuria 2a. 04.04.2011. 17.22)
These two previous posts discover different approaches, even complementary, to avatars
in simulation video games. Each message represents the personal process of each student
to design their avatar and the relationships and that can be established, using that avatar,
between real and virtual worlds. Figure 4 shows avatars designed by students.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 157

Figure 4 Students design their own avatars

4.1.2 Personal opinions about the game

In these first moments, the social network created served students and their teacher to get
close to some of rules that define the grammar of the game. At this point these are still
individual contributions, with no real dialogue in this online environment. This first
approach to the video game rules responds to a personal motivation, in this case regulated
by the teacher’s demands.
The messages presented below reflect different approaches to the semiotic domain
(Gee, 2003) of The Sims 3. We will see, looking at the first contribution, that it is the
simplest one; the student merely recognises that he is the first person participating. His
opinion is simple, the game seems to be fun:
“Ohhhhhh, I am the first who write here in this foro. I think the Sims 3 is a very
funny game.” (Walls. 01.04.2011. 15:07)
Moreover, although these are individual contributions, students discover some of the
mechanical aspects of the game, even if only superficially. For example, in the following
post they notice the ability of the Sims to simulate real life in a fictional environment; in
addition, they recognise that the actions performed by the player, although he can
manipulate virtual reality, are limited by the restrictions imposed by the game’s designer:
“SIMS 3! SIMS 3! SIMS 3! The Sims are cool! I really like this game because
is like the normal life except the strange language that they speak.”
(2avladut2a. 01.04.2011. 15.30)

4.2 Second moment: reflecting together on the game

As the days go by, the forum becomes a specific community of Sims players. Next, we
will show how the students and the teacher begin to interact in a more symmetrical way.
This certainly helps to build an online community as part of the external grammar of the
game by building a shared knowledge about both the rules and discourses of the game.
We will explore one of the messages, which sets a benchmark:
“Hi, I think that the game is very funny because you care your Sim. For
example another day my Sim almost died because was hungry and I have to
travel to the supermarket. It’s very entertaining but has estrange thinks like the
thinks that said Sergio, Fran and Viadut that speak a estrange language that
anyone can understand and were better if the Sims speak my language and can
understand. I has a question, the Sims of my group doesn’t eat because the fast
158 L. Méndez et al.

food are finish. I went to the supermarket and now we has food but we didn’t
know how eat because the Sims didn’t eat. Is it necessary that the Sims has to
learn to cook or there are a option to eat without knowing how to cook?”
(Miguel. 2ª 04/04/2011 18:47)
This message, written on the fourth day, is an important turning point. When the teacher
asked, Michael answered by introducing several personal ideas about some of the rules of
the game, but considering the previous contributions of the students. He complains, as
others do, that the Sims do not speak a recognisable language. Being one of the features
of this game, in his opinion it affects the actions of the players: “that speak a estrange
language that anyone can understand and were better if the Sims speak my language and
can understand.” Just as in the early moments of the forum, this student is approaching
the game rules from his individual gamer’s perception but considering the previous
answer.
There are two relevant aspects that distinguish this message from others that appear in
the forum. First, the reference to the message of other students: It’s very entertaining but
has estranged thinks like the thinks that said Sergio, Fran and Viaduct; and second, the
question posed to other players: food but we didn’t know how eat because the Sims
didn’t eat?
These two elements prove that this becomes an online community (Fiore, 2007). The
audience of the message is not just the teacher, as it was in previous interventions. In
addition, practices are shared within the network, but also outside it, in the classroom:
“the Sims of my group doesn’t eat.” In addition, he is confident that the experience of
other peers can help to solve the problem. This post marks the beginning of an interesting
transformation of the forum. It becomes a specific context of communication where
participants share meanings and collectively become aware of specific discourses of the
game.
From this moment onwards, the forum is not just a school practice, it becomes a
social practice. Individuals have less importance than the social group; even the presence
of the teacher was dissolved among the other participants. This change encourages
students to discover the features that characterise the internal grammar of the game (its
structure and rules) and to take more control of specific elements of this digital medium
(the challenges and strategies to address them).
In the next section, we will see how creating a network community within the school
facilitates the acquisition of new literacies. This is an online conversation, a process
focused on the development of secondary discourses (Gee, 2010b) associated with
learning practices and processes of awareness of such practices.

4.2.1 Discovering the rules of the game

For some boys and girls, inexperienced gamers, the code that is behind what they see on
the screen is difficult to understand. The dialogue and interaction in this online
community with other more experienced colleagues, allows that certain signs gradually
acquire a new sense during playtime. Some students share their difficulties when their
actions are constrained and limited by the rules. That happened because the players do
not know or are aware of game elements that guide the gamer’s behaviour. For example,
we will look at a group of players who share a problem that emerged in the classroom
while playing: They could not keep their Sims alive.
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 159

“Hello!! I think that the game is good but I think that it could be more realistic,
with more thinks to create and make. The thing that I don’t like is that the Sims
get sick so fast and the box where are the faces get in red. The last day when
we were playing, in my group, in a moment all the Sims were red and was so
stressful...” (Patry. 06/04/2011. 20:19)
A student’s (Patry) online dialogue begins by describing her experience and outlines the
actions and limitations she had to manage with their characters. The conversation begins
when she expresses her opinion about the game. She highlights the difficulties
encountered to perform actions similar to those carried out in the real world (“but I think
that it could be more realistic).” Moreover, her text refers to how the creatures are beyond
her control: The last day when we were playing, in my group, in a moment all the Sims
were red and was so stressful. Patry does not know why this happens; she ignores some
key elements to understand the game.
Further along the dialogue, other classmates are following the conversation
introducing similar ideas. Finally, one of the students (Walls, his real name being Sergio)
replied by agreeing with his companions. He had the same experience. He can’t avoid his
characters becoming ill and dying either:
“Hello! I think the same that Monica and Patricia. They get ill very quickly.
Now I don’t like the game because my opinion is that we don’t play to get
funny. We play to get alive our Sims because every day that we play my Sim is
red and he is at the limit of death. One question that I have is ... when they are
under stress what can I do to relax them????????? Thank you.” (Walls.
07/04/2011. 20:47)
However, unlike his companions, Walls (Sergio) believes that failing in getting the
characters to relax and stay alive makes the game not fun. This idea raises the
relationship between the problem of the ‘death of the characters’ and the principle of
playability and being fun (Bogost, 2007). In this case, the lack of knowledge of the
material structure and rules that organise the virtual world of the game makes it lose one
of the key features of the Sims: the fact that players can immerse themselves in virtual
reality and transform it. Although his reflection goes a little further than his companions’,
he still cannot figure out why this happens and how to avoid it. The rule remains hidden.
He ends his message by looking for support from more experienced colleagues and by
introducing a question: “when they are under stress what can I do to relax them?????????
Thank you.” This intervention evidences one of the main elements of a virtual
community based on cooperation, solidarity, support and reciprocity. To this request for
help, another student replies:
“Hi Sergio, to relax them you have to go to bed and sleep.” (Cee2a.
07/04/2011. 21:07)
The rule of the game is visible in this game, the principle that determines the behaviour
of the characters; they must put the characters to bed and get them to sleep if they want
them not to die. This conversation is an example of how to create an online community in
the school, focusing on the relationship between students and with minimal presence of
the teacher. Participation in this online community provides a collective awareness of the
rules of the game. Participating in this practice helps students to learn the game as a
specific semiotic domain, not only as skilled gamers but also as people who participate
by interacting with each other and being conscious of the rules of the game.
160 L. Méndez et al.

4.2.2 Defining the challenge and looking for the solution together
In the previous section, we saw how community members were building a common
understanding of the rules of the game. Now, we will discuss other conversations to show
how gamers perceive complex problems during the game. It is not only to find their rules,
but also to face more complex problems that require combining different rules. When
players face specific problems presented in the game, they have to choose between
several ways of addressing them. Throughout their interventions, boys and girls put in
common alternatives to find the solution. They pose hypotheses from past experiences
and share it during the game. Participation in the online community facilitates the
collective consciousness of the best strategies to overcome challenges.
Now, the conversation begins with the intervention of a student asking for help to
solve one of the challenges of the game: he does not know how his avatar, an adult, can
get a job. This is one of the possible goals of the game and an important element for the
construction of the fictional world. To do this, he asks clearly to their peers for the most
appropriate strategies to achieve this goal:
“Hello to all people!!! I have a question, how can I put an adult person to
work? Thanks.” (Pablo. ESO 08/04/2011 17:55)
Several students answered to this request for help. Each of their interventions reflects a
different approach to the problem and to the strategies for solving it. These approaches
are complementary and help to build a new and shared representation of the problem and
its solution. This is an example:
“Pablo, if you want to take a job in the city there are some buildings to take a
job such us policeman or the opposite, a villain I think that if you put the top
view there are different options in the left down of the screen. I don’t know
what options are, but I think that one of those have to be of buildings to do
job.” (mesa2a. ESO 09/04/2011 09:45)
The intervention begins dimensioning the problem: for a character to work, he/she needs
to find a job first. Once the goal is explicit, someone refers to specific elements offered
by the game to find work: the buildings. Some of them, like the police station, are linked
to police work and its opposite (thieves). Finally, someone just offers a hypothesis on
possible actions to solve the problem related to the operators that offer the game: the
options menu at the bottom of the screen: “I think that if you put the top view there are
different options in the left down of the screen.” These actions have to do with specific
decisions that allow the player to take specific steps to achieve the goal. If we analyse
this fragment, considering the strategies offered to solve the problem, we can say that we
have a proximity strategy. There is an advance towards the solution, but giving a simple
explanation and undeveloped. The solution comes in two steps: first, to approach the
buildings and, second, to choose an option from the menu.

5 Conclusions

This paper analyses the introduction in schools of online conversational environments,

focusing on gaming. Our theoretical model is based on two ideas. First, we start with the
concept of participatory culture (Jenkins et al., 2009). From this perspective, we
understand that incorporating digital networks and communities into the classroom, along
 Digital communities and videogames as educational tools 161

with video games, helps to create innovative educational settings to facilitate new forms
of expression and collaboration. Second, it is assumed that young people should develop
literacy skills in new media. To achieve this goal we assume, following Gee (2007), that
new literacies involve deciphering these miotic domains of new media. Interpreting these
domains is not only about decoding their language (words, images, sounds, animations,
etc.), but also interpreting heir grammars:
1 the internal grammar, which is related to the mechanics and rules of the game
2 the external grammar, defined by the shared practices of the players, in this case
participating in an online conversation.
Based on these ideas, we designed an experience developed in two stages. First, the
classroom where students and their teacher played, talked and thought orally with The
Sims 3. In addition to this, the online conversational environment (forum) was created.
The most relevant results emerging from the analysis of what happened in that
environment show its transformation. Following the contributions of Fiore (2007), we
understand that the situation evolved from a social network, in which individual
contributions are important, and became an online community in which the group was
predominant. Participation made it easier for students to approach the discourse and the
rules of the game and enhance the new literacy training process. These results suggest
that when common practices among young people associated with virtual environments
are introduced into the classroom, it is easier to overcome the traditional idea of a literacy
centred on oral or written language. We believe that the schools of the21st century cannot
forego incorporating scenarios that facilitate digital literacy.
This study has some limitations. First, social networking and gaming were introduced
in the school by the teacher and the researchers. Even though they are designed for
entertainment, it was a school context, and this fact certainly affects the perception that
students have of these digital tools. For that reason, it could be hard to explain how to
transfer what they learned in school to everyday contexts. Second, the activities goals do
not always match those of all participants in the study. It will be difficult to build
innovative and sustainable educational environments. It is necessary, therefore, to
continue working in the search for the processes that may contribute to these goals to be
shared.
Here are the directions for future research implied by the study. The investigation on
video games and online communication could be extended to entertainment everyday
contexts, looking also for how people become critical viewers and active participants in
these settings. The focus can be extended to other simulation games such as Sims City
Creator. Also, a new line of research can explore how video games interact with other
digital media, and how new forms of communication emerge supported by audiovisual
discourses.

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