In late 2006, Henry Jenkins, et al., produced a working paper that debuted alongside a new commitment from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In the paper, Jenkins and his co-authors characterized the emerging field of media literacy as focused on consumption of media and called for an extension of the traditional concepts of media literacy to connect with theories for new media and learning. In order to propel media literacy research forward, they argued, it is important to investigate media consumption and production, but also participation. Participation within a culture “shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to one of community involvement,” (Jenkins, et al., 2006, p. 7). These MIT researchers’ perspective on media literacy education argues for an organic understanding of learning and knowing, one built on the scholarship of researchers in an emerging, trans-disciplinary area of scholarship referred to as the learning sciences (Sawyer, 2006).
Gaming literacies are collections of activities, ways of thinking and participating, designing and playing, all of which contribute to a set of interrelated and interdependent complex systems for thinking about games and gaming. This chapter discusses a media practice sometimes referred to as “games-based thinking” or “gaming literacies” as they are conceived of by the creators of the Game School, set to open in New York City in 2009. The school is designed to highlight these gaming literacies and use them as a framework for developing an entire sixth-grade curriculum. The school is in its early stages of development but tools and ideas around gaming literacies are underway. This chapter discusses these tools and ideas in-progress.