Teaching term is always a busy time - especially around this mid-term point. Work set in the first half of term must be marked, while other projects are just starting off, and lectures still need to be delivered. Still, I managed to find time to attend the first full meeting of the LUDI network in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania at the back end of October. Of course, if you've been following my Twitter feed, you'll already know that, since I tweeted pretty much the whole event, including some snaps of Vilnius.
First up, a little background. LUDI is an EU COST (Co-ordination on Science and Technology) action. It isn't a research grant exactly - it doesn't pay for any research to be undertaken. Instead, as the name suggests, it's all about co-ordination: create a network, surveying current research to identify gaps and so create the opportunities for future research collaborations. LUDI's focus is on play for disabled children. I won't give you all the details: you can find some details on the COST website, and at LUDI's own website, which will be kept up-to-date with the network's activities.
LUDI is concerned with play for play's sake, not play-like activities: so no therapeutic play - just play as an end in itself. So from my projects, Together Through Play is in; myPAM is out. Which isn't to say that play-like activities are bad, or irrelevant, just that play for play's sake in disabled children has so far received a lot less attention.
There are four working groups (WG), looking at the definition and major concepts of play (WG1); technologies for enabling play (WG2 - that's the one I'm in!), the current context of play for disabled children (WG3 - my colleague, Angharad Beckett from Sociology is leading this one!) and looking at the aspirations and views of children and parents (WG4). My working group is looking to compile a database of systems that have been used for enabling play, and what evaluation has been undertaken of them.
Of course, the real benefit of these things is that you get to find out about other research and spend some time really thinking about and discussing new ideas. Here are a few of the really interesting things that stood out for me.
First and foremost, that play is the goal, and learning is incidental - a point made by Playware's Jari Due Jessen. We learn and practice skills in order to play - not the other way round. It's easy to put the cart before the horse, especially with educational, therapeutic and even accessible games or toys. The problem is that if the goal isn't play but something else, then the motivation often isn't there. That has significant implications for Button Bash, and the Together Through Play - did we overemphasize accessibility at the expense of playfulness? Could we have done more to find both?
This was neatly captured by the second thing that stood out for me: Prof. Anita Bundy's (of Sydney University) Test of Playfulness, which provided a framework for observing how playful children were. This captures the main ingredients of play (level of control, suspension of reality, source of motivation, and framing), and provides a neat way of thinking through the whole issue of what play is. It emphasises the creative aspect, and the ability to choose freely - that's interesting, because many videogames are the exact opposite. Not all, of course, and there's a reason why "sandbox" games have become so popular - but even so. Options are limited to a pre-defined set, and simple control schemes tend to limit options even further.
The Test of Playfulness also appeared in the third item of note: the work of Kim Adams, Adriana Rios and Pedro Encarnação - who have been doing some interesting work using a Lego Mindstorms based manipulator, that allows children to interact with their environment through switch control. Fascinating stuff - and particularly interesting because it focuses on extending the agency of the child into the environment, allowing them to use it in surprising and playful ways.
All told, a really interesting time, and it's left me with lots of food for thought! More as it comes.
