CONTACT | GAMLIT – Research network on GAMing and LITeracies

GAMLIT is open to all researchers working with games from literacy or language perspectives.

If you are a researcher interested in being part of the network, please contact one of the network coordinators:

Thorkild Hanghøj, Aalborg University, thorkild @ hum.aau.dk
Sandra Schamroth Abrams, St. Johns University, abramss @ stjohns.edu
Signe Hannibal Jensen, University of Southern Denmark, sihaje @ sdu.dk
Chris Bailey, Sheffield Hallam University, C.Bailey @ shu.ac.uk

Presentation of the GAMLIT network coordinators:

Thorkild Hanghøj, Ph.D.
Thorkild is a Professor of Games and Learning at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. His research focuses on how games may be used as dialogical spaces for developing literacies by enabling student voices and transforming knowledge across in- and out-of-school domains. This involves a broad range of different game types and pedagogical approaches to games, which pay close attention both to dialogical and material aspects of games. One of the main aims of his research is to develop design principles, which can qualify teachers’ facilitation of games. Currently, Hanghøj is heading two research projects aimed at secondary education. In the Game Journalism project, students produce and publish their own game magazines. The second project is Game-Based Learning in the 21st Century (GBL21), which studies how game-related design thinking activities can foster the development of design competencies and literacies among students in science, mathematics and Danish as L1 subject.

Selected publications
Hanghøj, T. (2022). Teachers’ framing and dialogic facilitation of Minecraft in the L1 classroom. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 22(2), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.21248/l1esll.2022.22.2.364

Hanghøj, T., Kabel, K., & Jensen, S. H. (2022). Digital games, literacy and language learning in L1 and L2: A comparative review. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 22(2), 1-44. https://doi.org/10.21248/l1esll.2022.22.2.363

Hanghøj, T. & Nørgaard, J. (2019). Writing Game Journalism in School: Student Voices on Games and Game Culture. Proceedings of the 2018 Connected Learning Summit, 98-106. https://connectedlearningsummit.org/cls2018/proceedings/

Arnseth, H. C., Hanghøj, T., Misfeldt, M., Henriksen, T. D., Selander, S. & Ramberg, R. (Eds.) (2018). Games and Education: Designs in and for Learning. New York: Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/39531?lang=en

Hanghøj, T., Lieberoth, A. & Misfeldt, M. (2018). Can collaborative video games foster social and motivational inclusion of at-risk students? British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(4):775-799. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/encouraging-inclusion-of-at-risk-students-through-co-op-video-games

Hanghøj, T. (2017). “Read This or Die!” Including at-risk students through game-related literacy practices. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Games-Based Learning, 2017, 219-226.https://issuu.com/acpil/docs/ecgbl2013-issuu_vol_2

Sandra Schamroth Abrams, Ph.D.
Sandra Schamroth Abrams is a Professor of Adolescent Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at St. John’s University in New York. Her research of videogaming and game-based learning reveals a layering of literacies deeply rooted in the seamless movement among modalities and resources within and across digital and nondigital spaces. Overall, Abrams’s work suggests that the nuances of digital worlds and practices can disrupt convention, promote social responsibility, and provide new avenues for pedagogical discovery. She is the recipient of the 2019 USDLA Distance Learning Quality Paper Award and the St. John’s University Outstanding Achievement Award. Forthcoming titles include Videogames, Libraries, and the Feedback Loop: Learning Beyond the Stacks (co-authored), An Integrated Mixed Methods Approach to Nonverbal Communication Data: A Practical Guide to Collection and Analysis in Online and Offline Spaces (co-authored), and Child-Parent Research Reimagined (co-edited). Abrams is a co-editor of the Gaming and Ecologies Series and an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches.

Selected publications
Abrams, S.S., Schaefer, M.B. & Ness, D. (2019). Adolescents’ digital literacies in flux: Intersections of voice, empowerment, and practices.Journal of Media Literacy Education,11(2), 79-94.

Abrams, S.S. (2017). Cooperative competition, reflective communication, and social awareness in public high school math classes. In Y. Baek (Ed.), Game-Based Learning: Theory, Strategies and Performance Outcomes (pp. 357-370). Nova.

Abrams, S.S. (2017). Emotionally crafted experiences: Layering literacies in Minecraft. The Reading Teacher, 70(4), 501-506.

Abrams, S.S. & Lammers, J.C. (2017). Belonging in a videogame space: Bridging affinity spaces and communities of practice. Teachers College Record, 119(2), 1-34.

Abrams, S.S., Merchant, G.H., & Rowsell, J. (2017). Virtual convergence: Exploring culture and meaning in playscapes.Teachers College Record special issue: Virtual convergence: Synergies in virtual worlds and videogames research, 119(12), 1-16.

Signe Hannibal Jensen, Ph.D.
Signe holds a PhD in second language acquisition and works as an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Her research primarily focuses on second language learning in informal contexts (‘the wild’/extramural English language learning). She is particularly interested in examining engagement practices and affordances for language learning in gaming, YouTube and social media among young children (below the age of 11). Her methodological approach is mixed, employing both quantitative methodologies (e.g., language diaries and surveys) as well as qualitative methodologies, such as ethnographic interviews and field observations.

Selected publications
Hanghøj, T., Kabel, K., & Jensen, S. H. (2022). Digital games, literacy and language learning in L1 and L2: A comparative review. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 22(2), 1-44. https://doi.org/10.21248/l1esll.2022.22.2.363

Hannibal Jensen, S. (2022). Doing LLBC Research with Young Learners. In The Routledge Handbook of Language Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom (pp. 367-380). Routledge.

Hannibal Jensen, S., & Lauridsen, J. T. (2023). Extramural English for early language learning: A blessing or a curse?. Language Teaching for Young Learners, 5(1), 85-109.

Hannibal Jensen, S. (2019). Language learning in the wild: a young user perspective. Language Learning and Technology, 23(1), 72-86.

Hannibal Jensen, S. (2017). Gaming as a language learning resource among young children in Denmark. Calico 34 (1), 1-19

Chris Bailey, Ph.D.
Dr. Chris Bailey is a Lecturer in Education at Sheffield Hallam University. Chris’ research converges around a focus on people’s experience of place and space. This includes exploration of play, literacies, community and culture; physical, virtual and hybrid space; lived and affective experience. Chris is also interested in multimodal literacies and meaning making practices and has employed various visual and aural modes in his own academic work. This is exemplified by recent work that uses comic strips, illustration and a focus on soundscapes as a means of exploring theory and representing the complexity of the social world. His PhD Thesis titled ‘Exploring the lived experience of an after school Minecraft Club’ provides an ethnographic study of a group of children creating a ‘virtual community’ using the video game Minecraft, during an after-school club. It illuminates the emergent dimension of play that occurs through collaborative engagement, in and around a virtual world. He also recently worked on the Horizon 2020 project ‘Gaming Horizons’ which sought to explored the role of video games in society.

Website: www.drchrisjbailey.wordpress.com
Twitter: @drchrisjbailey

Selected publications
Perotta, C., Bailey, C. and Garside, C. (2017). Culture, Technology and local networks: towards a sociology of ‘making’ in education, Cambridge Journal of Education, [Online First: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0305764X.2017.1375459]

Bailey, C. (2017). Steve: The Creative Every(hu)man. In: Meija, R. Banks, J and Adams, A. (eds.) The 100 Greatest Video Game Characters. Rowman and Littlefield.

Bailey, C., Burnett, C. and Merchant, G. (2017). Assembling Literacies in Virtual Play. In: Eds. K. Mills, K., Stornaiuolu, A., Smith, A. & Pandya, J. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Digital Writing and Literacies in Education. Routledge [Invited Chapter]

Bailey, C. (2016). Free the sheep: improvised song and performance in and around a Minecraft community. Literacy, 50 (2). pp. 62 – 71. [Winner of the Wiley / UKLA Research in Literacy Education Award 2017]