Designing and assessing digital games in a classroom: an emerging culture of critique

ABSTRACT

This study explores situated practices of game design critique in a Swedish 4th grade classroom. The analyses are based on video recordings of peer feedback activities within the context of a project on computational thinking using the software Scratch. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the interactional and collaborative accomplishment of design critique is examined, focusing on how the participants make relevant norms and values concerning what constitutes a ‘good’ game. The results of the study show that the children and their teacher orient to different themes that concern aesthetic, functional, and ethical aspects of the games and the design process, at the same time as a moral order in and for the conduct of critique is accomplished in interaction. The study sheds light on the emergence of a local culture of critique as the children learn to formulate and respond to peer feedback, thus negotiating and developing digital literacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessments
• creative media production
• design critique
• digital literacy practices
• ethnomethodology/conversation analysis

1. Introduction

During the last 10–15 years, discussions of digital literacy in school has shifted focus from consumption of digital media (e.g., playing) to processes of creative media production (e.g., making). As a part of this change, programming has seen a remarkable comeback (Kafai and Burke 2013). Whereas coding has been on the curriculum for primary and secondary schools in the UK for several years, in Sweden, the government decided in March 2017 that the curricula were to include a stronger emphasis on digital competence, and in the revised Curriculum for the compulsory school from 2018, programming is highlighted as a crucial skill. At the same time, activities such as playing digital games and watching other people play on YouTube, have become important entry points for many young people into digital literacy (cf. Burwell and Miller 2016). Perhaps it is thus not surprising that schools increasingly turn their attention to the design and programming of digital games to encourage children’s interest in coding (e.g., Kafai and Peppler 2011; Melander Bowden 2019; Peppler, Warschauer, and Diazgranados 2010).

Recent perspectives on literacy claim that the ‘nature of literacy has become deictic’ (Leu et al. 2017, 1), emphasizing that it is context bound as well as contingent, where what it means to be literate changes as technologies, discourses, and social practices develop. Along the same lines, Potter and McDougall (2017) introduce the notion dynamic literacies, a concept that enlarges the overall vision of ‘literacy’ to encompass several dimensions of literacy as flexible and suited to the ‘hybrid and fast-changing ways in which meanings circulate in digital culture’ (37; see also Cannon, Potter, and Burn 2018). In other words, and of particular relevance to our study, literacy concerns participation in a digital world, meaning that literacy is seen to include technological, cultural, and social skills and competencies in ways that embrace the lived, aesthetic, and emotional aspects of literacy (Kafai and Burke 2016; Aarsand and Melander Bowden 2019).

In such a vein, our study focuses on participation in digital literacy practices, or more precisely, on practices of critique in the form of feedback on a game design project using Scratch in a classroom setting. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (e.g., Goodwin 2018; Heritage 1984), we explore the interactional and collaborative accomplishment of design critique as a teacher and her 4th grade students make relevant and negotiate norms and values concerning what constitutes a ‘good’ game and appropriate student participation in the feedback activity. The study thus aims to shed light on the emergence of a local culture of critique as the children learn to formulate and respond to peer feedback.

2. Digital literacy and critique in game design practices

Previous research about children’s and youth’s participation in design and programming practices is dominated by studies that explore the use of the online software Scratch (Resnick et al. 2009). Overall, this research shows that critique and evaluation constitute an essential part of these practices, and that norms guiding assessments derive from as well leisure activities, as the game industry and education (e.g., Kafai and Burke 2015, 2016; Peppler, Warschauer, and Diazgranados 2010). For example, in a study of critique as part of children’s design practices in school, Peppler, Warschauer, and Diazgranados (2010) show that children agreed upon five quality criteria of well-designed games: that they have instructions, levels, points, a win/lose element, and backgrounds. The authors argue that these criteria coincide with aspects of game design as they are described in the professional game design community. This indicates that norms and values connected to design, travel across social constellations and cultural frames. Moreover, Fields, Vasudevan, and Kafai (2015) found that different forms of assessment and peer feedback constituted key moments when students went deeper into the design and programming. That the project groups displayed their work online to experts, made them work toward a higher level of quality. Public assessment of products in the making, was shown to involve both creating and practicing norms of what a ‘good’ product looks like.

Based on studies of youth creating digital games, Kafai and Peppler (2011) identified four participatory competencies that are required for full participation in creative media production. First, technical practices of production, such as being able to code, handle technical problems, develop algorithmic thinking, etc. Second, critical practices that concern referencing, reworking, and remaking of, for instance, older games as a part of new media designs, as well as evaluation and reflection relating to what constitutes a ‘good’ project. Third, creative practices, such as making choices about the application of artistic principles. Fourth, ethical practices that concern intellectual origin and the sharing of insider solutions within a community. Game design in the ‘do-it-yourself’ movements thus consists of a range of social and cultural practices where participatory competencies are developed with respect to both consumption and production of digital media. Kafai and Burke (2016) state that these cultures are characterized by a sharing and trading of ideas that is radically different from the institutional nature of schooling. They argue that schools resist remix as a viable form of classroom based production, that the children are reluctant to share their work in this context, and that it is in other words difficult to predict if and how much schools can drive new ideas and promote creativity in this area.

Buckingham and Burn (2007) remark that ‘aspects of pleasure, sensuality, and irrationality, that are central to most people’s experience of media and of culture more broadly’ (329), rarely are brought to the fore when literacy is discussed. Based on a study of youth making digital games at school, they introduce the concept game literacy, that encompasses three dimensions. The cultural dimension points to experiences of digital games, including constructions of social categories (e.g., gender, social class, ethnicity) and how these become part of media production. The creative dimension underlines how designing games involves critical formation of ludic and narrative elements. Critical dimensions concern an awareness of the ‘conceptual grasp of the semiotic structures of the text’ (334). In Kafai and Peppler’s (2011) words, engagement in creative media production is the act of developing literacies in uni-and cross-directional ways, where digital literacy involves an assemblage and convergence of various participatory competencies developed in different practices. Recently, it has moreover been argued that materiality and lived experience are important aspects of literacy practices, practices that are dynamic and change with respect to time and space and to ways of consuming and producing media in particular contexts (Cannon, Potter, and Burn 2018; Potter and McDougall 2017). Similarly, participation in programming activities is as much about learning the production of code as it is about the social practices and cultural norms in which it is embedded (Kafai and Burke 2016).

In sum, previous research shows how assessments and critique form intrinsic parts of digital literacy practices, and constitute an important site for the negotiation and (re)production of norms and values. It also shows how technical, creative, and ethical dimensions surface in practices of creative media production. However, research on public critique as part of children’s design and programming practices is still scarce. This study aims to contribute to filling this research gap by scrutinizing design and programming as social and cultural practices, directing attention to how norms and values become visible in and through children’s participation in collaborative assessments of game design products.

3. Practices of collaborative assessment in the classroom

In order to analyse how norms and values related to game design are negotiated in a public feedback activity in a 4th grade Swedish classroom, our study is informed by an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic (EMCA) framework. Our focus is on the social life of the classroom, and on how a moral order in and for the conduct of critique is oriented to in interaction. We explore how evaluations and assessments are interactionally accomplished in situated feedback activities, thus constituting a local culture of critique. The analyses follow the sequential organization of actions, focusing on how utterances and actions emerge over time as participants build action by incorporating resources provided by others and the material environment (Goodwin 2018). Moreover, an EMCA approach involves considering social interaction as it is collectively organized by co-participants by mobilizing a range of vocal, verbal, and embodied resources which are publicly displayed and monitored in situ (Mondada 2014). Focus is on ‘the ways in which utterances accomplish particular actions by virtue of their placement and participation within sequences of actions’ (Heritage 1984, 245), as participants negotiate shared understanding on a turn-by-turn basis.

Assessments form an ubiquitous feature of everyday conversations and have been studied extensively (e.g., Goodwin and Goodwin 1992; Lindström and Mondada 2009; Pomerantz 1984). For example, assessments have been shown to contribute to the construction and manifestation of shared experiences and collective affects (Goodwin and Goodwin 1992), are used to make relevant normative principles for evaluating and regulating conduct (Edwards and Potter 2017), and can be related both to the institutional identities of the participants and to social epistemic positions, including orientations to epistemic access, expertise, and experience (Heritage 2002). In other words, in and through assessments, claims to competence, responsibility, and authority may be tested, negotiated, and resisted (Lindström and Mondada 2009).

The institutional setting of classrooms form a particular kind of framing for assessments, as practices of evaluation may be said to constitute the essence of what characterizes classroom interaction, as manifested in the classic description of the IRE-sequence (Mehan 1979) in which the teacher asks a question (I) that is responded to by a student (R), whose answer is evaluated by the teacher in a third turn (E) (see also Lee 2007). Although epistemic asymmetries are transparent in the school setting (with the teacher as epistemic authority) compared to asymmetries in everyday interactions (Stivers, Mondada, and Steensig 2011), the format of lesson participation and its moral accountabilities become at one time a topic and an interactive resource for participants in the construction of the categories of teacher and students (Freebody and Freiberg 2000), and their respective rights and responsibilities. As Macbeth (1991) remarks, the party organization of the classroom cohort is especially delicate and complex, as the student party consists of several (20–30) persons. Classroom interaction is thereby characterized by its publicness, where there is the ‘availability of virtually every remark to everyone else, the more and less sustained candidacy of each student for address, and, generally, the asymmetry of the teacher’s prerogative to shape and direct next turns’ (Macbeth 1991, 285). Consequently, critiquing something that a peer is responsible for is an accountable and potentially delicate matter.

Pedagogical routines and practices are collaboratively produced and interactionally accountable (Freebody and Freiberg 2000). In the activity under scrutiny, the participants are engaged in a collaborative evaluative activity. Within this pedagogical frame, norms for appropriate student conduct, as well as norms and values related to what constitutes a ‘good’ game, will be shown to be made relevant in and through practices of assessment and evaluation.

4. Method: research setting and analytic approach

The data are drawn from a larger videoethnographic study exploring the media literacy practices that children participate in as they use digital and mobile technologies, in school and at home (appr. 75 h of video recordings). In focus are the communicative and multimodal competencies that children develop and how different places and everyday contexts become an integrated part of these literacy practices. Fieldwork was conducted in a Swedish elementary school, in a grade 4 with children aged approximately 10 years, predominantly from ethnically homogenous middle-class family backgrounds. The project has been approved by a regional ethic committee. The teachers and the children’s guardians gave consent to participation in writing, whereas the children were informed about the research project and their rights to decide whether they wanted to participate or not during fieldwork.

In the Swedish curriculum, programming is associated with the subjects mathematics and technology. An interesting feature of the studied setting, however, is that coding and design happened in the arts classroom, where the teacher worked with the children on a computational thinking theme. In this study, we focus on a design project in Scratch that took place during two weeks in which the children remixed an already existing game (Havet är djupt ‘The sea is deep’). The teacher instructed them to modify the visual and auditory aspects of the game design, that is, the sound, the background, the different sprites etc. They were encouraged to work thematically, and to create a coherent game (see also Melander Bowden 2019). Remixing in Scratch is technically easy, and members of the community are free to remix any project that they find at the Scratch website. Moreover, they can develop their own projects based on published ideas and images, although it is encouraged to give credit to the original designers (Kafai and Burke 2016, 76).

The children worked in pairs on their games during one lesson, and the second lesson was dedicated to feedback, both by peers and the teacher. The feedback activity was organized such that each group first presented their game by commenting upon the changes that they had done. A demonstration followed, where one of the children played the group’s game in front of the class, on a laptop with the screen projected on a smart board. After the demonstration the game was evaluated by the other children in class and the teacher.

The analyses are based on extracts from video recordings of the feedback activity and encompass the participants’ use of verbal, non-verbal, visual, and other semiotic resources that the participants draw upon and that are treated as relevant to the evolving organization of actions (e.g., Goodwin 2018; Mondada 2014). The sequences chosen for closer analysis have been transcribed following conventions developed within CA (see Appendix). As the participants speak Swedish, indicative translations into English are provided line by line. The overall interactional structure of the feedback sequences was as follows: (a) the teacher invites feedback with an open request, (b) the children volunteer to respond and the teacher selects one of them as next speaker, (c) feedback is delivered and negotiated, and (d) the teacher evaluates the feedback and the game design. Sometimes the children who have remixed the game are also invited to respond to the criticism. This sequential pattern may be repeated several times for each game and group. In the analysis, we explore the intersections of orientations to game design and the interactional organization of the feedback activity, as the participants make relevant norms of design and what constitutes a ‘good’ game. The focus is on how the participants treat the games as subjects of assessment, and what objects of critique that are made relevant in this process.

5. Analysis: the emergence of a collaborative culture of critique

We have identified three themes that were recurrently oriented to by the children and their teacher while assessing the games: (1) aesthetic design interpreted in terms of the notions of imagination and realism (Extracts 1a and b), (2) technical details oriented to in terms of playability and degree of difficulty (Extract 2), and (3) a moral order related to a culture of shareability (Kafai and Burke 2016, 88) (Extract 3). The extracts selected for closer analysis represent typical examples of the different themes, the norms and values that are being made relevant, and how.

5.1. Evaluating aesthetic design: imagination and realism

We begin by showing how the participants evaluate creative design focusing on aesthetic features. As was mentioned above, designing a coherent theme by changing the visual and auditory aspects of the game was an important part of the assignment. Two of the girls, Ebba and Ingrid, have transformed their game into a winter world. As will be demonstrated, visual and auditory design aspects are oriented to in terms of imagination and realism.

Extract 1a

Feedback_grp5: [160406–12; 12.27.18–12.28.04]

1 ANNA:

a, Nils,

yes, Nils,

2 Nils:

[e::m,]

uh::m,

3 Erik:

[(   ][    )]

4 ANNA:

       [tsch, Erik?] (.) Nils har ordet,=

  tsch, Erik? (.) Nils has the floor,

5 Nils:

=de här va (1.0) in:te så mycke (.) e: fanta↑si: i de här spelet.

this was (1.0) no:t so much (.) uh: imagi↑na:tion in this game.

6 ANNA:

nej?

no?

7 Nils:

de va oerhört verklighets (.) s-tro:get, (0.8) e: för de e en

it was extremely life (.) l-li:ke, (0.8) uh: ‘cause there’s a

8 

pingvi:n som käkar *fisk, å typ *isbjörnar å snö:¿*

pe:nguin that eats fish, and like polar bears and sno:w¿

  anna

*gesture marking the listed item

    *gesture marking the listed item

      *gesture opening up

       for one more item

9 

(1.2)

10 ANNA:

br↑a:,=

g↑oo:d,

11 Nils:

=för pingviner gi:llar ju faktiskt inte när de snö:ar.

‘cause penguins actually ju don’t li:ke it when it sno:ws.

12 ANNA:

nej¿ (1.0) så (.) precis som du så tänker ja att (.)

no¿ (1.0) so (.) just like you’re thinking I’m thinking (.)

13 

den- ni: har ju hållt er till *te:↑mat.

that- you: have ju stuck to a ↑the:me.

             *pointing toward the screen with

             the projected game

14 Sarah:

men isb[jörnar (           )]

but polar bears

15 ANNA:

     [de vill säga att ni har hållt er-] att en i:sbjörn-

   that’s to say that you’ve stuck to- that a po:lar bear-

16 

>Sarah (.) du får gärna begära ordet också.< ö: ja

>Sarah (.) you may ADV request to speak too.< uh: I’m

17 

tänker att ni har hållt er till en *i:smiljö, ni har en

thinking that you’ve stuck to an i:ce environment, you have a

                  *marking item on her thumb

18 

*pingvi:n, den ä:ter fisk som den gör i ve:rkliheten,*

peng:uin, it ea:ts fish as it does in rea:l life,

*on her index finger*and on the third finger*

19

.h *pre↑cis* som du tänker Nils.

.h ↑just like you’re thinking Nils.

*points at Nils*

20 Nils:

°m?°

21 ANNA:

och så gillar den inte när de snö(j)ar. å så kan den bli

and it doesn’t like when it sn(j)ows. an’ it can be

22 

uppäten av isbjörnar.

eaten by polar bears.

When Extract 1a begins, several children have already provided feedback and the teacher simply allocates the next turn to Nils, who has raised his hand, by summoning his name. After some initial overlapping talk by another student who is reproached by the teacher, Nils initiates his feedback by making the negative declarative assessment that there was not much imagination in the game (line 5). The format of the assessment treats the game as the assessable object but does not formulate the evaluation as a personal opinion, what Edwards and Potter (2017) call an object-side assessment. In alignment with the negative value of the assessment, the teacher Anna responds with ‘no?’ that is produced with an upward intonation inviting an elaboration. This indicates that the children are held accountable for providing an account for or motivating their feedback. Nils also continues by first formulating what the game was, using an extreme case formulation (Pomerantz 1986) that justifies his description of the game in terms of lacking imagination: ‘it was extremely life (.) li:ke’. He then elaborates on the realism of the game by enumerating a number of features; that there is a penguin that eats fish, polar bears, and snow. As he does so, the teacher produces gestures that underline the enumeration of items constituting a lifelike game rather than a fantasy world. Anna’s gestures acknowledge Nils’ detailing as valid descriptions, and using verbal and embodied resources the participants collaboratively construct a description of the game. After a brief silence, leaving room for the student to add more items to his list, Anna assesses the feedback positively with a high-pitched and prolonged ‘g↑oo:d’ (line 10), constituting the evaluative third turn of an IRE pattern (Mehan 1979). At this time Nils adds information about the penguins, who are claimed not to like when it snows.

Marking the completion of Nils’ evaluation, the teacher summarizes what the student has said, framing the upcoming as her and Nils’ shared assessment: ‘just like you’re thinking I’m thinking’ (line 12). Anna evaluates the game by noticing that the game designers have stuck to a theme; a positive noticing since working thematically was part of the assignment. As the teacher continues detailing what constitutes the theme by recycling and reformulating what Nils said (lines 15–18) she simultaneously enumerates the details that provide ground for a positive assessment of the children’s execution of the school assignment (highlighted by ‘that’s to say’ in line 15). The category teacher is usually associated with epistemic authority in the classroom (Freebody and Freiberg 2000; Macbeth 1991), but the student who has provided feedback is here also treated as an authority, where the teacher demonstrates a high degree of alignment with the student (lines 12 and 19, saying ‘↑just like you’re thinking Nils’ as she points at him), thus corroborating the feedback as reasonable and well-grounded. The teacher’s utterances thus fulfil the double aim of assessing the remix of the game and the feedback produced by one of the peers.

In response, Nils produces a soft acknowledgement token. Similar to how Nils added information about penguins after the assessment (line 11), the teacher continues by repeating that penguins do not like it when it snows. However, she then elaborates that the penguin ‘can be eaten by polar bears’. This is the first piece of new information produced with the teacher as author rather than voicing or animating (Goffman 1981) what the student has said, and it turns out to be a source of trouble.

Extract 1b

Feedback_grp5: [160406–12; 12.28.04–12.28.28]

25 Nils:

fast (.) fast [d- de e in- de e nå:t som- de e en sak=

but (.) but th- there’s so:mething that- there’s one thing

26 Jonas:

        [(                    )=

27 Nils

 = [som inte stämmer.

that’s not right.

28 Jonas:

[=(        )=

29 ANNA:

[m,]

30 Jonas:

[=()=]

31 Nils:

[e: pingvi:ner å isbjörnar] *bor i [nte på sa]mma ställe.

uh: peng:uins and polar bears don’t live in the same place.

  anna

*puts her right hand on Nils’ head->*

32 Jonas:

[=(               )]

33 ANNA:

                    [ > vänta Nils.<]

>wait Nils.<

 fig. 1.1

34 ANNA:

*ly#ssnade du på Nils nu. e:n* gång till Nils,

did you listen to Nils now. o:ne more time Nils,

*stretching a pointing arm toward Jonas* then withdraws both hands

  fig

#1.1

35 Nils:

e: (1.1) pingvi:ner å £isbjö:rnar bor i(h)n:t(h)e:

uh: (1.1) penguins and £polar bears do:(h)n’t(h)

36 

på samma stä:lle£.

live in the same pla:ce.£

37 Adam:

nä de: skulle bli katastro:f för pingvi:nerna.

no tha:t would be a disa:ster for the pe:nguins.

38 ANNA:

ja eller hur.

yeah wouldn’t it.

fig. 1.2

39 Jonas:

+uah::#::.+

+enacting a frightened penguin by flapping his arms+

fig

    #1.2

40 ANNA:

så li:te fantasi ändå.

so a li:ttle bit of imagination anyway.

Nils objects that something is not right (lines 25/27), framing the upcoming as a negative assessment. The initial part of the utterance is produced with hitches in the shape of restarts and a repair from the general ‘something’ to the more precise ‘one thing that’s not right’, as Nils proceeds to make relevant a factual problem, by noticing that penguins and polar bears do not live in the same place. This is also an argument against his earlier claim of the game being ‘extremely lifelike’. As some children have been talking simultaneously, the teacher asks Nils to repeat what he just said, and Nils reproduces the utterance with a smile voice and inserted laughter particles (lines 35–36), adding an affective, humorous stance to the factual declarative. Aligning with Nils, Adam agrees by spelling out the consequences would penguins and polar bears live in the same place, ‘no tha:t would be a disa:ster for the pe:nguins’, positioning himself as a similarly knowing participant. The teacher produces a response that has the shape of a free standing tag question ‘yeah wouldn’t it’ (Swedish eller hur), that confirms and aligns with the previous utterance. A third boy, Jonas, adds a modality to the descriptions as he enacts a penguin flapping his arms and producing a sound of fear, thereby making an embodied display of affective alignment (fig.1.2). At this stage, rather than elaborating upon the problematic facts, the teacher returns to the dichotomous pair imagination and realism. That polar bears and penguins appear in the same landscape is described as imaginative, ‘so a little bit of imagination anyway’ (line 40), and not a problem. Departing from the teacher’s observation that the penguins can be eaten by the polar bears, the participants collaboratively construct the arisen scenario as funny and playful. In other words, both imagination and realism are treated as aesthetic rather than factual categories, with an associated logic of correctness that is linked to thematic coherence and cohesive animation, in this case creating an ice world.

As an intrinsic part of the organization of the feedback activity, the teacher carefully monitors and manages the distribution of talk and embodied action, thereby reinforcing an accountable interactional order (Freebody and Freiberg 2000). She actively works to maintain a listening audience where one speaks at a time, everyone listens to whoever has the floor, and speaking turns are requested. For example, the shushing reproach in line 4 ‘tsch, Erik? (.) Nils has the floor’ works to uphold a two-party structure of one speaker and an audience consisting of the cohort of students (cf. Macbeth 1991). Similarly, the teacher inserts a disciplining utterance in the shape of a declarative directed at Sarah in line 16 ‘you may ADV request to speak too’ (appr. ‘you’re welcome to request to speak’) in response to Sarah having self-selected to speak in line 14 (‘but polar bears ( )’). When some of the children, and in particular Jonas, are talking, the teacher halts the progressivity of actions by requesting Nils to wait (line 33) as she holds her hand on his head, points at Jonas and asks ‘did you listen to Nils now’ (fig.1.1), and then gives the floor back to Nils with the directive ‘o:ne more time Nils’ as she withdraws her hand from Nils’ body and steps back to the front of the classroom. In all, these practices from an integral part of the development of a culture of critique in this classroom.

5.2. Evaluating functional design: difficulty and product development

We proceed by demonstrating how the children orient to technical details of the games, and how the teacher introduces domain-specific language such as ‘product development’ and ‘degree of difficulty’. In comparison to Extracts 1a and b, where the design was interpreted and evaluated in terms of aesthetic categories, technical aspects are shared and discussed in a detailed way where some solutions are explicitly made relevant as better than others. In Extract 2, the peers are providing feedback on Mia and Jonas’ game.

Extract 2

Feedback_grp1: [160413–12; 12.06.54–12.07.48]

1 ANNA:

va tänker du Hugo.

what are you thinking Hugo.

2 Hugo:

<att > ja tyckte att munkarna va gansk- >lite

<that > I thought that the doughnuts were prett- >a bit

3 

för stora.< tycker ja.

too big.< I think.

4 ANNA:

[↑ja,]

↑yeah,

5 Jonas:

[nej?] dom va samma stor[lek som- ]

no? they were the same size that-

6 ANNA:

           [*vä- vä]*nta lite.

         wa- wait a little.

         *points at Hugo

                *points at Jonas

7 

lå[t honom prata.]

let him talk.

8 Hugo:

  [de e därför dom] blir för sto:ra.

  that’s why they become too bi:g.

9 ANNA:

*a:?*

ye:s?

*points at Hugo*

10 Hugo:

asså:: fö:r till slu:t så kom de inte så många

li::ke ‘cau:se in the e:nd there weren’t that many

11 

sam↑tidigt. men på:: de riktia då kan de komma (.)

at the same ↑time. but in:: the real then it can come (.)

12 

>typ såhär < tre: i ra:d? å då kan de bli supersvå:rt.

>like < three: in a ro:w? an’ then it can become super di:fficult.

13 Mia:

men e re inte de man vill.

but isn’t that what one wants.

14 ANNA:

men vänta. (.)

but wait. (.)

15 Several:

((mumbling talk during 2 s))

16 ANNA:

ne:j? ja- ja: >ja ja < tycker att du har en poäng?*(.)

no:? I- I: >I I < think that you have a point? (.)

*showing the size of

the sprite with her right hand->*

17 

vet du varför. >för att > precis som du sä:ger.<

do you know why. >because > exactly as you sa:y.<

  fig. 2.1

18 

att svårighetsgraden# blir ganska stor för

that the degree of difficulty becomes pretty high ‘cause

   fig

#2.1

 fig. 2.2

19 

munka*rna blir så stora så man #vet inte var

the doughnuts become so big that one doesn’t know where

->*moving hand back and forth enacting moving sprite

   fig

#2.2

20 

man ska ta vägen me flodhä:sten.*samtidigt va

to go with the hi:ppo. at the same

                *showing the shape of the sprite->*

21 

flodhästen (.) re:lativt li:ten. >hade den varit

the hippo (.) was re:latively sma:ll. >had it been

22 

lika stor som munkarna då hade de här *spelet

the same size as the doughnuts then this game

->*hand back and forth->*

23 

nästan varit o*::möjligt. *men den va ju li:ten.*

would have been almost imposs:ible. but it was ju sma:ll.

       ->*        *moving hand back and forth*

24 Jonas?:

a?=

yes?

25 ANNA:

=men ja tänker de hä:r e ju en produktutveckling man

but I’m thinking thi:s is ju a product development one

26 

kan jobba me *precis som du sä:ger Hu [go.*] att man kan=

can work with exactly as you sa:y Hugo. that one can

     *pointing gesture toward Hugo*

27 Jonas:

                    [hh hm]

28 ANNA:

=a:rbeta me de här (.) när man gör spel näs↑ta gång.

wo:rk with this (.) when making games the ↑next time.

29 

att tä:nka på att inte ha så stora ↑saker. eller hur.

to thi:nk about not having that big ↑things. right.

30 

å *de kan ju gälla alliho:*pa. så de e en jä:ttebra

and that can ju concern e:veryone. so that’s a rea:lly good

*circling pointing with both hands indicating the whole group*

31 

reflektion.

reflection.

The sequence is initiated by the teacher nominating Hugo as next speaker, inviting him to share what he is thinking (line 1). The boy delivers a critical evaluation that directly ties onto the format of the teacher’s request: ‘<that > I thought that the doughnuts were prett- >a bit too big.< I think’. The negative critique is delivered in a mitigated way; the adjective ‘pretty’ is abandoned and replaced with ‘a bit too big’, where the repair brings more precision to the comparative aspects of the evaluation, as the sprites being ‘a bit too big’ poses a problem for the playability of the game. Moreover, the boundaries of the assessment are marked with ‘I thought’ and ‘I think’. The Swedish tycker (think) expresses an opinion and affective stance whereas tänker (thinking) is cognitive rather than affective. In other words, the modalized stance provides for Hugo’s subjectivity and marks the said as a subject-side assessment (Edwards and Potter 2017). The mitigated evaluation of his peers’ work, shows an orientation to the sensitivity of delivering negative assessments, something that has been shown to be dispreferred in ordinary conversations (Goodwin and Goodwin 1992; Pomerantz 1984) as well as in classrooms (Macbeth 2003). In response, the teacher produces the high-pitched and encouraging ‘yeah,’ that is overlapped by one of the game designers who initiates a defence of his position by arguing that the doughnuts were the same size as what they had replaced them with (line 5). The teacher does not let him talk, but tells him to wait and let Hugo speak. Similar to what we demonstrated in Extracts 1a and 1b, the teacher makes relevant a moral and social order in which one speaker talks at a time, and where students are held accountable for listening to and taking into consideration negative feedback (Freebody and Freiberg 2000). After the go ahead, Hugo first responds to Jonas’ claim that they have not changed the size of the sprite, targeting this fact as the problem: ‘that’s why they become too bi:g.’ He continues by elaborating on his critique as he describes a future hypothetical situation in which the size of the doughnuts would make the game ‘super di:fficult’. Mia, who remixed the game together with Jonas, intervenes and objects ‘but isn’t that what one wants.’ Drawing on experiences of what makes a game fun to play she makes relevant a norm stipulating that games should be difficult to play. Both Jonas and Mia are challenging Hugo’s epistemic authority by objecting to his assessments (cf. Lindström and Mondada 2009). Besides being the ones who remixed the game and who are thus in a primary position to object, the formulation of Hugo’s assessment as a subject-side assessment, opens up for other participants to present other points of view.

The teacher manages the interactional organization of the feedback activity by telling the game designers to once again wait (line 12). She proceeds to highlight Hugo’s point of view as having ‘a point’, explicitly aligning with his assessment ‘>exactly as you sa:y.<’, and in the following turns she elaborates upon and reformulates his critique. She thus uses the third turn position in the IRE-sequence, described by Lee (2007) as a place where teachers carry out the contingent task of responding to and acting on prior turns while moving the interaction forward in particular ways, to introduce technical terms such as ‘degree of difficulty’ (line 18) and ‘product development’ (line 25), and to provide elaborate and embodied descriptions of the relative size of the sprites (fig. 2.1 and 2.2) and how this is related to the playability of games (lines 16–30). Anna provides an account for her criticism by describing the difficulty – ‘’cause the doughnuts become so big that one doesn’t know where to go with the hi:ppo’ as she enacts the moving sprite with her hand (fig. 2.2) – but then goes on to mitigate the criticism by presenting a contrasting case: if the hippo had been as big as the doughnuts the game would have been almost impossible but ‘it was ju sma:ll’. The Swedish epistemic adverb ‘ju’ works to make the fact that the hippos were small into something that is shared knowledge and recognized by everyone present, thus anchoring the assessment in their shared experiences. While building upon the assessment provided by a peer, the teacher’s turn in a finely tuned way balances between reinforcing negative criticism and protecting the face of the game designers (Goffman 1967 on facework, 5–45). The critique of the individual project is mitigated by turning the subject of criticism, into a concern for everyone. For example, in reflecting upon the size of the sprites, the teacher consequently uses the generic pronoun man ‘one’ (lines 19, 20, 25, 28) rather than ‘you’, thereby formulating the critique as generally applicable, and as explicitly not concerning only the designers of this game: ‘an- that can ju concern e:veryone’ (line 30) as she makes a pointing gesture with both hands indicating the whole group of children. Moreover, the critique is formulated as something to think about in the future, ‘when making games the ↑next time’ (line 28), and not as something that needs to be corrected here and now. As in Extract 1, the teacher turn is concluded by a reconnection to the student that has formulated the feedback, producing a high-grade assessment of his contribution: a ‘rea:lly good reflection.’ The shift from the description of the game to an assessment of the student’s actions marks the move toward closure of this part of the feedback activity (cf. Goodwin and Goodwin 1992).

A local social and moral order of critique emerges in and through the participants’ interaction, where the game designers are held accountable for listening to critique before responding. When evaluating the technical aspects of the games, a right and wrong way of solving problems is made relevant. In this case, the sprites can be too big or too small in relation to a degree of difficulty. The children as a group are expected to take into account the critique and incorporate it into future actions under the notion of product development.

5.3. Evaluating ethics in design: cheating and sharing

In Extract 3, the game designers have coded a cheat, making it possible to win one thousand points in one keystroke. When deciding to code the cheats, the children draw upon their experiences of gaming and what makes a game fun to play (Buckingham and Burn 2007; Cannon, Potter, and Burn 2018). The original game was not possible to win, and the first thing that the children have coded is this possibility. In Extract 3, they have moreover added a cheat code. Cheating is particularly sensitive in a classroom context where it is generally banned, whereas in the gaming world it can instead be considered as part and parcel of what constitutes expertise (Kafai and Fields 2013). In the studied classroom, a culture of sharing is made relevant, where the children are accountable for sharing their knowledge and skills with one another. When the extract begins, Hugo has just finished demonstrating the game that he has designed together with Paul. The teacher opens the feedback section with an open question (does someone want to say something about the game, not in the transcript) and selects Andreas as next speaker by pointing at him and producing the imperative ‘te:ll us’.

Extract 3

Feedback_grp4: [160413–12; 12.18.54–12.19.43]

1 ANNA:

*a? berä: [tta.

yes? te:ll us.

*points at Andreas

2 Andreas:

         [†fu#:::sk#,† ((creaky, shrieking voice))

   chea:::t,

    † leans back as he shrieks and then front again†

  fig

#3.1 #3.2

3 ANNA:

↑fusk? (.) på vicket sätt?

↑cheat? (.) in what way?

4 Andreas:

e:: att(h) dom har lagt in så att e: (1.1).hhh hh

uh:: that(h) they have entered so that uh: (1.1).hhh hh

5 

om man try:cker på vissa knappar (.) eller (.) en viss

if one hi:ts certain keys (.) or (.) a certain

6 

<knapp,> (.) så:: kan man få tu:sen poäng. (.)

<key,> (.) the::n one can get one thou:sand points (.)

7 

eller kanske mer¿

or maybe more¿

8 ANNA:

(du) märkte de. (så ett poäng blir nästan)

(you) noticed that. (so one point becomes almost)

9 

tusen poäng¿

one thousand points¿

10 Andreas:

a. ja: har redan listat ut hur man gö:r de.

yeah. I:’ve already figured out how you do: it.

11 ( ):

v [a? kan man få: de:.]

what? can one ge:t tha:t.

12 Oliver:

    [om man trycker på ]en knapp så får ma [n tus]en poäng.

if you hit one key then you get a thousand points.

13 ANNA:

                     [be↑rätta.]

                    ↑tell us.

14 ANNA:

>nej, stop [p nu.<]

>no, stop now.<=

15 Andreas:

      [ < ne::]:j > ja tänker inte be:rätta. >ja få:r inte.

  <no:::> I’m not going to te:ll. >I ca:n’t.

16 ANNA:

>nehej.< kan ni: berätta hur ni har gjort då.=för

>noho.< can you: tell us how you’ve done then.=’cause

17 

de här e ju också en > sån här [sak-<]

this is ju also one of > these things-<=

18 Hugo:

                [asså ] de va: ganska

               like it wa:s pretty

19 

lätt man gick in så hära:-

easy you entered li:ke-

20 Ebba:

>°i skriptet?°<

>°in the script?°<

21 Hugo:

vänta ja ska tänka: hur [man gjorde. så här] när=

wait I have to thi:nk about how you did it. like this when

22 Ebba:

                [(>°i skripte*t?°<) ]

            (>°in the script?°<)

  anna

                      *turns gaze to Ebba, smiling

fig. 3.3

23 Hugo:

=*gr#ö:n (.) el*ler.hh när me:llanslag trycks ner.

gree:n (.) or.hh when spa:ce is hit.

  anna

  *touches Ebba’s leg

  anna

      *turns gaze back to Hugo

  fig

#3.3

24 

sätt <poäng> <TILL> <ettu:sen.>

change <points> <TO> <one thou:sand.>

24 

*(1.0)*

25 ANNA:

*nods*

26 ??:

hm [↑::m::::,]

27 ANNA:

    [precis.] [så att- ]

exactly. so that-

28 Hugo:

          [ > så de e super]lätt.<

                 >so it’s supereasy.<

29 ANNA:

så att de e su::perlätt å ändra i skri:ptet å så

so it’s su::pereasy to change the scripts an’ then

30 

bli:r de som man har tänkt sej då.

it tu:rns out the way one wants it then.

In response to the teacher’s open request, Andreas exclaims ‘chea:::t’ with a creaky and shrieking tone of voice as he leans backwards, in all adding an affective layer to the utterance (fig. 3.1 and 3.2). The teacher responds by repeating ‘cheat’ in a similarly heightened tone of voice, highlighting the crucial lexical item cheat. Moving on to request an elaboration, ‘in what way?’, the student is held accountable for the claim of having identified a cheat. Andreas explains how the cheat works, and that the game is coded so that one keystroke may render one thousand points, thereby positioning himself as a knowing participant. The teacher also claims to have noticed the cheat (lines 8–9) which is displayed by a reformulation of Andreas’ description emphasizing how one point becomes one thousand. The evaluative turn in lines 8–9 reveals the pedagogical framing of the activity, as it turns out that the teacher’s question in line 3 was a ‘known information’ question (Mehan 1979; Lee 2007).

At this stage, Andreas claims inside knowledge by declaring that he has already ‘figured out how you do: it’, although not specifying whether he has figured out the actual coding or simply the required action (i.e., which key to hit). That not all children have discovered the cheat is displayed in how one child responds to Andreas’ turn with a ‘what? can one ge:t tha:t’ (line 11), whereas another boy Oliver, in overlap recycles what Andreas has said ‘if you hit one key then you get a thousand points’, thus claiming knowledge of the cheat. The teacher once again encourages Andreas to reveal what he claims to know with the imperative ‘tell us’ (line 13), but this time Andreas refuses, justifying his resistance by saying that he ‘can’t’ (the Swedish får inte also connotates ‘not being allowed to’), thereby also claiming exclusive epistemic access.

In other words, revealing that there are keys that you can hit in order to get many points is not treated as problematic, but telling how the cheat is coded is not ‘allowed’. The teacher responds with a quick ‘>noho<’ and then turns to the children who have coded the cheat, asking them if they can tell how they did it. The question is posed in a way that opens up for a declining answer, but is followed by an account ‘but this is also something that’, in all suggesting that the normative order of this classroom makes a declining answer highly accountable. A culture of shareability (Kafai and Burke 2016, 88) is invoked, encouraging cooperation and communication, rather than protection of ideas and ways of doing. Disregarding the teacher’s ongoing talk but aligning with her question, Hugo answers in overlap, framing his answer as something that was easy to do: ‘it was pretty easy’. In other words, he treats the cheat code as something that he is prepared to share and something that he claims knowledge of. When Hugo slightly hesitates after ‘you entered li:ke-‘ in line 19, Ebba displays knowledge of the required action by producing ‘>°in the script°?<’ positioned as a candidate collaborative completion (Lerner 2004), possibly interpreting Hugo’s unfinished turn as a word search. Her contribution is however ignored as Hugo continues talking. Entry of a speaker into the turn space of another is interactionally organized as a conditional entry, and a place for the original speaker to maintain authority or authorship over their turn’s talk (Lerner 2004, 249). Hugo produces an insertion that attempts to pre-empt further contributions by stating ‘wait I have to thi:nk about how you did it’. The utterance refers to a cognitive process and works to delay the actual description of how the cheat was done. At this time, however, Ebba repeats her suggestion ‘>°in the script°<’ in overlap with Hugo’s turn. This is not attended to by Hugo this time either, but the teacher turns her gaze to Ebba and smiles as she puts her hand on her thigh, in an embodied way preventing her from further talk (fig. 3.3). A silent and gentle reproach that is oriented to upholding classroom order and the organization of the feedback activity (Freebody and Freiberg 2000; Macbeth 1991). In addition to maintaining authorship over the turn, Hugo sustains his position as a knowing participant, as he proceeds to tell about the code: ‘when gree:n (.) or.hh when spa:ce is hit. change <one thou:sand.>’. Green refers to what colour category the code is part of and the action description is written on the combination of blocks. Knowledge-taken-for-granted in his description is for example which section the code should be inserted into. The teacher acknowledges his telling with a nod and an aligning ‘exactly.’ as Hugo in overlap produces a concluding assessment of the complexity of the coding ‘>so it’s super easy<’, thus upgrading what was formulated in lines 18–19 as ‘pretty easy’ to ‘super easy’. One child also produces an ‘hm↑::m:::,’ that has the sense of a change-of-state token that receipts the information as new (Heritage 2002). Upon hearing this second assessment, Anna repeats the high grade assessment downplaying the complexity of the coding, and adds the possibility of customizing the game according to one’s wishes (line 30).

While evaluating the game, Andreas positions himself as part of an initiated group. At the same time, he is reluctant to reveal the secret. He could thus be said to orient to a local distribution of rights and responsibilities regarding ‘what each party can accountably know, how they know it, whether they have the rights to articulate it, and in what terms’ (Raymond and Heritage 2006, 681). Andreas orients to a morality of not sharing what he has discovered or been told; he is not the owner of the cheat as he did not code it. In contrast, the teacher makes relevant a culture of sharing connected to the Scratch environment (Kafai and Burke 2016; Kafai and Fields 2013), in which the children are held accountable for sharing their knowledge of coding with each other. However, when the teacher turns to the game designers, she can be understood to accept that not everyone is accountable for telling what they know. Moreover Hugo, in his role as game designer, does not show any reluctance in sharing how he has done. Ethical issues are thus raised in relation who has a right to tell, what should be shared, and who is accountable for sharing (cf. Raymond and Heritage 2006). However, the potentially morally problematic action of cheating, in particular within this school context, is not addressed. Instead, the coding is highlighted, and being able to change scripts is positively assessed.

6. Concluding discussion

We have explored children’s participation in digital literacy practices by focusing on game design critique in a Swedish 4th grade classroom. Moving beyond the dichotomization of ‘playing’ versus ‘making’, the study contributes to an understanding of what students may learn in the process of designing games in ways that go beyond coding skills and includes the embedded social practices and cultural norms (Kafai and Burke 2016). We have shown how students’ public assessment of game design draw on aesthetic, ethical, and functional experiences and competencies, and how a moral order in and for the conduct of critique is oriented to and accomplished in interaction. Scrutinizing the details of social interaction is essential in order to gain a deeper understanding of how an emergent culture of critique is constituted at the intersections of classroom evaluation practices and game design, where norms of appropriate student feedback practices as well as norms related to design are oriented to.

The format of lesson participation involves two main participant categories – teachers and students – that are bound to particular rights, expectations, and moral accountabilities (Freebody and Freiberg 2000; Macbeth 1991). Our analyses show how the teacher practices her right to assess student participation, both in terms of game design and in relation to how the children present and respond to public critique. A more important aspect of the interactional organization of the feedback activity, however, is how the teacher manages peer feedback. The sequential pattern shows how one student at a time is selected and asked to communicate an evaluation of the game. The epistemic and authoritative position of the student is reinforced by the teacher as she aligns with the critique by repeating, recycling, and affiliating with the student’s assessment, thereby turning it into a shared and sometimes collaborative assessment. Moreover, the teacher works to secure the interactional order by actively sustaining the participation framework ‘teacher’-‘evaluating student’-‘student party’, using verbal and embodied resources to request the student group to be quiet and listen to the student who is providing feedback. The analyses of the social organization of critique thus demonstrate the interactional work involved as the students occupy different positions during the public performance. In this way, the critique of the game is reinforced as relevant to the whole group, and it is discussed, reformulated, and turned into general principles. Thereby, the critique also tells the participants what is considered a ‘good’ game within this school context.

The participatory competencies identified by Kafai and Peppler (2011) are useful when discussing what emerges as ‘good’ game design. While playability and a good game experience seemed to always matter when the students design and assess digital games in this classroom, aesthetic, technical, and ethical competencies became relevant as the teacher requested that the students account for their assessments and when the games were evaluated in more detail. Aesthetic practices were valued in open-ended ways, emphasizing imagination, although at the same time reinforcing a logic of correctness related to thematic coherence and the formulation of the school assignment. In contrast, technical solutions were evaluated as right or wrong, and the source of future improvement. Cheating, imitation, and the like are often considered problematic in a school context. In our data, the teacher instead invoked a culture of sharing, where the ethical practices that emerged generated questions of sharing that were related to who has the right to share, what should be shared, and who is accountable for sharing. What counts as competent participation in this literacy practice is negotiated in changing and dynamic ways where conventional school norms of individual work and no cheating are challenged (cf. Cannon, Potter, and Burn 2018).

Our results corroborate that design critique concerns critical reflection and evaluation, as shown by how peer feedback is carefully monitored by the teacher. However, as critique is formulated and responded to, the results of the study moreover demonstrate that issues related to the other participatory competencies are actualized. In this context, the fact that the activity took place within an arts classroom, where the teacher worked on design and aesthetic features of the game alongside coding skills is not without significance. The findings indicate the possible advantages of moving beyond the mathematics or technology curriculum (Curriculum for the compulsory school 2011/2018) that state that students should develop knowledge in programming to, for example, ‘explore problems and mathematical concepts, make calculations and to present and interpret data’ (55) and to be able to control objects by means of programming (297). Following Kafai and Burke (2016), it could be argued that the curriculum follows conventionalized ways of thinking about programming in school settings, whereas the local interpretation opens up for new and creative ways of working. In fact, the results of the study imply that design critique may be a particularly powerful way of developing the competencies required for full participation in creative media production.

To sum up, the norms and values that are displayed in the context of the feedback activity, show an example of how digital literacy competencies may work at the intersections between a gaming culture and school culture, between playing and making, as well as between leisure and school. The practices of assessment display what counts as a ‘good’ game (e.g., cheats, appropriate level of difficulty) and what constitutes a well performed school assignment (e.g., following instructions, participating in the feedback activity). Moreover, the detailed analyses of participation directs attention to how students’ lived experiences and knowledge from various settings and practices are made relevant and valued within the educational frame. In other words, the results of the study show how digital literacy is negotiated, adjusted, corrected, and developed within an emergent culture of critique.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Helen Melander Bowden’s research interests concern knowing and learning in interaction, and the role of epistemics and emotion in the unfolding organization of action. Her research covers learning in interaction in peer groups, children’s digital literacy practices, instructional work, and interaction in professional contexts. She is Associate Professor of Education.

Pål Aarsand is Professor at the Department of Education and Lifelong learning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His research interest concerns children’s digital media practices and phenomena such as gaming, playing, identity work, and digital literacy.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation: [Grant Number MAW 2014.0057].

Appendix

Talk has been transcribed according to conventions developed by Gail Jefferson (2004) and for embodied actions we have used a simplified version of Mondada (2018).

Table

[ ]	Overlapping talk.
=	No break or gap between the lines or words.
(2.1) (.)	Numbers indicate length of silence in seconds. A dot indicates a micropause less than 5/10 of a second.
., ¿?	Punctuation marks indicate intonation. The period indicates falling intonation, the comma continuing, the inverted question mark slightly rising and the question mark indicates a rising intonation.
::	Colons are used to indicate prolongation or stretching of the immediately prior sound.
-	A hyphen indicates self-interruption.
word	Underlining indicates stress or emphasis.
° °	Degree signs indicate talk that is quieter than surrounding talk.
£ £	Pound signs indicate talk produced with smiley voice.
↑	The up arrow marks a sharp rise in pitch.
< > > <	Left/right carets indicate that talk between them is slowed down. Right/left carets indicate that talk is speeded up.
.hh	Hearable inbreaths.
w(h)or(h)d	Laughter particles.
* *	Gestures and action descriptions are delimited between symbols.
->*	Gesture or action continues until the same symbol is reached.