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The new social studies of childhood point to the need for studies which explore young people's uses of technology. Multiplayer computer games provide an important site for exploring the role of new technologies in young people's lives, in particular in relation to issues of representation, identity, and community, and to the changing nature of literacy and textuality in these multimodal texts. This paper reports on a small study of six teenage players of multiplayer computer games. Five boys and one girl aged 15-16 were interviewed individually about their game playing practices and preferences, and filmed as they played online. The study focused on issues of representation and community online, the experience of playing online and on intersections between traditional print-based text, visual images, symbols, sound, interactivity, and other elements as these young people played the games. (Contains 14 references.) (PM)

Questions about the implications of the new technologies for literacy, literacy teaching, and literacy practices provoke diverse and contradictory responses in the media, in policy documents, in state and national assessment surveys, and among teachers themselves. On one hand, the need for literacy to be reconceptualized and redefined in the face of rapid change seems overwhelming. On the other, definitions of literacy, particularly as they are enacted in curriculum and assessment policies and in schools, for the most part remain largely print based. A pilot study with four teachers in two secondary schools in Australia explored the implications of the new technologies for literacy and the English curriculum. The focus was on what it might mean to extend the range of texts studied in English to incorporate games, on the nature of computer games as narratives and text, and on changing constructions of literacy as they were reflected in this instance in the planning, teaching, and evaluation of the unit on computer games as texts of the new technologies. Joint planning sessions were held with the teachers. Findings suggest computer games in the classroom do bring "mayhem," not least in the technological, copyright, and classifications (ratings) involved. Yet at the same time, there is also "magic" in the texts themselves in the engagement of many students more commonly bored or marginal with traditional texts and subject matter. (Contains 23 references.) (NKA)

This paper challenges notions of gendered game playing practice implicit in much research into young women's involvement with the computer gaming culture. It draws on a study of Australian teenagers playing "The Sims Deluxe" as part of an English curriculum unit and insights from feminist media studies to explore relationships between gender and game playing practices. Departing from a reliance on predetermined notions of "gender," "domestic space," and "successful game play," it conceptualizes "The Sims" as a game in which the boundaries between gender and domestic space are disturbed. It argues that observing students' constructions of gender and domestic space through the act of game play itself provides a more productive insight into the gendered dimensions of game play for educators wishing to work computer games such as "The Sims" into curriculum development. (Contains 1 note.)

Reports on a small research project in which nine teachers were interviewed about their experiences of teaching texts in senior English and literature classrooms in Australia. Finds that teachers stressed detailed knowledge of texts, the centrality of individual experiences as a reader, and the need for a rich and diverse range of classroom strategies. Discusses implications for teacher education. (RS)